The Right Vector

On that date in 1914 Lieutenant Eric Harrison of the Central Flying School (then part of the Army) took to the skies at Point Cook in a Bristol Boxkite. Today, the RAAF approaches the next 100 years of military aviation in Australia as it undergoes one of its biggest transformations since the Second World War, winding down from a decade of operational service in the Middle East and preparing for a future operating an advanced fleet of new and near-new aircraft across its Air Combat, Air Lift and Surveillance and Response Groups, from F-35As and EA-18Gs to C-17s and KC-30s, to Wedgetails and UAVs.

So what is ahead for Air Force in 2014? “I don’t think our priorities have changed too much for 2014,” Deputy Chief of Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Leo Davies tells Australian Aviation in a recent interview. “I’d probably characterise 2014 as another piece in the delivery, if you like, of what I think has been a really well-structured development plan for Air Force. ” That development plan includes introducing and bedding in a range of new capabilities into service in recent years, such as the F/A-18F, Wedgetail and KC-30, and planning for new types such as the EA-18G Growler, F-35A Lightning II and surveillance UAVs, capabilities that are as capable as they are complex, and no doubt unimaginable to Lt Harrison 100 years ago.

Key milestones lie ahead in 2014, including FOC (full operational“I think progressing with the F-35 is a fairly comfortable decision to make. capability) for the Wedgetail AEW&C platform – “which has done a great job in the last couple of exercises” AVM Davies notes – and FOC for the KC-30 tanker transport with a fully operational aerial refuelling boom.

“We now have aircraft that have been around a while, and are maturing,” said AVM Davies.

“We have a mature Super Hornet capability now. The crews know how to operate it, the maintainers, the loggies know how to support it, Boeing knows how we operate in Australia with Super Hornet, compared to the US Navy. ” While key capabilities continue to mature, in 2014 key decisions will be made for new capabilities, particularly Australia’s acquisition of the F-35A to replace the RAAF’s ageing classic F/A‑18A/B model Hornets.

“I think progressing with the F-35 is a fairly comfortable decision to make.

The F-35 hardware and software is developing well, and so the real challenge for the Air Force is how we are going to integrate it into the RAAF. Once we get the decision from government…we then need to be in a position to immediately start planning infrastructure work at Williamtown, establish the F-35 training pipeline in both the US and Australia, and commence integrating the various F-35 support systems into the Defence networks. ” So far Australia has committed to a first batch of 14 F-35As, but of those only two are under firm contract (these jets are currently undergoing final assembly with Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth). In the near future, Defence will forward a submission to the federal government for second pass approval for the next tranche of up to 58 F-35As and associated support equipment. Under the current Defence Capability Plan,the first 14 jets are considered Stage 1 of the AIR 6000 New Air Combat Capability’s Phase 2A/2B, with the second batch of 58 jets dubbed Stage 2. Phase 2C, the final batch of 28 or so F-35As to replace the Super Hornet, is not due for consideration until next decade at the earliest.

“I see us embarking on a phased approach to the introduction of the F-35A into RAAF service. The first phase is the delivery of the first two aircraft, which are the two F-35As on the production line coming out mid-year. These aircraft allow our pilots to get experience on the F-35, to see what it takes to support training operations, and to be involved in F-35A operational test and evaluation activities,” explains DCAF. “The aircraft will have an Aussie flag on them, and Australia will be the fourth nation in the world operating production 5th generation fighter aircraft.

“The next phase will be delivery of the next 12 F-35A aircraft from around 2018, which will enhance our ability to train F-35A pilots and maintenance staff ready for the stand-up of our first F-35A squadrons in Australia. Initial training using these aircraft will occur at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, where our pilots will be embedded in a USAF training squadron, and our aircraft will be in a pool of aircraft. The next phase is to take delivery of F-35As to be used by the first Australian operational squadrons, and to ferry them to Australia. And the linchpin for that, for Air Force, is to have those aircraft delivered and integrated into operations in Australia in a way that allow us to retire the classic Hornet. ” Management of the ageing classic Hornet fleet is driving the need to declare IOC (initial operating capability) for the F-35 in 2021 (at which stage the oldest classics will beover 35 years old, the youngest 30).

But as things stand, Air Force is generally comfortable with the planned transition.

“When we started this project the risk was very high. The amount of work to do was astronomical,” says DCAF. “I now think the Joint Strike Fighter is in a really comfortable position given that our first RAAF pilots start flying the F-35A next year and we are not expecting to retire the final F/A-18A/B squadron until 2021. That’s seven years away. ” Current plans are for the US Air Force to declare IOC with the F-35A by the end of 2016 (USAF IOC will be a first operational squadron with 12-24 aircraft capable of ground attack missions).

“We’ve got four or five years from a mature operating United States Air Force. Four years is a long time when you’re at the backend of a development program. ” Still, DCAF explains that careful management of the ageing classic Hornet fleet will be critically important. “We’ve now owned the classic about three or four years longer than we totally owned the Mirage. We are working the management of fatigue, much the same as we had with the F-111, as we had with the Caribou, as we had with the 707. We have the experience, but you get to the backend of that bathtub curve and it’s very difficult to calculate what it costs in not just dollar terms but in resource terms. Equipment not available on the line to train with or fight with has a cost in its own right. ” Managing the transition from classic Hornet to F-35, training pilots and maintainers and standing up

operational squadrons with the F-35 as the classic Hornet force winds down will itself be a significant organisational challenge for Air Force of a scale not experienced since the classic Hornet replace the Mirage in the mid-late 1980s“It’s big, but we are only replacing what we already have, so there is a natural levelling, if you like. There will be a transition hump, and we know that, we can’t stop providing an air combat capability to Australia for two or three years while we go off and do acquisition and introduction to service. So there is a bit of a hump there. ” And it is a transition aided, DCAF says, by the recent introduction into service of the Super Hornet and its advanced capabilities that help pave the way for F-35.

“What Super Hornet’s done for Air Force, and for Defence in many respects, is brought us way past a generation-3 aircraft mentality, past a generation-4. We’re now talking about how do we manage this system and how do we integrate it? And I think without that step we would have had more difficulty with a steeper learning curve for F-35A. I think this has really helped us. ” Another transition, but of a different kind, that Air Force hasbeen managing, is the withdrawal of RAAF and ADF personnel and assets from the Middle East Area of Operations with Australia’s withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan has been I’d say extremely beneficial for Air Force. We probably won’t realise how beneficial it’s been until probably 2015 or 2016,” notes AVM Davies.

In a decade in the Middle East, RAAF Hercules have flown more than 5,000 missions carrying over 45,000 tonnes of cargo and 140,000 passengers, while as of early November RAAF C-17s operating in the MEAO had undertaken over 300 missions, lifting over 16,000 tonnes of cargo and over 8,000 passengers.

“What it shows for me is the C-17 for less than a tenth of the hours carried about 30 per cent of the weight of the C-130s,” observes DCAF. “So for us that’s the job they’re supposed to do, they did it well and I think that’s been a tremendous story. ”Afghanistan also showed the benefits that a smaller battlefield airlifter in the C-27J will bring compared to the C-130J.

“I still maintain, in that environment, if we’d had C-27J during that time it would have fitted that intra-theatre lift piece perfectly. ” The RAAF also gained invaluable knowledge of ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) with both the AP-3C and leased Heron UAVs.

“The opportunity the AP-3C platform gives us through its overland ISR role in Afghanistan I think leads nicely into what we’re going to expect from both AIR 7000 phases,” notes DCAF. Eight to perhaps 12 P-8As are on the cards to replace the AP-3Cs under AIR 7000 Phase 2C, augmented by six or seven high altitude maritime surveillance UAVs, likely to be the MQ-8C Triton. “So the AP-3C boys and girls home from the MEAO I think have a much broader appreciation of what a maritime response option can really look like,” says DCAF, who himself started his RAAF career as a P-3B/C navigator, before ‘retreading’ to become an F-111 pilot. In all, the AP-3Cs deployed to the Gulf flew over 1,400 missions in a decade-long detachment.

The Heron UAS detachment has been “an outstanding story”.

“Whilst the Heron option was pulled together rather rapidly and there were, I don’t mind saying, a bunch of naysayers at the beginning suggesting, it won’t do what it is we need it to do, there’s not very many folks saying that now. It’s been reliable. It’s given us that ISR piece that we needed. And it’s not just the ability to look at a TV screen and see a truck driving down the road, it’s all the other information that gets exploited after that mission’s done and fed back into the broaderintelligence piece. That’s a fairly important part of what we do now. ” Indeed that importance is likely to lead to a project to look at a permanent medium altitude long endurance (MALE) UAV to sit above the Army’s Shadows and below the forthcoming AIR 7000 Phase 1B solution.

“It’s probably shown us that we have a bit of a gap between Army tactical UAVs and what we see as the strategic ISR platform,” says DCAF. “So I think our push to try and fill that gap is a real one. ” That project is the requirement up for consideration for inclusion in the next Defence Capability Plan, expected sometime in the next 18 months. In the meantime, there are no plans to extend the Heron lease once its commitments in Afghanistan are completed, meaning there will be a gap, potentially of some years, between returning the Herons and standing up of any future MALE capability.

“There will be a gap. What we’ve found though were two elements here, and I think it was an important education. We went from zero to operating the Heron in 90 days, and about another 90 days later we were operating the Heron effectively.

“I think with a relatively modern operating capability and something that is relatively simple to operate in an hour-by-hour sense, modern aviation folk can adapt to that pretty quickly. So I think the atrophy element of our Heron operations will be slow. ” More broadly the atrophying of skills earned in and experiences from operating in Afghanistan is an issue for a RAAF and an ADF that has been on constant operations for a decade.

“I think this is a real question for Defence now. At what level do we need to maintain those skills? If you’re going outside the wire tomorrow those skills need to be at 100 per cent. Ifyou’re going to go outside the wire in six months time, is 95 per cent okay? And that’s the piece we need to balance up. I think there is, from an Air Force perspective, a need to have given our operators exposure to that high-end, warfighting elements so that they know what it is that is different about operating at a baseline level. If you haven’t seen it, it’s very hard to appreciate the difference. ” That means high-end exercises like the Red Flag deployments in particular, but also Talisman Sabres and Pitch Blacks, will play an even more central role in developing and maintaining skills.

“If you just want to get a Hercules airborne and fly it somewhere with some cargo in the back and land on a proper airfield, Brisbane Airport for argument’s sake, that skill level is at something that is easy to maintain and doesn’t deteriorate very quickly. If, however, you want to do a night mission in mountainous terrain while you’re being shot at then you need to do that often and with a high-fidelity scenario around you,” says AVM Davies.

The US Air Force’s Red Flag series of exercises, in particular, are known for their ‘high fidelity’ scenarios and threats.

“We used to think Red Flag was all about the fighter pilots. It’s not the case. Wedgetail has played an important part, tankers play an important part, ISR plays an important part. We now find ourselves in a Red Flag scenario doing GPS denial, so what are you going to do if you are denied GPS, how do you operate in that environment? All those pieces are now coming into Red Flag. ” But in moving to a more peacetime footing, is Air Force finding, like Army, that as operations draw down increasing numbers of personnel are looking to leave the service?“No, Air Force hasn’t seen that, and I don’t think we will either. I think what we might expect to see is proper use of flexible work arrangements or flexible use of a modern or a contemporary working environment. That is someone who has the right skill-set who was in Air Force for 10 or 12 years who wants to choose to go to an aerospace industry company and work for them for four or five years using the skills they’ve got, making themselves better, and come back to Air Force with those skill-sets. I think we’ll see a little more of that, which I think Air Force should be quite prepared to be able to take on, and I think we are. ” But there are personnel challenges for Air Force.

“We still have some dills around the Defence Force. I think one of the biggest pushes and the one that is going to be tough but absolutely necessary is Pathway to Change, and for Air Force that’s part of our ‘New Horizons’ – the understanding that we need to make our place safe for people to work, we need to have a level playing field that allows folk to maximise their potential, put the best person for the job in the job. That’s a lot of work still to come. ” Another challenge for the Air Force is embedding the practices and cultural change introduced under the Air Force Improvement Program, the RAAF’s contribution to Defence Strategic Reform Program (SRP) to cut costs through more efficient work practices.

“We have begun to turn the corner I think for folk broadly to understand that you don’t have to do business the way you did it last year or the year before or last decade. So I think we’re beginning to see now a lot of really bright young folk bringing ideas about how to do business,” says AVM Davies.

“You might say that the financial situation has pushed us there a littlefaster than we would have gone anyway. I think that’s probably true. ” Real savings have been made, says the deputy chief. One example was a 15 per cent improvement in aircraft online availability for 92WG AP-3C Orions by changing the way they do their maintenance scheduling.

“That has required some real changes in habits and mindsets, changing from, ‘well, we’ve always done it that way’, to new approaches. The piece that’s important for me – the flight sergeant doesn’t tell the corporal to get on with it the way it’s always been done. The flight sergeant is likely to say, ‘that’s a good idea corporal’, and consider how we’re able to incorporate it. ” But the Air Force Improvement Program’s biggest challenge is make sure work practices and cultures change permanently.

“It would be pretty easy to bang a big stick and drive people towards it and say, ‘look, we’ve done our bit and now we’ll go back to our old ways’. That’s why I think the challenge is there for 2014, 2015, the rest of the decade pretty much. The next five years or so will see that improvement become normal practice. And I’ve used this example lots of times – I probably overuse it – but when the seatbelt law came in, many people asked why they need to wear a seatbelt, and now people feel naked when not clicking in.

“That cultural change is the one we’ve got to get to. I see the right vector at the moment. ”

DCAF

Gavin ‘Leo’ Davies joined the RAAF in 1979 as a cadet navigator, and after training served with 11 Squadron flying on P-3B and P-3C Orions from RAAF Base Edinburgh. He re-roled to complete pilot training in 1987 and was selected to fly the F-111 with 1 Squadron at Amberley. Subsequent postings included flying the F-111D on exchange with the USAF and then several roles at 1 Squadron and 82 Wing, both of which he would command.

More recently he has been Director Combat Capability, Director General Capability Planning and air attaché in Washington. He continued to serve as air attaché for six months after being selected as Deputy Chief or Air Force in June 2011.