Issue 256: Balanced Force

Also in 1984, then FLTLT Binskin was selected as one of the RAAF’s initial cadre of six F/A-18A/B Hornet pilots, and he spent several months at NAS Lemoore in California and Patuxent River in Virginia training on the first two RAAF aircraft prior to their epic May 1985 non-stop delivery flight to Australia. He later became the RAAF’s first Hornet demonstration pilot, had postings to 2OCU and 77SQN at Williamtown and 75SQN at Tindal, and was selected for an exchange with the USAF flying and instructing on the F-16C ‘Viper’ in Arizona.

As a Wing Commander, Binskin assumed the role of Commanding Officer of 77SQN in 1998-99, and after a period as Officer Commanding the Airborne Early Warning and Control System Program Office, was appointed Commander of Air Combat Group (ACG) in 2004-05. He then held the positions of Chief of Staff at Headquarters Australian Theatre in the Middle East, and as the first non-USAF Director of the US Central Air Force Combined Air and Space Operations Centre (CAOC) where he was responsible for the conduct of all coalition air operations in that theatre.

In 2007, then Air Vice-Marshal Binskin succeeded AVM John Quaife as Air Commander Australia (ACAUST), and after only eight months in that position, was announced as successor to the popular AIRMSHL Geoff Shepherd as Chief of Air Force, assuming the role on July 4 this year.

Whilst most thought you were a likely future candidate for the role, your appointment as CAF probably came a bit sooner than many observers were predicting? When I was tapped for the job it did come as a bit of a surprise, but I was overwhelmed by the support from everyone. It took me by surprise in some ways, all the letters and the emails, and people just coming up and giving me congratulations – it humbled me a lot, but it’s been great.

I have a strong and recent operational background, mixed with ‘Canberra time’.

From 2000-2001 I was in the DMO, I had the CAOC experience and HQ Australian Theatre. For a six month period I did a performance and governance audit study of the Air Force, then two years at Air Combat Group, then back here, so actually it’s probably a mix of about 60 per cent here in Canberra and 40 per cent in an operational environment – it’s a good mix.

The transition has been good. That’s because we’re all part of a team and we’ve all grown through it. I think there are some fresh ideas there – that’s always going to come with a change of leadership. Air Force has been heading in a good direction in recent years, and we’re continuing to build upon that.

How has the transition back to Canberra and the unique environment here gone for you? Are you getting out to visit bases or deployed personnel as much as you were as ACAUST or CDR ACG? Coming here from being ACAUST, you step into this job with a lot of knowledge of what’s happening in the field and what the real issues are that are affecting people.

You can help balance your argument here with that information. The art is in not losing touch, so I’m trying to get out to the units more.

My day starts at about 0530 – I need to stay fit so I go for a walk, and am in the office before 0800. First thing is to have a look at a quick operations update on what’s happened with the forces around the world and in Australia, and to check the media summaries for the day and look at what’s being reported, and then I start to cycle into the day about 0830.

A couple of days a week, the first two hours in the morning are spent in the joint environment with either the Secretary or CDF, and then maybe a service chiefs meeting. I look at some of the high level

“We’re the best small air force in the world. It’s mainly the people, but I think our FEG structure is good as well. ”

strategic issues within Air Force and in the joint side of things, especially with the White Paper effort going on at the moment – making sure we’re on track from a capability development point of view. I work a bit on the communication side during the day making sure the right message is getting out to the people in the field so they understand what’s happening.

I still keep in touch with the field but I need to start getting out there a bit more.

With the White Paper process going on here it’s hard, but we’re locking in a program now for next year to get me back out to the units as much as we can. This is all part of the SLT (Senior leadership Team) getting out there – I’m really keen for us to understand what’s happening and to get a good link, but also for the field to understand what happens up here and the processes involved.

I might visit three or four units on a base in a day. I also meet with the DCO (Defence Community Organisation) because they get a very good idea collectively of what’s going on in the base and region, and will of course talk to the executives on base too. The visits are only orchestrated to the extent where if I don’t keep on time, people won’t get the time they deserve. If we’ve got half an hour somewhere, I’ll work it and my staff will make sure I get onto the next unit. However, if I hit an issue that hasn’t come up before, I’ll normally tell them to slide the program because we need to get to the bottom of it and sort it out. We run a database of all the issues, no matter how small, that come up. We’ll research it back here, and will make sure we get the answer back to them.

We’ve got some fantastic people and everyone’s keen to do a really good job. Which is why I do need to get out into the field more. You’ve got to get the reality check.

What will be your main priorities during your tenure as CAF? Can you summarise your Commander’s Intent? It’s to make sure we’re set up and positioned to make the jump into the next decade.

We’re changing most of our platforms, but the government and the public rightly expect us to maintain current capability during that time.

So that takes a lot of planning and we’ve got to get ourselves positioned with the right workforce and with the right skills over the next couple of years. It’s managing the schedule so that, as we phase out capability, we bring up the next one so we maintain a level of capability across the board. Everything we do is working towards that goal of delivering airpower.

We know we are within fixed resources, so it’s taking the current skills base, seeing which skills we require in the next decade, and then remixing part of the workforce to roll into the new force. For example, our UAV operators for MUAS (Air 7000 Phase 1), and taking F-111 ACOs and swinging those onto the Super Hornet – it’s a different skill-set and different mentality, and we’ve got to manage that.

Another example is our Caribou workforce – we’ve got an aircraft that was a great capability in its day, but is probably beyond its economical lifetime now. How do you take a workforce that’s based around that and train them to jump into a modern aircraft which has modern systems? You can’t just take them out of Caribou and put them into that and expect that capability to stand up. So how do you grow that workforce from a maintenance and support point of view? They’re the sorts of things we’re grappling with but we’re working forward.

Another key focus is maintaining effectiveness but increasing efficiency. We currently have the Air Force Improvement Team looking at more efficient ways of doing business. They’ve looked at various models; they’ve talked with Qantas which have been down that path, the USAF and the RAF, trying to look at what’s relevant in transferring those lessons over to us.

As the FEGs (Force Element Groups) find efficiencies, in the short term they can re-invest those efficiencies back into their own FEG. There are some areas that are under stress, so if they can re-invest it then there is good incentive for them to find the savings. Once we fill in the potholes there, longer term we’ll be looking to find those savings to invest in future capabilities.

We’re the best small air force in the world. It’s mainly the people, but I think our FEG structure is good as well. We are very professional and we hold our own when we go into exercises with the US and anywhere else around the world. That’s the level of professionalism from the hangar floor right up, that everyone puts 110 per cent into what we do and to be the best.

That’s the tactical side, but the strategic side we probably haven’t developed as much over the years, so that’s where the focus is at the moment.

“We’re changing most of our platforms, but the government and the public rightly expect us to maintain current capability during that time. ”

How are recruitment and retention levels looking forward? Are the current rates allowing you to stay on track with meeting these goals next decade? We’re currently funded for a workforce of about 14,100. A healthy growth for us is about 200 to 300 people per year – that combined with our current seven percent exit rate, is a healthy growth and exit rate.

Will that alone do what we need to do? Probably not – when we bring on new capabilities as we will in the next decade, we will probably need more people against it.

But as we find gains and efficiencies against that in the next decade, that will offset to a certain extent the need to grow above that comfort level.

Re our manning, I don’t think we will have a problem achieving our funded cap as we can only grow that net 200 to 300 per year – obviously we bring in more recruits per year, but that also takes into account we lose a number during the year as well.

So with all the ins and outs, our growth is healthy. It’s then taking that force level we’ve got, and remixing it into the skills we need in the next decade – that’s really what we’re working to.

When we interviewed former DCAF AVM John Blackburn back in January, he talked about efforts underway at that time to get the RAAF’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT) back out into the field in order to improve communications with the troops. Can you talk to the success of this initiative? The SLT is composed of all one-star (Air Commodore) and two-star (Air Vice- Marshal) officers, and even some Group Captains who are FEG (Force Element Group) Commanders.

In the last few months we’ve reinvigorated the SLT visits to the bases in teams of two, three and four, and we’ve met people in their workplaces to talk about what the issues are. We took SLT people from the DMO and sent them to non-DMO areas, and people that were in a FEG didn’t go to their own FEG. We’ve got about 850 people in the DMO and we’ve got to make sure we speak to them. We’ve also got people in DSG (Defence Support Group) and we need to make sure we cover them as well. So it’s not just to get the SLT out, but it’s a chance to talk to the SLT and to put faces to names.

I want to make sure the whole SLT is engaged right down to the hangar floor so that they know what’s happening out there and are not just seeing it in briefs coming through.

With a raft of new capabilities on their way, no doubt people and skills management are going to be equally crucial if not more so as the new platforms themselves. How is this going to be managed? Economically, 73 per cent of our fleet are in the last 10 years of their service lives – they’re a long way up the curve in supportability! In some areas we’re just not getting the return for the hard work everyone’s putting in. But the other factor is positioning ourselves in skills for the future force.

With the Caribou, the plan we are developing to be considered by government is for an interim aircraft based around King Airs to do that light tactical transport role, to supplement those with C-130s to do those larger loads that they need to do occasionally, and that will give the aircrews the skills with FMS and modern systems, glass cockpits etc to

“Economically, 73 per cent of our fleet are in the last 10 years of their service lives – they’re a long way up the curve in supportability! In some areas we’re just not getting the return for the hard work everyone’s putting in. ”

be able to jump to the Air 8000 Phase 2 (Caribou replacement) platform when it comes along.

We’ll reduce the number of maintenance personnel dedicated to 38SQN to work on the King Airs – many of the maintainers will up-skill and transfer to other platforms such as C-17, KC-30, C-130 – so it gives us the chance to take some of the pressure off in introducing those current capabilities, and then have that workforce rolled across back into the Air 8000 Phase 2 capability when it comes in, so there are a lot of good things in this proposal.

The proposal is to take the three Army King Airs (from Oakey based 173SQN) and supplement them with a lease of additional aircraft, and all of them will be 38SQN badged. The proposal that Chief of Army and I have looked at together is to phase the Army maintainers into the rotary wing because they need that focus as they bring new aircraft on. The Army pilots will stay Army as they come across to 38SQN, and in two or three years they’ll have the choice of being re-rolled into rotary wing because a lot of them are former rotary wing, or transferring across to the Air Force.

There’s obviously a little bit of frustration on the Wedgetail. We’d trained up the crews ready to go, so we’re managing that.

There are no problems yet on the KC-30 because we’ve closed down the 707 and the air crews and maintenance teams are training on the A330 with Qantas. They’re building their skills so that when the aircraft comes in they’ll be ready to hit the ground running.

With only a 14,000 strong force we can’t afford to have people sitting around, so management of the people side is always the focus in what we’re doing in the transition.

You mentioned the White Paper before – how much input have you and the SLT had into that process? Are the reported delays to the White Paper release having any adverse affects on projects which are coming due or are overdue for decisions? We’ve had input at every level from the GPCAPT level up – the interaction has been good.

I’m comfortable we have a balanced Air Force currently being proposed in the White Paper that also balances well with the rest of the ADF. There’s always going to be a tradeoff in some areas, if you want to have a balanced force it’s always going to be that way, but I’m comfortable with the way it’s going.

If the White Paper timeline was to move, you’d still have current capabilities that are coming to their life of types and planned withdrawal dates, so there are still projects being run in parallel. But nothing is going out that hasn’t been considered as a part of White Paper. The White Paper is considered as a package, but if there’s something that’s critical in there, it could be progressed quicker, if it is deemed essential.

How have the current economic circumstances changed the way in which the RAAF does its business? We certainly can’t turn a blind eye to the current economic situation.

We’ve got to make sure the retention issues we’re currently working are solved. It’s common knowledge we have some issues with senior aircrew and with ATC, and if that’s solved because of the economic situation, the underlying issues may still be there, and we’ve got to make sure we fix them. Ultimately the economy will come good again and if we haven’t fixed it, we’re going to be in trouble.

But where the economy affects us the most is in the fluctuating fuel prices. At the

“I’m comfortable we have a balanced Air Force currently being proposed in the White Paper that also balances well with the rest of the ADF. ”

moment the fuel price is coming down to a more manageable level, but when it was sitting up there at $140-$150 a barrel, that was starting to hurt us.

We are looking at ways to be more efficient.

While we can use more simulation in training, we can’t haul real cargo in a C‑130 or C-17 simulator! And while the JSF program will bring lots of simulators with it as a program, the current systems don’t have that level of simulations yet.

And from an environmental view, we’re obviously the biggest carbon fuel user in Defence, and I’m cognisant of that as well.

We’ve just started talking to people to see what are the options down the track in regards to synthetic fuels and to understand the problem a bit better, and then take steps to address it.

With all these new capabilities coming in, the RAAF is going to look very different a decade from now. Can you talk about some of the capabilities we’ll see introduced in the next decade and the issues surrounding their introduction? Air combat transition is very complex.

We’ve put a lot of effort into that over the past few years and we think we’ve got it in good shape.

With airlift and Air 8000, we’re trying to work the timing – the availability of platforms that suit our needs, the ability to stand up project teams and the transition teams to go to it – that’s the one we’re currently looking at quite closely as part of the White Paper to make sure we get the phasing right, not just from the dollar point of view but with people available to transition, and not have them stacked up on each other.

I would prefer to be earlier rather than later with Air 8000 because we have the capacity to transition that one relatively easily, noting that we are building up the skills of the workforce from the Caribou so we can easily transition from that. The Caribou’s only real attribute is STOL, but there are very few airfields where you really need that now – if you look at PNG Assist last year, most of the strips we went into were Hercules capable anyway.

So the Caribou’s niche STOL capability and the percentage of times you would use that would be overshadowed by other factors. It’s slow and it has no self defence, and if we want to send Caribous around the region, we’ve often got to send a tanker with avgas to supply it wherever it goes.

The C-17 has been a classic example of a proactive approach – thinking ahead is what has really worked on that platform.

But when you go up to Amberley, it’s like they’ve been flying it for years, and that from my side is something we’ve got to manage because there can be an expectation in that we have been doing it so well, people do think we’ve been doing it for years. We haven’t even hit FOC yet, so we’ve got to temper the expectation of what it can and can’t do yet. We just want to make sure we manage the risks properly.

Once we have the sim, it’ll be a far more efficient outfit because we won’t have to worry about circuits and bumps around Amberley to keep the currency, and from a fuel point of view, I’d prefer to be doing that in the sim. The sim is the next critical step in the development of that capability.

With the Super Hornet, we’ve got four maintainers in the US on course now, and it’s looking really good. Of the various transitions coming, it’s probably the easiest in some ways, especially having the US Navy’s support which is just fantastic! It’ll be great seeing RAAF roundels on the Lemoore flightline again as we build up to the first six aircraft coming home in 2010. Like the C-17, this has been a different model to the traditional one – we’re standing up the first operational squadron, and then training the trainers as a part of that, and then we’ll have the training squadron stand up afterwards – but you can do that when you buy something off the shelf off a good operator.

In closing, there is a perception that during AIRMSHL Shepherd’s tenure as CAF and yours as ACAUST that the RAAF seemed to be working closer with museums, historical societies and other organisations in re-discovering its roots. To what extent is this actually occurring and why? It’s all part of people being professional. It’s like being in a family and researching your family roots, so a lot of the units have got more and more into it and what their heritage is, and there is a lot of heritage out there.

I look at some of the heritage flights we’ve been doing at airshows, the stuff that we fly with Temora and the links we have there, and while HARS has a different focus on aircraft, obviously they’re an important part of Australian aviation as well.

In a lot of ways, your heritage is your future – you’ve got to understand where you come from to know where you’re going, so you don’t want to lose those links with your heritage, and I want to continue to support that.