285SQN

Such a high operational tempo demands highly skilled, motivated and trained personnel in order for 37SQN to complete its mission.

And when it needs aircrew, loadmasters, navigators or technicians trained for the exacting demands of airlift, it turns to the acknowledged ‘Centre of C-130 Training Excellence’, the military and civilian instructors at 285SQN.

Stood up in 1999 at RAAF Richmond, 285SQN was formed after the training flights of resident squadrons 33, 36 and 37 (then operating the 707, C-130H and C-130J respectively) merged with the 503 Wing Field Training Flight to become sole provider of (then) tactical and strategic airlift training.
The 707 has since been retired, but its legacy remains, evidenced by the presence of a fully functioning simulator, operated, like the C-130J and H simulators adjacent, by the Australian arm of Canadian firm CAE Systems.

(Unlike the Herc simulators, however, the 707 simulator is shortly to ‘leave the building’ as it continues its career as a training aid for Omega Air, which has also has acquired the RAAF’s surplus 707 airframes.)

Today, 285SQN concentrates its resources on the training of C-130 personnel, subject to the ongoing operational requirements of its chief ‘customer’, 37SQN.

That it is aided in its mission by CAE Systems reflects the wider shift within the Air Force towards contracted support for the delivery of capability. But unlike some platforms within Air Lift Group (such as the 737BBJ and Challenger) training of aircrew and technicians is undertaken chiefly by the Air Force itself, with support from CAE instructors who, as ex RAAF C-130 crew themselves, retain sizeable corporate knowledge of Hercules operations.

Striking the balance

The Commanding Officer of 285SQN and its 65 personnel is WGCDR Bruce Walker, who, like his flight commanders and XO, is a high time C-130 pilot.

Chief amongst his responsibilities is dealing with the unit’s parent wing, 84WG, and looking ‘upwards and outwards’, taking a long term view of how to best meet its tasking of training deployable C-130 air and ground crew.

“For us [the biggest challenge is] managing the resources we’ve got, the people, the use of the SIM time … it’s an airlift fleet, so … things happen. At the beginning of the year, there was a lot of defence aid to the tsunami, the Christchurch earthquake,…so even though 285 tries to keep the training system going, we’re still at times needed to assist, but the other side of it is 37SQN needs the people to be made available to actually get the training. So it’s a lot scheduling and trying to keep a long term training plan going and then adjusting constantly for the day to day realities of what Air Lift does.”
SQNLDR Pete Cseh (pronounced ‘Shay’), 285’s executive officer or XO, is the point of contact between the flight commanders and the Commanding Officer, and as such is responsible for overseeing the day to day running of the unit’s activities.

Like many other units in the RAAF, the squadron finds one of its major challenges is managing staff attrition in the midst of an airline recruiting cycle. According to SQNLDR the impact is “Huge. It takes eight years to grow an instructor. And if we lose a bunch at a time, then the flow on effects are enormous. And one of the problems in ALG is the distribution level of experience. On paper, you might have 100 positions and 101 people, so it looks like you’re healthy, but when you look at the experience level of those people, you’ve got a lot in the bottom order and not too much in the top order and you’re lacking in the middle order. And so that has an effect on a) how you can generate capability and b) how you can enact and supervise, which is a fine balance”

Staff retention, however, is not a new issue for the Air Force, which has sought to address both cause and effect of the problem: allowing for greater work/lifestyle balance of its personnel and employing private instructors from CAE Systems on long term contracts, thus minimising turnover.

Presently, SQNLDR Cseh is undertaking a study of C-130J training options, necessary as the RAAF is committed to another 20 years’ operation of the type. The task of devising an integrated training solution for the fleet presents manifold challenges, and it’s seeing the former Hercules pilot on an overseas tour of dedicated, platform specific training establishments in order to arrive at a suitable solution. This could see the Air Force deciding to acquire additional training airframes, or constructing a purpose built facility at significant expense where not only aircrew, but technicians are trained on state-of-the-art high fidelity synthetic training aids.

Certainly any such study will seek to address the problem of the current syllabus focus. Having looked at the question from the perspective of an operational pilot with 37SQN and now as a check captain with 285SQN, SQNLDR admits: “It’s a tough gig they’ve got here. … I’m becoming aware of the limitations inside the system to generate that training, to produce an output, in a reasonable timeframe.”

C-130j Training

84WG (which also has responsibility for the other ‘Southern’ ALG squadron, 34 based at Fairbairn), acting on requests from 37SQN, specifies what courses are to be conducted in order to produce a given number of aircrew, technicians and loadmasters.

Operational deployments to the Middle East have seen a surge in demand for relief aircrew for the C-130J, with three maintained in theatre.

In charge of J model pilot training is ex RAF Hercules pilot and Qualified Flying Instructor, SQNLDR Shane Peacey. As 285’s C-130J Flight Commander, he supervises a staff of four QFIs – one from CAE Systems, two Reservists and himself, permanent RAAF.

As SQNLDR Peacey explained to AA, his role is to take a student out of flight school and make them an operationally capable pilot ready for deployment to the MEAO.

“In the past, (five yrs ago) crew would graduate only being able to do Strategic ALS, only carrying loads from A to B. Then they decided they wanted everybody ready to go the Middle East, so then we had to devise a course to allow them to do that.”

It’s now commonplace for ab initio aircrew to come to 285 never having flown a Hercules, and depart six months later for an operational tour, having completed one of the squadron’s basic and operational conversion courses.

“There’s two operational conversion courses run a year, four crews per course.

“Crews are made up of four captain upgrades (copilots last year), who have had experience in the Middle East. But the new copilots are fresh from training, with no tactical training, but they’re brought up to that standard in 6 months.”

The course run by the squadron combines tuition, simulator training and flight training. With no aircraft allocated to 285SQN, access to scarce airframes is one of the unit’s biggest challenges. 2011 alone has seen earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand and floods in Queensland. In responding to such emergencies, 84WG can and does opt to suspend training and make the squadron’s personnel available for relief missions.

As for future courses to be offered on the J model Hercules, SQNLDR Peacey is looking forward to expanding the type’s mission envelope, in particular Special Ops.

“The C-130J has been held back from that mission because [people] were concerned that a flightcrew of two wasn’t enough to conduct a tactical mission. But we’ve been conducting the Operational Test and Evaluation on low flying-training guys on NVGs and now we’ve got to go and develop a course on that”

C-130H

In charge of C-130H basic and operational conversion is SQNLDR Andrew Johnson, whose 10 year association with Air Lift Group has seen postings to the School of Air Warfare, 36SQN, 37SQN and now 285.

Training for the H model Hercules differs slightly from the J, according to SQNLDR Walker: “We take guys out of Basic Flying Training School (BFDS,at Tamworth) 2FTS (No.2 Flying Training School,RAAF Base Pearce) and we’ll put them through the ab initio conversion which is about 18 weeks – they know the aircraft, they can fly from A to B, take cargo, but not into a threat theatre- strategic airlift as we call it. Then after six months to a year, we put them on an operational conversion course, which teaches them how to do the tactical flying which sets them up to go to a MEAO environment. It covers air drop, low level flying, visual navigation, reaction to threats that come at the aircraft, use of the aircraft’s self defence systems. They’re the two basic courses. The tertiary course is our Spec Ops course, or ‘Special Operations’. Which is low level at night, which is a different crew dynamic again, and a different threat environment.

The C-130H’s extra crew members are considered a decided advantage in the Special Ops role, in that extra crew members decrease pilot and copilot work load in the task saturated environment of nap of the Earth flying, at night and against radar threats.

As mentioned, however, the bulk of 285SQN C-130H training involves the running of three conversion courses per year, involving two crews per conversion. Pilots and copilots graduate having completed training in air drop, medevac, search and rescue. In addition, 285SQN conducts copilot upgrades (to captain). “We also do QFI upgrades, flying instructors who come back, they’re all done by us as well. We’ll fit in all those other courses during our quieter periods.”

Not that there’s many of those!

Cae Systems

CAE Systems is one of the world’s largest providers of integrated, military training systems, and currently operates 15 simulators for the ADF under the terms of the Management and Support of ADF Aerospace Simulators (MSAAS) contract, signed in 2003. Effectively, personnel, typically ex RAAF with thousands of hours on C-130s, are embedded in the squadron, conducting training, operating simulators and even flying the Hercules itself. At present, CAE Systems employs one QFI, one check captain, one C-130H flight engineer instructor and one C-130J loadmaster instructor. Added to this are seven support staff who maintain the CAE designed and built simulators and ensure their availability for the 16 hours a day they’re utilised.
In order to supplement 285SQN’s flight instructors in passing on operationally gained experience in dealing with threats encountered in theatres such as the Middle East, the civilian instructors of CAE are given both top secret and secret clearances.

As Kev Bruce, the company’s QFI points out, “A number of us are reservists, so I flew in Afghanistan at the end of 2009. It helps us to both stay current and supplement a shortage of personnel within the Air Force”

Currently being mooted is CAE’s role in the upgrade of the C-130J to block 7.5 standard being rolled out across the international fleet. Any such involvement would see the company begin upgrading the C-130J simulator to Block 7 specs, ironing out bugs and then sharing that attained knowledge with the Air Force. CAE instructors would then train with RAAF aircrew overseas on the upgraded C-130J.

The Sims

Dominating 285SQN’s headquarters is the cathedral like space devoted to the C-130H and C-130J simulators. Designed and built by CAE Systems, but owned by the RAAF, the two capsules sit atop giant electrical actuators – not conventional hydraulics- that move motion cylinders in what’s called the ‘six degrees-of-freedom’. During the performance of some simulated missions, it’s not unknown for the entire building to shake as a prospective crew fling their virtual aircraft around the sky avoiding simulated SAMs and AAA.

Instructors can either run a training profile from within the simulator itself, or remotely from a large, adjacent room. This control room is dominated by three large, wall mounted monitors, upon which is repeated the cockpit view and HUD. With the students shut into the simulator, the instructor will play a number of roles, from air traffic controller to AWACS. Instructors are able to replicate a bewildering array of airports, threats and emergencies, complete with faithfully reproduced engine vibration, g forces and sound effects – right down to the mild shudder of flare release to the bone jarring jolt of missile explosion. The simulators are also fully NVG capable, enabling crews to train for missions such as night air drops.

Trainee aircrew spend approximately four hours preparing for their simulated missions, or lessons. They brief the flight commander on the particulars of the mission, who then, in turn, briefs the students on what he wants them to accomplish during the sortie. A datacard is loaded, containing the mission briefing notes, and the crew begin pre-flighting their ‘aircraft’. The mission is then flown, with the instructor then debriefing the crew afterwards.

As a way of adding to further to the realism, crews training on the simulator are required to fill out a ‘gripe sheet’ noting any maintenance bugs that require attention by CAE engineers.

What both CAE and ALG are keen to stress is the force mulitplier effect not only of simulators, but of the civilian instructors who help man them. Simulators up aircraft for operational tasks and civilian instructors likewise enable RAAF instructors to participate in real world missions without interrupting the provision of training.

Interestingly, despite a decade long involvement in Afghanistan, the Air Force has only just acquired high quality Afghan scenery for its simulators. Donated by the RAF, it is due to be installed in the J model sim after further testing, and according to SQNLDR Peacey, will greatly aid the training of Afghanistan bound aircrew who at present prepare for their deployment by flying tactical approaches to an unsealed airstrip in Gilgandra, NSW. Crews then rotate to the Middle East and perform two or more familiarisation flights in theatre before commencing operations.

Integration of Afghanistan scenery into the simulator is performed by CAE Systems as part of the fixed price engineering provision of its contract. The timeframe of the software’s integration has been dictated by the Air Force, which has insisted on exacting changes to ensure absolute fidelity in its simulation of the Afghan environment. As Kev Bruce drily noted, ‘They’re a very picky customer’.

Technical Training

Housed in its own large building – once home to the E model Hercules simulato r- is 285SQN’s Technical Training Flight. Warrant Officer John Matthews is in charge of scheduling and directing the 120 courses taught on behalf of the unit’s customers, who range from 37SQN, to foreign users of the C-130H, other branches of the ADF and private aerospace firms.

The core of the TTF’s curriculum are the four aircraft system courses: engines, airframes, avionics and electrical. These are considered the essential pre-requisites to enable future ground crew to operate the aircraft ‘on the flightline’.

Teaching aids used include ‘live’ aircraft, full flight simulators, computer based training aids and even a mock up of the C-130’s cockpit.
Since the 37SQN’s acquisition of 36SQN’s C-130Hs, cross qualification of ground crew has become a greater focus of the Flight’s activities. “There’s quite a few common systems between the H and the J model” says WOFF Matthews. “And now, the growth path for technicians means they have to learn both types of aircraft – but it’s a graduated process.”

With the C-130 fleet certain to be the backbone of backbone of Australia’s airlift fleet for the next two decades, the impact of 285SQN’s thorough training will continue to be felt by all those who fly and rely on the venerable Hercules.