Comment – another opportunity lost

Israel carried this philosophy through to an overwhelming success with a small number of Mirage fighters in the 1967 Six Day War. By being trained to such a high degree of com­petence, the IAF pilots and ground crews were able to ac­complish a turnaround time three times swifter than that of the opposing Arab forces, therefore leading the enemy to believe that Israel had many more Mirage fighters than it ac­tually had.

Only after the conflict did they realise that highly skilled and trained personnel, both in the air and on the ground, are as important as the latest aircraft type.

Though the RAAF (and RAN FAA) do not possess the limited borders of Israel, we do fortunately fall into the category of one of the world’s more highly trained and capable forces. In any future conflict this technological ad­vantage over the enemy will pay off handsomely, PROVIDING that we can back it up with thorough coverage of our vulnerable air space.

Therefore, to suggest that Australia does not possess a requirement for an air tanker would be mere ignorance.

In exercise Kangaroo II, our F111 aircraft were able to operate with USAF KC135 tankers, giving RAAF crews the “luxury” of operating well beyond their normal tactical mis­sing restraints. Unfortunately this is a capability that does not exist locally, which is rather a contradiction in a continent that is as large as continental United States, with an EEZ that ex­tends a full 20,000km.

Although there is no official requirement for a tanker, there did exist two golden opportunities to acquire such a force at a minimal cost in the immediate future, if we had taken the initiative to grasp the opportunity.

Firstly, through this year the RAAF will be taking delivery of 12 C130H aircraft to replace the 20-year-old “A” versions operated out of RAAF Richmond, NSW. Although these ex­cellent aircraft are old enough to vote, it does not mean that they are about to suddenly fall out of the sky. Would it not have been opportune to examine the possibilities of refur­bishing them here in Australia as KC130 aircraft. The USMC operates more than four dozen KC130 tankers in support of their attack forces with great operational success. The KC130 would offer far greater tactical opportunity to the F111, our future TFF force, Navy Skyhawks and later perhaps the Sea Harrier/A V8B, where possible.

Furthermore the RAAF already own the existing “A” ver­sion Hercules, it would not require an expensive purchase and the total project would have provided additional viable workload for our hard pressed aircraft industry.

The second alternative would be for the RAAF to have purchased, over a period of two years, six to eight of the Qan­tas Boeing 707-320 aircraft.

These aircraft are direct brothers to the KC135 and are ideal conversions for the tanker role. Iran has already taken this road and now operates a number of highly efficient, and cost effective, 707 tankers. Due to their operational range and speed, it would be reasonable to suggest that two 707s would probably be able to perform a similar service as three of the shorter legged, slower Hercules. This would mean that fewer aircraft and personnel would have to be deployed to fulfil the same mission requirement.

Two disadvantages to this alternative are that naturally a 707 would be much more expensive to operate than a tur­boprop Hercules and DOD would have had to purchase the Qantas aircraft in the first instance. However, fewer Boeings would be required and the cost of purchase by being payable to our national airline, is like taking money from one govern­ment pocket to place it in another government pocket.

Also, as a bonus the 707 could act as an ideal intercon­tinental VIP transport with one-stop Sydney-UK sectors owing to the extra fuel capacity available. This would then obviate the necessity to purchase special-to-task long range VIP air­ craft saving tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars. After all, when Qantas do retire their final 707 in 1980 the Government will be hard pressed to charter a 747 in these days of so called economic stringency.

In the decade to come we would have been able to greatly increase the operational effectiveness of our yet to be decided TFF force, the existing F111C force, and of course the RAN aircraft where they operate in areas available for tanker support. In particular, the availability of in-flight refuelling to RAAF TFF aircraft would greatly increase their per unit operational effectiveness and thereby relive the lessons so well taught us by the small IAF forces against their numerically superior enemy.

To be totally effective an air arm must have highly trained air and ground crew, highly efficient organisation and com­mand, must operate equipment of reasonably equal quality to that of the opposition and must be able to wring greater per unit effectiveness from said equipment than the enemy to en­sure a friendly presence in a hostile environment.

For the RAAF this all adds up to a small, but efficient, fleet of tankers to maximise utilisation of our airpower resources and at a cost that would have been humble by modern day standards.

But, there again I guess all this would be too logical, sim­ple and cheap, wouldn’t it?