Striking a balance

A comment by the ADF’s Middle East Area of Operations (MEAO) Air Component Commander, GPCAPT Gary Martin neatly summed the RAAF’s airlift balance issue for this writer in one line when we talked by phone recently.

“Not long ago we were a C-130 sized air force,” he said while discussing the RAAF’s introduction of the C-17 on operations from Australia into forward airfields in Afghanistan (see article on page XXX). “We’re a far-reaching nation now – we’re at the forward line doing it away from Australia, so rapid transport by air is paramount.”