John Saldivar
But while Brigadier General David Jones would not go as far as to say that the helicopter is now the property of the Government of Belize, Minister of National Security, John Saldivar was not so bashful. Saldivar says that the confiscated Bell four-o-seven helicopter will be used along with two U-H-one-H helicopters from Taiwan to create a convoy at the B.D.F. air wing. Those helicopters are expected to be in country by the end of the year.
John Saldivar, Minister of National Security
“The UH1H helicopters will be arriving in country before the end of this year and you may or may not have been aware that a few days ago, the B.D.F. also captured a Bell 407 Helicopter which will now bring our number to three once we get the two from the Taiwanese government in November. We are currently looking at the various options that are available to have our local B.D.F. pilots trained to the required levels to operate these assets.”
David Jones
Brig. General David Jones, Commandant, B.D.F.
“The two helicopters that are expected to come from Taiwan. We expect them sometime the end of this year. Before the end of the year, we are going to have those two helicopters in the country. We had a team from Taiwan who came in to do a site visit. They looked at the facilities we got and they plan to bring the two helicopters in, assemble them and fly them around. And subsequently, we are doing concurrently at the moment, trying to get a different team to come in to train our pilots to fly that particular platform because our pilots have been trained to fly the Bell, which is similar as the helicopter they flew in, but there needs to be some sort of conversion for them to fly a different platform. So we expect those in by end of the year, and they will be operational at the end of the year.”
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