Issue 300: Under Control

The key to providing this capability around the clock and across the country is 44WG’s 250 JBACs – Joint Battlefield Airspace Controllers. Along with the Wing’s technical support personnel, JBACs’ deliver tri-service Air Base Air Traffic Services (ABATS) to the ADF’s eleven air bases, provide operational maintenance of air traffic management and airfield systems at nine RAAF bases. They also maintain regional antennas, provide radar data to the RAAF’s regional operations centres and Airservices Australia, provide expeditionary ABATS for forward airfields and landing zones, and lastly, to deliver battlefield airspace control to support joint forces.

History

Formed in 1942 at Adelaide River south of Darwin, 44WG initially controlled a chain of radars across the Top End that was established to warn of impending Japanese air attack. The Wing was deactivated in late 1944 only to be re-established nearly six decades later after experiences in East Timor convinced RAAF leadership that battlespace management was a capability worthy of a unique command.

In November 2001 44WG was officially reformed and headquartered at RAAF Base Williamtown. It was (and still is) tasked with providing the Air Force, Army and Navy with battlefield and airspace management services, air base air traffic services and battlefield airspace control.

Structure

Shortly after its re-establishment, 44WG assumed control of Ground Electronic Services (GES), which was transferred from Combat Support Group. The GES comprises personnel responsible for maintenance of air traffic control infrastructure and communications, and its transfer to 44WG represented a logical step in unifying the ADF’s air traffic control units under a single command.

In 2010 the long-dormant squadrons 452 and 432 were reformed to facilitate the administration of the Wing’s personnel. The two squadrons administer the Wing’s flights deployed at all ADF air bases across Australia, with Darwin-based 452SQN maintaining subordinate flights in the joint-user airports at Darwin and Townsville, Tindal, Amberley and Oakey. Williamtown-based 453SQN oversees flights based in Williamtown, Richmond, Nowra, East Sale, Edinburgh and Pearce.

Along with 452 and 453 SQNs, 44WG is also made up of HQ44WG, which has responsibility for projects management, OPEVAL/ Standards, training and training development, maintenance management, administration, engineering oversight, quality and governance, logistics, safety management and coordination and coordination of BAC support. In addition, HQ also provides post-graduation training by way of the Battlefield Airspace Operations Course (the BAOC) as well as numerous specialized training modules.

WGCDR Ruth Elsley, the Commanding Officer and Executive Officer of 44WG Headquarters, explained Australia is one of the few countries whose JBACs are ICAO compliant and therefore able to control both civil and military aircraft. It’s this dual competency that has seen the Wing’s personnel deployed at the request of the UN to peacekeeping missions in the Solomon’s and Sudan or, as requested by the Pentagon, to Iraq to man the tower at Baghdad International Airport.

Makings Of A Jbac

Entry into the ranks of JBACs is by no means easy and candidates for the position are as rigorously tested as potential pilots to assess spatial awareness, ability to multi-task and make informed decisions under pressure. Those deemed suitable are sent to the RAAF School of Air Traffic Control (SATC) in East Sale.

The school provides initial and postgraduate ATC training for both ADF and overseas defence personnel. The initial course lasts 42 weeks, after which graduates are posted to 44WG for on-the-job air traffic control training where they must acquire the two main elements for competency endorsement – Aerodrome Control (Tower) and Approach Control (Radar).

453SQN’s Williamtown Flight Commander SQNLDR Adrian Buckley describes what a newly qualified JBAC can expect upon arrival at their Flight.
“Straight from the school of air traffic control, typically [newly-qualified JBACs] would not have done their radar course as the current progression model. So you go upstairs to the tower and do surface movement control and be in charge of aircraft taxiing and vehicle control. After a nominal year, you go back down to the SATC and complete the radar course, which is another four weeks. Then you come here and do the radar conversion training.”

Conversion training takes place over two weeks at Williamtown, and is undertaken on a number of workstations that replicate the RAAF standard Australian Defence Air Traffic System (ADATS). In an adjacent room, ‘pilots’ perform radio calls, telephony and basic procedures to test students, under the watchful eye of an instructor.

Students must also familiarize themselves with the airspace and procedures at their new aerodrome.

“Each airfield has different aircraft types, speeds, terrain, runway configuration, navigation aids and all of those complexities get taught at a basic level before JBACs get speak to live aircraft,” explains SQNLDR Buckley.

Once assessed by an operations flight commander the JBAC will be permitted to perform ATC with supervision before undertaking further training in other aspects of the JBAC mission. As WGCDR Elsley recalls: “When I got to my first location (Nowra) I did surface control, then tower, then did a training officer course, radar course, then planner/co-ordinator and approach course, before become a training officer, then supervisor.”

JBACs who have qualified as approach controllers then assume responsibility for the ‘safe and expeditious flight of all aircraft arriving, departing or operating within the airspace around the aerodrome, outside the responsibility of the tower controller’. In Williamtown, approach controllers and approach co-ordinators manage both civil and military traffic moving through military restricted airspace, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.

efence controls large tracts of airspace to the east of Williamtown, airspace in which Air Combat Group assets can ‘raise, train and sustain’, and it’s the job of 453SQN JBACs to ensure both military users training in it or and civil users use the airspace safely.

Communication with 44WG’s civilian counterpart Airservices Australia is key. SQNLDR Buckley said: “We know that from 10 in the morning until say midday, there are no movements expected in the Southeast portion of the airspace, so we’ll say from this point to this point is released to civilian ATC and they know for two hours all those (civilian) planes can go through. So it’s consistent and predictable; they know they’ll have the airspace for certain duration. And we make sure we give them the required notice, to make sure those aircraft either heading to LAX or SYD can vacate the airspace. We give them half an hour’s notice before we change it on them.”

WGCDR Elsley explains: “We need the basic air traffic skills, and for them to be operating in accordance with the Manual of Air Traffic Standards, which comes under the CASA manual standards. Once we’ve trained our controllers in their basic skill sets, we then run the Battlefield Airspace Operations Course, which trains the controllers on the more tactical side of things.”

WGCDR Elsley says this three-week course is the most impactful change on the role of the RAAF’s airspace managers and ensures future JBACs are schooled in a host of necessary elements, and combine classroom theory with hands on fieldwork. Entry is open to those holding primary endorsements, who are currently serving with either 452 or 453SQNS.

Once graduated, personnel return to their squadron unit with some being eligible to join ‘Point of Entry’ teams, who are on ‘Notices To Move’, meaning rapid deployment once a call-out has been received. This could see them either on an Army exercise, liaison duty on board a US aircraft carrier or a peacekeeping mission in Africa.

Retention

WGCDR Elsley acknowledges that retention of qualified JBACs is a priority for the Wing and the RAAF as a whole. Complicating matters is a worldwide shortage of air traffic controllers especially in the US where many controllers recruited in the early 1980s, are reaching retirement age.

“We’ve been really pro-active about retention. It’s difficult to retain people when your counterparts outside are getting paid a lot more. But what we do provide is more than the salary. We provide career opportunities, doing more than just air traffic control.”

Some of the initiatives undertaken by the RAAF include stretching deployments to a more family-friendly four years, employing public service controllers in Richmond, East Sale, Edinburgh and Oakey, and allowing experienced JBACs to opt out of the promotion system by accepting a lower rank, but not wage, to remain as an air traffic controller.

“We provide career opportunities, doing more than just air traffic control.”

“There’s a Squadron Leader in Williamtown who’s gone back to being a Flight Lieutenant. He’s a very, very experienced controller, and we keep him in the RAAF, he’s doing what he wants to do and we get to retain that core skill set.”

At the same time, WGCDR Elsley points out promotion to senior rank is available to those JBACs who chose to pursue advancement, with the wing now boasting three group captains.

Just under half of the Wing’s 500 personnel are the often unheralded technical support personnel comprised of electrical engineers, communications and electronics technicians and fitters, all of whom maintain and service the Wing’s navigation aids, radars, automation systems, and radios.

These functions have not been civilianised, as WGCDR Elsley explains. “When I go to Baghdad, I need a person in uniform who can look after comms and set up navaids, and while Combat Control Squadrons may be able to do that, those guys can’t stay in there indefinitely. So we have our own people.”

Jbac To The Future

44WG’s future planning is dominated by the three phases of AIR5431, the ADF’s new Air Traffic Management System first announced in the 2009 Defence Capability Plan.

Officially known as the Defence Air Traffic Management and Control System (DATMCS), it is intended to replace the existing, obsolescent Australian Defence Air Traffic System (ADATS). Phase 1 will see 44WG acquire deployable DATMCS, which will provide combined tactical and approach radar coverage, and be air transportable in either the C-130 or C-17, and likely to be deployed at RAAF Amberley operated by Combat Support Group’s 1 Combat Communications Squadron.

Phase 2 of AIR5431 involves the procurement of ATC surveillance sensors to replace either existing radars or sensors at ADF fixed base locations from RAAF Pearce to Nowra.

As WGCDR Elsley explains: “It’s a little bit complicated, as we have to make sure we tie into the national (air traffic management) network and we have to satisfy that. The main challenge there is in the transitioning of one radar out and the transitioning of the another radar in.”

Phase 3 seeks to acquire a fixed DATMCS for 11 ADF fixed air bases and a simulator for the SATC at RAAF Base East Sale. It will also see the harmonisation of the nation’s two parallel civil and military air traffic management systems.

As WGCDR Elsley points out, this is a major undertaking. “We’re looking at buying an ATC system with two organisations buying it. Having said that, we have a joint project team and military working alongside Airservices. We’ve produced a joint function and performance specification which includes all the function and performance that Airservices needs and what the military needs.”

All three projects are being administered through the Capability Development Group in Canberra and project teams within DMO at Williamtown and Canberra, with the Wing’s JBACs embedded in both.

Ready To Roll

While matching Airservices dollar-for-dollar may not be possible, the sheer diversity of assignments offered to JBACs would be hard for many to resist. From stints in the Combined Air Operations Centre at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, to deployments on board the Navy’s new Canberra class LHDs, life as Joint Battlefield Airspace Controller in the ADF is certainly anything but mundane.

Says WGCMDR Elsley: “We’ve come a long, long way. When we went to Timor, 44WG didn’t exist, we went under 41WG. It was when we learned the lessons and applied them that we got a tactical operations cell established, we stood up the Battlefield Airspace Operations Course course, and the Point of Entry teams, so we had people on stand-by whenever we needed them. So, when the Haiti Earthquake happened, we had controllers who were on notice to move. You grab them, they’re trained, equipped, they go.’

Members of 44WG are currently in Kandahar Afghanistan, in Regional Control

South (Airspace) cell; Tarin Kowt Afghanistan in the Air Effects Cell;

Doha, Qatar in the Combine Air Operations Centre; Al Minhad, United Arab

Emirates, in Base Aviation Safety Officer role.