Issue 235: Into the Big League

“As well as enhancing the responsiveness of our Defence Force, our C-17s will increase Australia’s independence,” Defence Minister Dr Brendan Nelson said of C-17 A41-206’s arrival. “We will no longer need to rely on leasing ageing Antonov aircraft, or wait in queues for American heavy airlift. ” The C-17s are being acquired off-the-shelf, identical to US Air Force C-17s apart from their RAAF markings. Nonetheless, nine months from acquisition decision to delivery is an impressive effort, made possible by a lot of hard work and support from the US government and US Air Force.

After arriving in Canberra on December 4, the first C-17 departed for Amberley on December 6 to begin a six month long training and transition period towards service release in the middle of 2007.

“Everything that you have to produce to get an aeroplane through the airworthiness system has all been done, just in record time!”

“Everything that you have to produce to get an aeroplane through the airworthiness system has all been done, just in record time!” 36SQN Commanding Officer Wing Commander Linda Corbould told Australian Aviation.

“In the mature system (state) our mission will be to support ADF operations and to support any event as required by the govern-ment, like natural disasters or evacuation of personnel or medical relief,” said WGCDR Corbould. “Military wise it will primarily be support for the Army, carting a lot of the oversize equipment, in particular helicopters, four or five vehicles at one time like the new Bushmasters, we can carry the big Abrams tanks, and specialist gear like the Air Force’s deployable hospital, which is quite large and Air Force couldn’t carry before, engineering equipment, water purifiers, big earth-moving equipment. ” To get to that ‘mature system’ state will be a gradual process as aircraft two, three and four are delivered and the RAAF and ADF become more familiar with operating the aircraft and its airlifting capabilities.

“The next six months will be a period of what we are calling ‘Training, Test, Transition and Evaluation’. We’re going to be supporting quite a few of the ADF missions in that, but we will also be doing a lot of our own train-ing, and also training for the support agencies who will maintain this aeroplane. ” But from the outset the RAAF will have a limited operational capability with the aircraft.

“We do have an airlift capability right from now, there are just some limitations,” said WGCDR Corbould, the RAAF’s first female CO of a flying squadron. “For example we are still training our aircraft captains to get up to aircraft captain standard, and we’re relying on the USAF to help us out with that in the interim. ” While most of the pilots selected to fly the C-17 are highly experienced Hercules pilots, to be qualified as an aircraft captain they still have to have a certain amount of flying experience on the type. An experienced USAF exchange pilot will provide supervision to allow the RAAF’s first two C-17 aircraft captains to be qualified early in 2007.

“But depending on what happened out there we would be able to offer some limited support in some capacity if we were called upon. ” Initial RAAF C-17 pilots will undergo C-17 conversion training with the USAF at Altus AFB in Oklahoma.

“The Altus training basically trains you to be a copilot,” said WGCDR Corbould. “The level of training at Altus was excellent, a lot of it was conducted by Boeing in the simulator. The initial four (RAAF pilots) were actually quite experienced aircraft captains so we had the instructors give us a lot more over and above that (the basic training) because we were ready for that. ” The first RAAF pilots then spent time flying the aircraft with USAF C-17 squadrons to build up experience on the type as crew members, either copilots or captains under supervision, before the first Australian aircraft was ready for delivery.

“Then the first few months of next year (2007) we’ve got our own upgrade program. It’s just experience, we just need to get out there and operate the aeroplane to get really comfortable with it. We’re a long way there, it is just that final touch (we need) to be completely confident. ” In the transport world training flights are typically conducted while carrying loads, helping to move equipment around to where it needs to be and providing training to loadmasters and air movements personnel.

“We’ll do a lot of our own training through Australia plus through South East Asia. We are supporting some of the RAAF and ADF missions, we’re going to support the deploy-ment of 1SQN to Red Flag at Nellis, we’re going to do a cold weather training flight to operate the aeroplane into icy and cold condi-tions, probably at Elmendorf in Alaska. “We’ll be doing some training with night vision goggles (NVGs). . . short field landing training we’ll do here, (we’ll do) a little bit of low level flying. ” Following the first C-17’s arrival in Australia the initial RAAF pilots had logged about 100 flying hours each on the aircraft, with the captain qualification upgrade taking perhaps another 100 flying hours. Similarly the initial RAAF loadmasters had about 100 hours on type.

Over time the RAAF will move to exploit the C-17’s full range of capabilities. It will begin clearing the aircraft for aerial delivery, dropping paratroopers or loads under parachute, in 2008. ‘Heavy drop’, dropping heavy items of equipment and loads will be a priority, as this is an area the C-130 is limited in. The aircraft will also be cleared for high altitude paradropping of special forces troops in the same timeframe.

Longer term the C-17s will be capable of being refuelled in the air by the RAAF’s forthcoming Airbus KC-30 (A330) tankers once they are delivered. Aerial refuelling is part of the USAF C-17 pilot training syllabus, so all RAAF pilots will be experienced with the practice.

“We know the demand for the aeroplane will be pretty high, it is a very reliable aeroplane, and we will want to fly it all the time. ”

Operating from short and unprepared strips is also part of the USAF C-17 pilot course, with RAAF C-17 aircraft captains to be qualified in this area.

“So wherever you are in the world if you’re called to do something a bit different that crew is capable of do-ing that. The aim eventually is to have everyone qualified on everything, so it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re charged to do, that crew can just go and plan to do it, whether it’s aerial delivery, short field work or NVGs. ” From the pilot’s perspective, “It’s quite responsive,” said WGCDR Corbould of flying the C-17, “even some of the fighter guys who have flown it in the sim are quite surprised at how responsive it is.

“It is actually quite easy to fly, as most modern aeroplanes should be. The challenge is operating the mission computers and automation. It’s not that that’s overly hard, it’s just getting the experience at doing that.

“The flying of it is great. Sitting in the cruise is not that exciting, but once you start doing the short field work, low level flying, putting it through its paces, it’s a great aeroplane. ” The RAAF ultimately plans to have three aircraft crews per C-17, a figure based on USAF and RAF experience with the type.

“It depends how heavily the aero-planes will be used and I suspect that they will be used a lot, and in the fullness of time that may even increase. We know the demand for the aeroplane will be pretty high, it is a very reliable aeroplane, and we will want to fly it all the time. ” While pilot training is important, it is just one element in bringing the C-17 into service. To get there will require some adjustments in mindsets for an Air Force more used to C-130 sized loads and payload range performance.

“Probably the biggest change con-ceptually is actually the support for it,” said WGCDR Corbould. “Flying the aeroplane for a pilot there are some con-siderations because it is large and most of us have come from C-130s, so there are some differences there, but actually supporting it is the biggest challenge.

“You need certain ground support equipment, be it forklifts or loading ve-hicles, and that is probably the limiting factor. This thing can carry 18 pallets, so you need to be able to have those available to you fairly quickly, to be able to load them in a reasonably short time, because if it takes six hours to load it then that just eats into your crew duty time.

“As an organisation we will need to be thinking bigger in how to move more stuff around, and to make sure that we can get it on to the aeroplane and off the aeroplane in a really efficient manner. ” Just as 36SQN’s pilots, loadmasters and maintainers need to learn the aircraft’s capabilities, so too does the Air Force’s airlift tasking agency.

“There’ll be a period of transition over the next six months for both sides,” said WGCDR Corbould of 36SQN as the operator and the Air Mobility Control Centre at RAAF Richmond as the aircraft tasking agency. “We have a good relationship with the guys down there so it should be fairly seamless. ” Responsibility for the C-17’s intro-duction into service has been spread across a C-17 transition team, headed by GPCAPT Gary Martin (a former 37SQN CO), to look after opera-tional aspects, and the DMO (Defence Materiel Organisation) project team, which has been responsible for contract negotiations and organising engineer-ing and support arrangements for the aircraft.

As 36SQN CO WGCDR Corbould currently works under the transition team. But once service release is declared by about August 36SQN will come under control of Air Lift Group’s 86 Wing, alongside 37SQN (Hercules) and 38SQN (Caribou).

Apart from the challenge of introduc-ing a new aircraft type into service, the Air Force has also effectively established a new squadron to operate it (following much of 36SQN’s personnel and all its C-130H aircraft being transferred to 37SQN – see December ’06 issue of Australian Aviation).

“Right now I’m dealing with a lot of stuff from facilities, personnel, safety, setting up the squadron here (at Amberley), with a thousand meetings to go to every day!” A broad range of experiences and skills were sought in personnel selected for the C-17 operating unit.

“We were looking for a broad spectrum of people,” said WGCDR Corbould. “Because we were starting up effectively a new squadron it was fairly selective. So the executive positions were selected looking at getting the right person for the right job, because we don’t have the ability to train those people, we need people who can jump in and do the job straight away. ” For example 36SQN’s executive officer was originally an engineer before becoming a pilot, and has experience on a number of different aircraft types, while the unit’s senior engineering of-ficer has a broad base of experience and man-management skills.

“With the pilots we took four previ-ous captains, quite experienced captains, who had been out there for a long time, and we took two copilots. One was a quite experienced copilot, she should get her command in about a year. The other guy is very junior because we wanted to see how a very junior guy was going to go (on the C-17). ” A lot of work has been undertaken at Amberley to accommodate the new airlifter and 36SQN, with refurbished office space and a flightline area pro-vided for. In the longer term a single hangar capable of housing a C-17 or a KC-30 for maintenance work will be built at Amberley.

“The maintenance on the C-17 is slightly different to what we’ve normally done with other aeroplanes. It has a 120 day ‘home service’ maintenance check that takes from about five days to two weeks, depending on services that have to occur. ” Heavy or depot level maintenance will be undertaken by Boeing in the US every five or six years, under Boeing’s and the USAF’s Globemaster Sustainment Program. As for USAF and RAF C-17s, Boeing will look after the RAAF C-17’s heavy maintenance, engine maintenance and management, and spare parts inventory management.

Facilities will also be built at Amberley for a C-17 simulator. Once it arrives at the end of the decade, the RAAF will then bring all C-17 pilot and loadmaster training inhouse.

Those RAAF pilots fortunate to be posted to the C-17 will get to fly the the Air Force’s largest and most modern aircraft type, one that brings a true step change in Air Force airlift capabilities.