Interview with AM Ray Funnell

Within the tactical fighter force, of course, the smooth transition from Mirage to Hornet allowed us to do this’ without any major effect on overall capability. What we’re hoping is that losses will reduce, our training rate will increase and by the time we get the full Hornet force the shortfall will be small and hopefully non-existent.

JT: So does this mean by the mid 1990s we’d be fully back to strength?

RF: I would hope so, and in fact I would look for it a little before then, I would think 1992-93 and what I’d want to do is look at ways of going beyond that, ways of increasing our aircrew to aircraft ratio beyond the sort of general one-to one ratio we have at the moment. For aircraft operations in time of conflict, over a sustained period of time, we’re going to need more than that. So we need more air crews than we’re currently established for. Now this is one of the areas in which I’m pushing my people very hard. How do we keep operationally effective a larger number of aircrew than we currently have within about the same allocation of flying hours as we’re now given?

I think the way of the future is simulation technology, coupled with computer-aided instruction so that we can have our crews operationally proficient with fewer flying hours.

If I could just expand a little on that theme as well. When you look at the aircraft that might ultimately replace the F-111 in the strike reconnaissance force and the Hornet in the tactical fighter force beyond the year 2010, I would think those aircraft would be so valuable to the Australian people, not only in financial terms but in terms of the combat capability they contain within themselves, that we will virtually keep these aircraft in cotton wool. We will only use them when there is a specific task to be carried out or we will only use them when we want to put the man in the cockpit to test the entire system. What’s more, they’ll be so expensive to operate, we’ll want to minimise our costs and their structural life will be so dear to us as a nation that we won’t want to chew it up doing things that are unnecessary.

So it may be that as I say, beyond the year 201O, pilots in the strike reconnaissance and tactical fighter force will be receiving almost all their training in highly capable ground simulators with perhaps just five or six actual airborne flying hours a month. That’s the way I see the far distant future. However, the Hornet project offers us a glimpse of that future with the simulators it already employs, with the part task trainers it has and with the computer assisted instruction package, it’s part and parcel of that system. We can see what the future is going to look like and we can start moving towards that.

I’ve also got my people thinking along similar lines with pilot training. The Pilatus PC-9 certainly offers us a glimpse of the future in pilot training. How with the use once again of computer assisted instruction, part task trainers and advanced simulators of high fidelity, we can facilitate pilot training so that when the lad or the lass first encounters this in the air they are already very well trained and their skills have been extensively developed on the ground beforehand. Using navigation aids and honing instrument flying standards is a perfect example of where the simulator can supplement the aircraft in a cost efficient and highly productive manner. I feel that the PC-9 offers us a glimpse into the future as far as pilot training is concerned.

JT: This may also reduce the washout rate by giving people more experience in the aeroplane without having to actually be in the aeroplane, giving them more time to hone their talents and adjust to the task.

RF: I’m sure you’re right. Take some of the more complicated sections of advanced flying training. Some of the things that have to be done in full instrument flight. Refining spatial awareness, situation orientation, getting yourself thinking in terms of where you are from the information you’re getting from your instruments. It’s not easy. We all know that when we’re first starting off. That’s not easy to develop and people generally develop that capability at different rates. But if through the use of simulators and other modern technology on the ground, the first time you actually conduct an ILS approach in an aircraft, you’ve already done 40 ILS approaches on the ground beforehand. You know what to expect, you know what the instruments are likely to do with the aircraft performing in a certain fashion and you know how it is that you have to go about correcting it.

JT: A lot of the Air Force people I talk to, the pilots who have left and the one’s who have gone to Australian based airlines, would just love to be able to do what their US and Swiss compatriots do, while still being able to contribute to the Air Force by flying on the weekends and say 2 weeks a year particularly in the non fast jet types such as the Hercules, Orion and Caribou aircraft. Surely this is a way of not only maintaining that excellent expertise they’ve built up and the taxpayer has already paid for but also being able to fatten out the actual air crews so that if an emergency does happen, we’ve got people we could bring into the system very quickly at minimum expense?

RF: Well, we already have that with a lot of these people because they do go on to non active reserve status for five years after they leave the RAAF and included in our plans is for the people who have left within the last three years with Air Force currency at the time of leaving being very quickly available to us in the event of a dire emergency. With minimum retraining we could get them back into the squadrons and operating. So to some extent we already have that in place. We’re now looking very hard at how we can use reserves in tbe RAAF in the flying role. We’re already doing some of that particularly in non-pilot areas but we’re going to have to look very deeply at the pros and cons of doing it with pilots.

Now you raise a question that many other people have raised with me, the way in which people like the Americans and people like the Swiss, are able to use reserves. That’s fine. You give me a system like the Americans, a total system like the Americans or a total system like the Swiss and I might be able to do what they do. American reserve squadrons and Air National Guard squadrons have their own complement of aircraft. They’re not using regular squadrons. They’ve got their own air craft, they’ve got their own bases and maintenance and other logistic support, a lot of which is done by people on full-time duty setting the whole squadron infrastructure up and then you can get pilots and other aircrew in and conduct the tasks that are very effectively done by the reserve and Air National Guard, but don’t tell me to take up their practices without giving me the infrastructure on which those practices are based. In Switzerland, everyone is conscripted into the forces and then signs up for reserve service for the next 25 years of their life. You give me that in Australia, two years of conscription and 25 years of service on the reserve, then I might be able to apply what the Swiss do. All I can do now is look at the Swiss system and see if there’s anything within their system that we might use in our circumstances; and frankly having looked at it, there is very little.

JT: I don’t think though that you would have to conscript the average Boeing pilot. They would love to be able to do something like this.

RF: Oh, sure there are people who would like to be earning the salaries they earn in the airlines and still get the very enjoyable and demanding flying that they get in the RAAF, but I just wonder if we mightn’t end up shooting ourselves in the foot if we offered this to people. Perhaps it would be a great inducement for more people to leave. One of the reasons I am able to retain 87% of my pilots is because they enjoy their flying in the Air Force, they enjoy being professional military officers. If it’s available to do that as well as earning the super salaries that are available in airline flying, it may be that I’ll lose more not less and we’ll end up with a predominantly reserve force and that would be very difficult to come to terms with.

JT: The obligation of service has been extended from 6 to 8 years. Is there a move to extend that a bit further to 10 or 12 years?

RF: I think 8 is appropriate. It used to be 8. It was 8 for many years and then we had almost a glut of aircrew when the Vietnam war closed down and we found that we could get by with 6. I think we were just a little tardy in putting it back to what it had previously been. If we’d done this sooner, if we’d anticipated the high attrition rate of the last three years, we may not have the difficulties that we have today. But I can’t see it going beyond 8. I think 8 is a very reasonable return of service for the training given and the skills required.

JT: When you introduced the first flying training course for women pilots, a year or so ago, you were flooded with a veritable avalanche of applicants. I believe the second and third courses haven’t attracted quite as many.

RF: We didn’t run a course specifically for women. We opened up pilot training and navigator training to women and they’re just part and parcel of the same course as other pilots, and yes, I don’t think we were flooded, but we had a large number of applicants, only four of whom were eventually selected. Since then two have been suspended from flying training and we presently have no other women undergraduate pilots and there’s no great flood of applicants, but it’s available to women as are an ever widening number of specialist positions within the Services.

JT: Do you think that the airlines here should be conducting their own proper flying training establishments?

RF: I think that it is an area which we as a nation have to look long and hard at. Recently at a press conference on the issue of separation rates, I pointed out that of all the trade and professional groups in Australia, pilots are the only such group not to receive a viable subsidisation from the Australian people in their education and training. Whether you aspire to be a plumber or a doctor, a lawyer or an electrician, the nation provides all sorts of subsidised facilities for you with all sorts of subsidies for your training and education. But with pilots you virtually have to go it on your own, either through paying yourself or being able to win a place in one of the armed services and go through and complete your flying training and acquire experience in that way. I think it’s something that we’ve got to have a long hard look at as a nation. So I don’t think we necessarily have to throw it entirely onto the airlines.

JT: Ros Kelly, the Minister for Defence, Science and Personnel, has mentioned this also of course. Is there some sort of political movement coming through that might transition this philosophy to fact?

RF: I would hope so. Mrs Kelly is very much alive to the total situation and the facts such as those which we’ve been discussing. So I would be certain that she is pushing within political forums for a fresh look at pilot education and training.

JT: The major thing I find talking to people who are either thinking of leaving the RAAF or have left, is that they just didn’t want to come to grips with the fact that generally their late30s they would be consigned to a desk and have a very fragmented career flying-wise after that, if at all. Now I believe things are changing where you’re looking at keeping these people in the field longer. Is this actually happening?

RF: Well it’s started to happen. We’ve looked at administrative jobs that have traditionally been done by byaircrew, mainlypilotsbutaircrewalone and said, Hey, is this smart? Could this job perhaps not be done by someone with a different background? And we’ve seen that there’s a lot of those jobs that could be done by people with different backgrounds. So we’re attacking it on that line. . I also have a proposal in for staff officers who are posted to non-flying positions to be given flying time in general aviation aircraft to maintain their pilot’s skill. What I’m looking at here is to show people that irrespective of the fact that on occasions in your career you are not always going to be involved specifically in a flying job. Despite that however, throughout the whole of your career in the Air Force, through to the highest rank, you will be able to maintain your piloting skills, knowledge and expertise within aviation and I think that this will show people that no, they’re not just going to be confined to a desk from age 35 onwards.

But the other thing that we have to do, from the very beginning, is to point out to people who are joining the RAAF as aircrew, that basically, you are joining the profession of arms. Your particular specialization is as a pilot or a navigator, but you are a military professional and your career should be seen as such and constructed in those terms and I think that sort of dual approach should show people that there’s more to being in the military than just your immediate specialization of being a pilot, engineer or what have you. This will allow people from the very beginning to see what’s ahead and make career decisions based on that knowledge. We’re still going to lose people, who will decide no, I don’t want to be a professional military officer, what I want to be is a pilot; but I think by giving them the options in a very direct way much earlier in their career, I think we will retain more of those people who see real value in a career in the profession of arms, real value in a career which is involved in service to the Australian people.

JT: The UK RAF has a system that actually channels aircrew when they reach their late 20s or early 30s. They can either go for aircrew and remain as aircrew with resultant fewer rank promotions or opt for the administrative line via Staff College, etc and trade off much of their future flying opportunities for increased rank and admin tasks, etc.

RF: Right, and we’re also having a look at that. We have a survey being conducted at the moment within our aircrew to see how many people would be genuinely interested in such a scheme. I think this idea of aircrew specialization is something that has a lot of appeal if you’re not forced to make a decision. Sounds great until all of a sudden you’ve said OK now you have to make a decision. If you go down this route you will have a lot of flying but very limited career opportunities. You go this other route, you’ll continue to fly and with these other schemes I’ve talked about, fly throughout your career, but you will have all the career opportunities as well. Which way do you want to go. And what’s more a decision has to be taken now and you can’t chop and change between schemes trying to pick up the best of both as you go along. I think when forced to a decision a lot of people will see the personal long-term disadvantages of such a scheme for them.

JT: The move into GA you mentioned earlier, can you elaborate a little more on what that would actually involve?

RF: It’s a scheme I’m going to put under test later this year. What we do as an outcome of that test will depend very much on our experience then. What we’re looking to do is to provide 4 or 5 hours a month to our desk-bound pilots on GA aircraft for the purpose of keeping them in touch with the overall. Aviation scene and their pilot’s skills alive. I’ll be encouraging them to do flying training which will be of real benefit to both them and us. I’m going to push very hard for them to get a civil instrument rating. Without a civil instrument rating, it’s very difficult to use aircraft for business purposes. I think that with a civilian instrument rating we will then be able to use some of these 4 or 5 hours for work purposes, for transporting staff, etc. I’m also going to encourage them to fly in dual pilot aircraft so we get the maximum benefit even though only one person can be flying the aircraft at the one time, dual pilot operations do allow you to keep up your aviation awareness. So that’s a proposal. It’s not fully developed at the moment, but it’s a proposal I hope to have in operation for a trial period later this year.

JT: I certainly know that programme will be appreciated by the troops though won’t it bring them more up to spec for joining the airlines with their newly acquired civil ratings?

RF; No, I don’t think so. The airlines certainly seem quite willing to accept our people without civilian instrument ratings at the moment. They know that military pilots are going to have no difficulty achieving airline instrument standards. No, I don’t think it will be something that returns to haunt us.

JT: Moving on to equipment issues. You’re an avid F-111 flyer, what about the long mooted update programme, it certainly seems to be stalled somewhere along the line.

RF: Well, it’s taken some time to get into operation, I know that. I think there’s a lot of programmes that have been stalled because we really do have a lot of equipment being purchased at the present time. We are a small nation, we are limited in the amount of funds available for the defence function and we’ve recently had some very large purchases across the board. The Hornet programme is largely behind us now but we have things like the submarine, the new light frigates and minehunters for the Navy, and Parakeet and Raven projects for the Army. Also, we’ve got Discon, the defence communications system which is a very large consumer of funds. All of these important projects have to find their correct place in our overall budgetary priorities. You also have to ensure that the programme in all its facets is available to consume those funds in the appropriate time scale. It is the worst thing in the world to have funds available for a project that can’t go ahead because other things haven’t been brought along in parallel. So all those factors have borne on the aviation modernization program for the F-111, but it will go ahead because it’s most necessary for the strike reconnaissance force. Without that update, the F-111 cannot operate into the next century. With that update, and certainly we’ll get it, we’ll be operating the F-111 in the year 2010 and beyond.

JT: When do you expect the update to be approved and instituted?

RF: It will be in the next couple of years and it will most probably tag onto the present USAF F-111 update programme. What we don’t want to do is to have to regenerate the whole programme for updating the avionics after the American system is finished. No, we want to move in smoothly behind them and pick up the best of their systems and conversion expertise.

JT: The recently acquired fifth and sixth 707s, Will they eventually be converted to tankers?

RF: No. That’s not in the package. The four 707s we originally had have served the Australian Defence Force across the board superbly over the last several years. With the acquisition of their new capability as tankers; their availability to do all those other tasks would be diminished and consequently the purchase of two additional aircraft to pick up those tasks seemed a very smart idea. The price was right. The aircraft were right and the timing was right.

JT: Will you eventually be hush kitting the 707s?

RF: We have no intention to do that at the moment.

JT: And for the 1990s do you see a role for more C-130s?

RF: Not at this moment. I can’t see more C-130s being necessary. I think we’re going to have to do some rewinging on the E model C-130s and we’re also going to have to look at a replacement of the E models in the mid ’90s, but no I can’t see any need for more than 24 Hercules at the moment. We’ll be looking instead to what we might need for short-range tactical transport support, particularly for the Army. In other words, looking at what we do with existing Caribou and Chinook assets.

For many years it looked as if the Caribou might have a limited life because of a rundown in spares support for them but that problem has mainly gone away and we simply cannot find an aircraft that can do that job as well as the Caribou are already doing. So for the near to medium term, I can see us just continuing with the Caribou and continuing to get excellent service out of them.

With the Chinook; we’re looking for an update of that aircraft, maybe not right through to full CH-47D standard of the US Army, but something short of that. A modernization program for the aircraft will allow it to continue ineffective use well into the latter 90s.

JT: Is it viable to modify the Caribou with turboprop engines?

RF: That’s been looked at in the past but I think that sort of major modification would be difficult to economically justify. I think the cost would be such that you’d probably be better off looking for a totally new aircraft.

JT: And what about AEW, which is another project which seems to be going nowhere? RF: It’s a vexed issue, this Airborne Early Warning requirement. It’s certainly necessary as part of our order of battle. We need to get microwave radars airborne and mobile to complete the work of the National Air Defence and Aerospace Surveillance System.

The Jindalee OTHB radar which is now in the final process of being developed and is near to coming on stream is a very necessary part of that system for long-range air defence and airspace surveillance. But it’s certainly not sufficient. Jindalee will tell you that there’s something out there about which you know little or nothing. You still have to go out there and ind it, identify it, see what it’s doing and see what you might want to do about it and Jindalee cannot really do that for us. It may not have the precision. to do that. We need to get something to assist us in that area.

Obviously, an Airborne Early Warning and Control Aircraft of the Boeing E-3 Sentry type would be superb for doing just that but the costs are very, very large indeed and I’ve already spoken of the difficulties of getting major programmes of that type into a very restricted forward equipment programme.

I think we have to look at more than just things like AEW&C aircraft and we have. We’ve looked at balloon borne radars, we’ve looked at airships, but I think we also have to look at more ground based microwave radars. With all their shortcomings as far as low level intruders are concerned, they are still comparatively cheap and in particular they are mobile and transportable by our C-130s. You can very quickly move them to the area where you believe you may need them and for around $100m, or figures of that nature, I can get a lot of those mobile ground based radars to move where and when I want them. For $100m I can’t even approach looking at an AEW& aircraft.

So a whole range of alternatives are being considered at the moment and no firm policy decision has yet been made. Sure we’d like AEW&C aircraft, they would be tremendous given the huge area of coverage that is placed before the National Air Defence Commander but we also have to be sufficiently pragmatic and ensure that what we get we can afford.

JT: Regarding the Aermacchi MB-326H, which is currently used in the advanced training role, is there a possibility that more PC-9s could take over its role or will a pure jet trainer eventually replace it?

RF: We’ve been delighted with the Pilatus PC-9. We’ve only been operating it since last November so our experience is not great but we are looking long and hard now at whether it is feasible to go through to full wings standard on the PC-9. I’m also looking at a proposal that if that were to occur, what we would do with the surplus MB-326s and what we’re looking at is that we really need an aircraft to lead into the Hornet and F-111, so the MB-326 is currently being evaluated for that.

I am also looking at the possibility of forming a day fighter squadron using MB-326s. These would essentially take our fast jet graduates from Pearce and give them experience in the day fighter role on Macchis. What we would have is a properly established squadron conducting a real role and using the economical MB-326s.

We then have to look at what comes after the MB-326 in that role, bearing in mind that this is all based on the assumption that we can use PC-9s on which to give wings. We would then be looking at something of better performance and a better totally integrated system for modern avionics, instrumentation, gunsight and the like, something like the latest versions of the Hawk, Casa or the MB-339. But that’s projecting well into the . future. But that’s something we have to do, that’s· our business, to look ahead.

JT: You’d need probably say two dozen of that type of aeroplane?

RF: Oh, I haven’t thought about numbers, we’d be looking for probably 6-8 trainers to do the conversion onto and then a squadron of 16-18 aircraft. So, yes, get two dozen. But that’s early planning stages at the moment, that’s crystal balling way ahead, but it looks good, though it’s a way to go.

JT: To actually get more out of your training scheme, you’re going to look at more simulators and are you looking at a greater use of simulators for air combat maneuvering training.

RF: Yes. We’ve had a proposal to acquire an air combat manoeuvring instrumented range for some time now. We’re also looking at the possibilities of doing something like that when GPS and Navstar comes along in the early nineties. GPS and Navstar is the way that everyone is ultimately going to go as far as navigation is concerned. It can very accurately plot the position of all aircraft so-equipped in space at any one time. So couple that with telemetry to get information from the cockpit down to the ground in real time and back it up with powerful computers to solve all the various equations you need to, and I think that that sort of next generation air combat manoeuvring range might well be the way for us to go.

JT: And would that be somewhere like Woomera?

RF: I don’t know. Woomera would be one place to do it but with the sort of thing I’m talking about you don’t need a specific range as such. All you need is the appropriate receivers on the ground and you may be able to do that from your home base like Williamtown, Tindal, Darwin or Derby or wherever. All you need is the receivers and computer on the ground to solve the equations. Unlike the current air combat manoeuvring ranges, once you get ACMR you don’t have to set all the ground stations out on a large range to acquire the data.

JT: What about the proposed bare bones base at Cape York?

RF: It’s certainly in the White Paper and all the planning is going ahead for it right now. It is a necessary part of the chain of operational bases we’ve been putting together across the north. When it’s completed, and I expect it to be completed within the next decade, we’ll have Learmouth, Derby, Darwin, Tindal, Cape York, Townsville, all as RAAF operational bases. Its construction will be very similar to that which we’ve followed so successfully at Derby, which maximises the use of airbase construction philosophies that we’ve picked up from the Israelis and others.