Sqn Ldr Paddy Curran – HQ ISAF

Working in the Air Component Co-ordination Element (Afghanistan), Sqn Ldr Paddy Curran has a watching brief on how airpower is used and developed in Afghanistan. He has fingers in pies to monitor the Air Command and Control, the delivery of weapons, the development of Afghan air capability and how air is supporting the land campaign.

“We make sure we don’t bring metal together”, he says. Primarily he takes a strategic view of how the communications, radar and air safety link together. He is the ultimate problem-solver to make sure theatre personnel smoothly enact the taskings from the Command Air Operations Centre. And that includes many nationalities.

It is sometimes a challenge to problem-solve given the amount of nations that are involved in the support of airpower. However, Paddy has something of a gift with languages, speaking both Norwegian and Gaelic. However, his love of Afghanistan has developed during this tour.

“It really is a stunning country, and it has been a real joy meeting the Afghan people”.

Paddy has got out and about around the 6 major airfields in Afghanistan looking at how the Afghan airspace can be developed and how to bring procedures up to international standards. He explained that charging nations to use Afghan airspace is the second largest income generator for the Afghan economy. With current technology, aircraft on flight routes are kept 80 miles apart. However, with the proposed extension of radar coverage it is envisaged this distance will reduce to 20 miles apart and with the ability to have countrywide radar coverage in less than 2 years.

Paddy’s job is incredibly busy with long hours and spends much of his time liasing with a myriad of agencies including Afghan Transport Ministry and International Joint Command. With most of the office being American, and Paddy working for a 2-star American general, he has been privileged to gain a real understanding of coalition and Afghan support to air power. He does, however, bring a British flavour to the work area; he is known as Paddy The Gardener having nurtured flowerbeds and planters on the roof patio in ACCE; and his plants are thriving in the Kabul climate.

Editor: Sqn Ldr S N Moore.

Photography: Corporal Dave Blackburn RAF.