351 Air Applications Squadron "Demetra"

351 Μοίρα Αεροπορικών Εφαρμογών


The primary mission of the 351 AAS is to provide experienced pilots to fly the unit's planes.

Although the squadron includes the flying personnel of 359 MAEDY it doesn’t include the airplanes which belong to the unit’s Aircraft Maintenance Squadron (AMS).

The major activities of the 351 squadron operations and the training and support of the flying personnel. The operations are carried out through special detachments which are formed for this purpose throughout the country.

The 351 AAS operates annually from November to May as a training squadron, while from June to October the whole squadron redeploys at forward locations all over the mainland and the islands.

Large flight experience characterizes the squadron’s personnel. Those pilots are trained in two airplane types of 359 MAEDY and of course in air fire fighting. They are all trained on the PZL M.18 and on either the G.164A or the Bell 47G helicopter.

The squadron’s personnel is distributed in three flights: PZL, Grumman and Helicopters, for the better planning and control of the training program.
In July 2002 the 359 MAEDY acquired 3 PZL M.18BS which are used exclusively as training airplanes. These planes are also capableof making limited water drops.

DEMETRA
Demetra or Demeter (pronounced /de-me-tur/; Greek: Δημήτηρ, lit. "Earth-Mother" from the Doric Dā form of Greek Ge "Earth" and Meter "Mother". Or possibly "distribution-mother" from the noun of the Indo-European mother-earth *dheghom* mater, also called simply Δηώ), in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of grain and fertility, the pure. Nourisher of the youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of marriage and the sacred law. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, dated to about the seventh century BC. She is invoked as the "bringer of seasons", a subtle sign that she was worshipped long before she was made one of the Olympians. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that also predated the Olympian pantheon.