regiment. Colonel Frank Bestbier, the successor to Col Jan Breytenbach, wasted no time in integrating the gunners into their new airborne role, referring to this regiment as My Gunners. In order to fulfill its airborne objective, it was decided that the regiment would only consist of gunners that had qualified as paratroopers. The existing Officers and men of the unit who were not yet qualified took this as a challenge, and in March 1982 the leader element was sent to 1 Parachute Regiment in Bloemfontein for parachute training. The regiments' traditional blue artillery berets were now exchanged for the maroon paratrooper berets, with new airborne terminology becoming part of the gunners' lingo. Exercises Exercise “Ubique”: 1982 In November 1982, 181 Battery made its first airborne deployment to the General Piet Joubert Training Area. The jump included a mortar drop with full ammunition and equipment. On 11 December 1984 the regiment deployed all three batteries in a single airborne drop as a part of Exercise “Ubique”. The mortars, equipment and ammunition were carried and dropped by three C-130 Hercules aircraft and a total of 200 gunners, NCOs and officers followed in three C160 troop carriers. It was recorded by the military media at the time that the drop was recorded between and took approximately 50 seconds for all equipment and men to be on the ground. With chutes stored, the men deployed to their firing position within minutes and commenced fire on a target that was successfully and completely destroyed. These three batteries were also airlifted and deployed later by helicopter as a part of the same exercise. The vision of the 1970s to have an airborne artillery regiment was attained, and now the regiment could truly claim to be the only airborne artillery regiment in Africa. Exercise Iron Eagle 1: 1987 On 25 May 1987 the regiment participated along with rest of the brigade in one of the largest peacetime drop of paratroopers at the time. This exercise was of great importance to the regiment as it saw the debut of the regiment's answer to its transportation problem. Once on the ground the batteries were hampered by a lack of mobility. The moving of tons of ammunition and equipment became a major logistical concern. To solve this problem 44 Parachute Brigade developed the "Jakkals" (A small “jeep like” vehicle) with mountable .50 BMG or 7.65mm MAG and trailer that could