2-502nd Aviation Regiment
The Dyncorp employees that are a part of the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Aviation Regiment do aircraft maintenance. DynCorp is a civilian contract company of technical experts with offices all over Europe and the world. The Dyncorp employees are based out of Coleman Barracks in Mannheim, Germany, just like the 2-502nd. There are a total of 125 DynCorp employees that are a part of the battalion. They help out in all aspects of maintenance, tear-down and assembly of the aircraft.
When the 10th Mountain Division's equipment reached Rijeka, Croatia, the 598th Transportation Group was waiting. The MV Saudi Taif was the latest in a long string of ships that have brought heavy equipment to American peacekeepers assigned to Bosnia. There were 453 individual pieces of cargo. This total included 106 wheeled vehicles, 185 shipping containers and 56 helicopters. During the offload of the MV Saudi Taif, MTMC soldiers and civilians were assisted by aviation personnel from 2/502nd Aviation Regiment, Mannheim, Germany, and local contracted port stevedores.
In May 2001, 30 AH-64 Apache helicopters were partially dismantled, shrink-wrapped, and towed from the Army airfield in Sandhofen, Germany, to the nearby NATO barge site in Lampertheim, Germany, to begin a land and sea journey to the United States. The helicopters had flown to the airfield from various locations. In Lampertheim, the helicopters were loaded on barges to be shipped to Rotterdam, The Netherlands. There, they were transferred to a ship headed for Charleston, South Carolina. After a major overhaul, which is expected to take about a year and cost $15 million per aircraft, the helicopters will be returned to Europe. The shipping operation was managed in Germany by the 2/502d Aviation Regiment.
