Reporting for Duty

The RAAF’s nascent C-17 airlifter force was cleared for operational service in September, just nine months after the first aircraft was delivered in December ’06 and within 18 months of the aircraft being selected to fulfil the ADF’s Responsive Global Airlifter project.

“It was presented to government that if you wanted the ‘here and now’ the C-17 was there,” GPCAPT Gary Martin, director of Air Lift Group’s C-17 transition team, told Australian Aviation immediately after the initial operating capability (IOC) ceremony in Canberra on September

“It’s a real leveller taking a new aircraft into inventory. . . Some people had from a thousand hours up to five-six thousand hours flying time. They were (all) back with L plates on. ”

11. “And Boeing at that stage was saying the production line would be closing in 2008, so if you were going to make a decision to acquire C-17, it had to be made rapidly. ” A great deal of US Air Force cooperation allowed the C-17 to be introduced into RAAF service quickly, from forgoing aircraft delivery and aircrew and maintenance technician slots, to providing an exchange C-17 instructor.

“They surrendered certain airframes to us in a logical order that we would be able to absorb them at the right rate as we continued to set up the squadron here in Australia. Because that was steady, because we took the standard training packages associated with our technicians and aircrew,” the process was able to meet its schedules.

Once the C-17 contract was signed in March ’06 the RAAF was quickly at work to introduce the newtype, beginning the process of absorbing much of the then C-130H operating 36 Squadron’s personnel, plus all its aircraft, into 37 Squadron, allowing a cadre of 36 Squadron personnel to begin the task of preparing for the C-17’s service entry. Initially 12 aircrews and over 40 maintainers were sent to the US for conversion training.

“So by April, within three weeks of government announcing where we’d gone (with the C-17’s selection), we were actually sending students overseas to undergo conversion on the C-17,” said GPCAPT Martin. After initial training the pilots and maintainers were seconded to USAF operational C-17 units.

“All of our members spent a month working and flying, walking and talking C-17 with those squadrons, so they didn’t come from conversion course and have to pick up an aeroplane and reallyknow nothing else but what a student knows. They could operationally see what was going on in how to run, manage and organise the aircraft. ” In the meantime, a USAF exchange pilot, Major Lee Guthrie, a C-17 instructor from the USAF’s C-17 training base at Altus in Oklahoma, arrived in Australia to help with 36 Squadron’s establishment as a C-17 unit.

“So while RAAF aircrew were still being trained on the aircraft, the RAAF had the services of an experienced C-17 pilot to talk and guide our way through the set-up of then having to move lock, stock and barrel 36SQN from Richmond up to Amberley in a matter of two weeks as they came back from conversion before they went back to the United States to pick up the first aircraft. So it was an incredibly time sensitive sequence that we had to fit in with. ” Introducing the C-17 into service has provided challenges and opportunities for pilots, loadmasters and maintainers alike.

“It’s a real leveller taking a new aircraft into inventory. . .

Some people had from a thousand hours up to five-six thousand hours flying time.

They were (all) back with L plates on,” noted GPCAPT Martin. Most of the initial pilots had moved across from the C-130H. Moving to the C-17 meant jumping ahead a generation in technology to glass cockpits and head-up displays, moving from propellers to jets, from control yokes to columns. Pilots experienced “some big challenges in those conversions days where students were working hard at understanding it. ” For loadmasters, said GPCAPT Martin, “it is the best toy available in the toy shop, they are incredibly satisfied, there’s so much gained compared to any other airlifter we’ve had previously.

They’ve taken to it like ducks to water and having a whale of a time. ” For the maintainers going from the “steam driven C-130H to a 1553B databus driven electronic aircraft” meant a “large learning curve,” but they could draw upon the RAAF’s experience in operating the digital avionics equipped C-130J model Hercules.

Interestingly, where the RAAF has two aircraft maintenance trades (airframes/‘black handers’ and avionics/‘white handers’), the USAF has seven, so the RAAF and USAF re-validated the C-17 maintainers courses into a two trade structure.

The USAF endorsed that change as a foreign military operators course for the C-17, and it may in time be adopted by the RAF, which is moving from a three trade tech structure to two.

“But one of the big differences we’ve seen is how the ‘black handers’ and our engine techs are actually becoming very electronic now, it’s starting to become harder and harder to find trade differences between the ‘black hander’/‘white hander’ now as we move forward with this aircraft because it so electric. ” An important element in the C-17’s quick introduction into service has been the use of mobile training teams,or MTTs, of USAF pilots, maintainers and loadmasters as needed. “So in the first instance we had a couple of senior maintainers, a couple of loadmasters and a couple of pilots. So that group of six came across for up to a six week period . . . and they could appreciate the RAAF didn’t have the full ground support equipment and how we could operate the aircraft accordingly. ” A second mobile training team came across for the first ‘home station’ maintenance check, helping to ensure the RAAF had a proper understanding of C-17 technical orders. Another MTT of C‑17 captains and loadmasters will come to Australia to help the RAAF validate airdropping.

“Whilst it’s a very large aircraft, a very complicated aircraft, it’s made to operate very easily. ”

“That gives that sort of father to son/to daughter information in hand, on the squadron, in Australian conditions. ” Another element in allowing the relatively rapid achievement of service release is the RAAF’s participation in Boeing’s Global Sustainment Program (GSP), alongside the USAF and RAF for C-17 maintenance, which means C-17 operational experience and knowledge could be provided to DGTA (Directorate General Technical Airworthiness).

“We don’t have to re-invent anything from scratch,” said GPCAPT Martin. “The dynamics of that means that we could approach, quite bravely, our DGTA and say, ‘here we have some quite significant paradigm shifts, we have to manage this aeroplane in pre-flight times, associated technical orders, and they’re not Australian publications, they’re American publications, but here is a full history behind that’. And they’ve come to the party, from strength to strength, really, because if DGTA were not satisfied with the supportability of this aircraft, we would never have received service release in the time that we have. ” The C-17 acquisition was promoted as completely “off-the-shelf ”, with almost no modifications made to the aircraft, apart from RAAF markings. And that is how it has transpired in reality. No modifications have been made to the aeroplanes, and even detail items like flying boots, night vision goggles, publications and flying orders are USAF standard issue.

In service, the ease of operations is proving a pleasant surprise. “Whilst it’s a very large aircraft, a very complicated aircraft, it’s made to operate very easily. So what it allows us to do then is to introduce a high level of capability with lower qualified people, because the aeroplane makes up for that delta. . . Here you can take lesser qualified people overall and be able to operate at a high level capacity.

As they gain experience, they gain that capacity, the capability will increase 10-fold effectively from there. ” Of how the aircraft is operated in Australia: “We will operate it effectively as a ‘hash and trash’ aircraft,” said GPCAPT Martin. “It has the tactical ability to land and depart from airfields in a tactical manner. We will be doing the airdrop side of affairs, and we will be doing the aeromedical evacuation. And that is 99 per cent of what the USAF does. ” Air-to-air refuelling will also be added to the repertoire once the KC-30B enters RAAF service.

“What this (IOC) means at this stage is that we’ve got two aircraft that have a logistical support chain behind them to look after the rate of efforts we’re advertising to be able to achieve with this aircraft. We have five fully trained fully operational crews – captains, copilots and loadmasters.

And we also have the ability to operate the aircraft in a logistical sense, ie long strategic or intercontinental type of movements, but with tactical type applications.

“Our people already know how to do tactical arrivals and departures with the aircraft.

We can use the factory fit electronic warfare protect fit that’s associated with the aircraft. We can do combat offload as well, where literally you have pallets flying off the back in parking places.

And the ability to do rollon, roll-off loads and pallet loads, we’ve cleared right up to Chinook helicopters . . .

Black Hawks, large oversized vehicles, specialised boats for the SAS, all that realm.

Anything that we need to get around Australia for our primary customer the Army is pretty much in the box. ” Some missions the C-17 has undertaken include flights into what the ADF calls the MEAO, or the Middle East Area of Operations, to support operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, picking up DMO acquisition equipment from the US like torpedoes, and flying cargo into south east Asia in support of ADF participation in exercises.

“Pretty much anything you need to carry, boxes to large vehicles that you want to move quickly, up to 18 pallets of gear, it’s good to go now. ”