Agile & adaptable?

“It’s been a real privilege the last three years. I take it back even six, seven years as DCAF (Deputy Chief of Air Force) because we’ve been able to set a direction for Air Force. I think for the future the Air Force is pretty well set up platform-wise, for the next 20 or 30 years. We’ve also started this ‘people and processes’ work. I think there’s a lot of work to do in that space but, if we get that right, we’ll have a very flexible and agile, adaptable organisation. Not that it’s not successful at the moment, it can just be better. ” So how do you measure that success? “You measure it in terms of the Okra.

The PM decides he wants to go to Iraq with this package. Okay, we’ll launch in a week. There are not many organisations that can do that. I’m not sure we could’ve done it 10 years ago either. ” Continues CAF, “It’s a far more operationally-focused outfit and we go over there very well equipped too. We’re not behind in any technology, and if you look forward, between JSF, P-8s, Tritons, it looks pretty good from an equipment point of view. ” Geoff Brown has been Chief of Air Force since July 2011 (his original three year term was extended by one year in 2014) and before that was Deputy Chief from June 2008. His CV is well-rounded with the highlights that you would expect for a CAF – command of a fast jet squadron (3SQN) and wing (82WG), Commander Air Combat Group and the seemingly-mandatory stint as Director General Capability Planning.

He is also particularly well placed to compare the operational readiness of the Royal Australian Air Force he leads today with the RAAF of just over 10 years ago which deployed to the Middle East for the 2003 Iraq war as he commanded RAAF classic Hornets and Hercules committed to that campaign.

“I think to look back at 2003, for me it was amazing to see the difference in the way we deployed. You can talk about capability development, and as much as we complain about the slow processes sometimes, 11 years later it was a total self deployment. One week after the PM said ‘go’ we were there. A week after that we started operations. It’s really been relatively

We’ve been able to set a direction for Air Force.

seamless, and we fitted into the coalition very easily.

“I think we’ve learnt our lessons over the last 10 years. ” Under the operation name ‘Okra’ the RAAF deployed six Super Hornets, a KC-30A tanker-transport and a Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft to Al Minhad Air Base near Dubai last September, and since October they have been flying operational combat missions over Iraq as part of the US-led coalition effort to counter ISIL.

“Operations give the team a good focus,” CAF says.

“In lots of ways, the team’s been very excited about the Okra Operation because we’ve taken three premium capabilities across there and tested them in operations. ” All three aircraft types have been out-performing expectations, particularly the KC-30A and Wedgetail which have not yet reached their final operational capability (FOC) milestone which denotes a mature capability that meets all of its contracted specifications, and with the organisational structures in place and crews trained to operate and support them.

The KC-30A has been refuelling “anything with a probe”, says Brown, and has experienced “incredible” serviceability rates. “It is running at 98 per cent serviceability, 11 million pounds of gas has been offloaded to date, and it’s often doing two sorties a day. ” “Wedgetail, again, is running on very high serviceability rates. It’s been really interesting to see the Wedgetail in operation. I went flying with them when I was there at Christmas and it does the orbit out of the middle of Iraq basically.

We were over Sinjar mountain and down to the Haditha dam which is basically our orbit, looking into Syria, so it’s controlling the Syrian fight as well as what’s going on in Iraq. So, on average, 70 to 80 odd aeroplanes, coordinating the strikes with the JTACs [joint terminal attack controllers], the mid-air refuelling, looking at the Syrians launch off their airfields and keeping track of them so that they don’t come near coalition aircraft.

“I was up with them for 12 hours and we certainly had the transits on each end but they work pretty hard for nine hours,” says the one-time head of the Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems Program Office. “There wasn’t too much of a break in between. So it’s been great for that aeroplane and it’s great to see it in the overland environment. We’ve still got one more radar drop to do with it but gee, it’s hard to fault the system’s performance. ” The six Super Hornets have been busy, too.

“As of today the Super Hornets have flown 2,200 hours. We’ve only done about 21,000 hours since we got the jet so a little over 10 per cent of the total hoursare combat hours. In that time they’ve dropped 180 odd bombs, including two last night, and there’s been a little bit of strafing as well. ” Like the Wedgetail and KC-30A, the Super Hornet is a state-of-the-art platform proving its worth, says CAF.

“I don’t think there’s anything better than the Super Hornet for targeting. It can do its own coordinates with the GBU-38. There’s a lot of flexibility with the platform, and you see that in the sort of strikes they do. Some can be compounds, some are checkpoints. ” CAF explains that: “It’s not a large air campaign. We’re probably only doing two to three strikes a week, on average. But they’re done at great distance – 1,200 nautical miles away from base. ” And it is a complex operation too. “It is a complex operation because of the rules of engagement. There are some deliberate strikes but a lot of it’s in terms of supporting ground forces when they get attacked. We’ve done a lot of good work in northern Iraq with Peshmerga around Sinjar, and they’ve had some quite successful operations. ” To sustain its presence in the Middle East, the Air Force is working to rotate personnel and aircraft through the theatre on a regular basis. “The idea at the moment is to give each squadron probably six months. In each of those six months they’ll rotate aircrew through once so we don’t lose a lot of the high-end skills. So we’ll put a classic Hornet squadron in there in March and rotate the classic Hornet squadrons through and then we’ll go back to the Super Hornet. It’s also to even out the hours on the jets too, because we are flying the jets about four times the peace time rate. ” Regular rotations also ensure fast jet crews don’t lose too much currency in air-to-air skills and minimise disruption to the squadron’s training program.

“Strike operations are only one element of what strike fighters do. So, while they’re getting very good at strike operations and collateral damage estimations, what atrophies over time is the pure fighter skills. So, if you leave them in theatre for three to four months, that’s almost like one of our normal training programs, and then you can bring them back so you haven’t lost any of that capability. ” That rotation of squadrons means the RAAF could keep combat aircraft in theatre effectively indefinitely. “It’s sustainable indefinitely. It’ll get a little more exciting for us as we come up to the JSF transition – we’ll have to be a little bit more careful there – but I’m not sure that the deployment is going to go that long. ”For the Wedgetail and KC-30A, meanwhile, Okra means potential, but “manageable” delays to both capabilities achieving their FOC.

“Both the tanker and the Wedgetail are still to reach FOC. The deployment may slow down us reaching our final operational capability – may. We haven’t determined that. ” Explains CAF, for Wedgetail, “the big FOC issue was number of crews. So we’ve now got that down to what we can sustain in theatre, but Okra does complicate building the number of crews. ” But operations also tests and validates the Wedgetail’s capabilities, and helps inform any future development paths.

“One of the things we had to put in, which we knew about, was a system called mIRC [military internet relay chat], which is the way that they communicate C2 [command and control] around theatre. It’s like a secure chat system. So we made a temporary fit to the aeroplane for that. I think it’s informed some of the development pathways that we need to take with Wedgetail, so it’s been good from that point of view. ” That experience in connecting networks and working within connected networks is also proving very informative for Plan Jericho, CAF’s ambitious plan to maximise the efficiency and flexibility of new RAAF capabilities like the F-35, EA- 18G Growler and Wedgetail by breaking down entrenched cultural and procedural barriers, removing unnecessary processes and shortening capability development times, and looking for new and innovative ways of operating new and upgraded capabilities.

First announced during a Williams Foundation dinner in Canberra in May last year, CAF was due to formally launch Plan Jericho at his Chief of Air Force symposium in Melbourne on February 23, based around three key implementation themes of “harnessing the combat potential of a fully integrated force; developing an innovative and empowered workforce; and changing the way we acquire and sustain capability. ” “There are a number of threads,” CAF explains of Jericho “There are the tactics, techniques and procedures that we’re using with the aeroplanes now, and what we need to adapt to to get it fully synced up. ” Continues AIRMSHL Brown, “the other one is around how we actually glue it all together. . . So there’s some capability development things and that’s part of the implementation plans that we want to put together. ”

The other thread is around how we actually glue it all together.

Two of the key elements in Air Force implementing Plan Jericho is the appointment of two group captains to Air Force Headquarters who will have responsibility for the continued development of Jericho, and, potentially, the establishment of a new Air Warfare Centre.

“We are looking very seriously at forming an Air Warfare Centre. We’ve got to do that with extant resources but that’s bringing together all the elements of the Air Force which will achieve Plan Jericho. ” Another element is the Air Force’s input to the Defence ‘First Principles’ review concerning procurement processes. “Because I still see that as a core enabler because if we can’t do procurement faster and more efficiently than we do, we’ll continue to fall behind in technology. ” But Jericho itself won’t likely result in major procurement programs.

“I’m not staking out a big part of the DCP [Defence Capability Plan] and I don’t want to do that. I think what it’ll lead to is Air Force championing many of those glue projects and maybe defining exactly what they need to be so that they can actually join it up across the ADF. ” One of those glue projects is the existing JP [Joint Project] 2096, which, according to the latest DCP, “focuses on the provision of the means by which ISR assets across Defence are integrated into the Australian Defence ISR Integration Backbone (ADIIB) architecture”; CAF also highlights better integrating the Army’s Tiger ARH helicopter’s Eurogrid datalink with other ADF platforms and recent trials where video imagery from a Heron UAV is fed to C-17s and C-130Js inflight, which would allow special forces onboard to dynamically retask their mission, as examples of the kinds of integration Plan Jericho would strive to achieve.

Experiments such as those are currently being conducted by the relevant Force Element Group (FEG), while a new Air Warfare Centre would either support, or take responsibility for, those experiments in the future.

What exact form an Air Warfare Centre takes is still being evaluated, but it would either work closely with or take over responsibility for elements from the RAAF’s Aerospace Operational Support Group.

“It might be that AOSG becomes the Air Warfare Centre, or elements of it. We’re just looking at the structural pieces that we can do. Having said that, it’s got to be all resource neutral,” CAF notes.

“Additionally, the team here will lead it for the next 12 months and will put together a lot of the implementationplans, but I believe this will go further forward. ” CAF has also been keen to receive input from defence industry into the Jericho process, and many of the major defence companies responded to his call at Jericho’s launch last May for “help with the intellectual horsepower in terms of thinking through how we actually maximise those fifth generation capabilities”, he said at the time.

“I’ve had some great responses from industry, and that’s started to inform our thinking,” says CAF. “There have been formal presentations and they’ve produced white papers on Jericho. So it’s had a very enthusiastic response from industry and I’ve been more than pleased with what they’ve come up with. There’s a lot of stuff out there in industry that’s already developed that they can see feeds into the vision. ” AIRMSHL Brown says industry has done some “great work, a lot of good thinking about it. It’s right across our capability space as to where we might go.

“So you’ll see us start to rethink some of our C2 projects, where we take Vigilare, where we take Wedgetail, so we can make it nicely joined up. ” But perhaps most important to realising Jericho’s vision is the Air Force personnel who too have been challenged to offer ideas and to avoid ‘stove pipe’ thinking. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm for it in the service because I think they look at the way we do business and say ‘there are better ways’ and, as you look at industry, you benchmark yourself and say ‘why do we continue to do this?’. I think some of our programs, particularly the New Horizons cultural piece, fits into where Jericho needs to go anyway, because we’ve got a workforce that’s willing to be innovative and agile and flexible. ” That same increasing agility and flexibility has helped yield savings and increased aircraft availability thanks to reforms introduced under the Air Force Improvement efficiencies across Air Force.

“When you look at Air Force Improvement, we’ve got a $1. 6 billion sustainment budget. On average, we’ve saved over $200 million a year since 2010. So it’s getting close to $1 billion. You can’t say that that’s an unsuccessful reform. I’d give that a big tick. That’s driven changes that we’re doing inside our tactical and operational regulations so that we can actually make maintenance better. It’s driven a maintenance improvement project inside Air Force which will reduce the number of people we’ve actually got involved in maintenance, and it involves benchmarking against industry. ” CAF also highlights the RAAF’s recent air safetyrecord as evidence of the organisation’s ability to reform and adapt.

“There are three pillars across New Horizons. Look at the safety pillar, a path the Air Force has been on since 1999. . . Touch wood, the Air Force’s last accident was in 1998. So you’ve now got squadron leaders in squadrons that have never seen an aircraft accident.

“[Accidents used to be] normal because we basically dragged a World War 2 culture right through to the 1990s, where it was almost acceptable to have accidents. That’s an enormous change that we get little credit for. ” Air Force’s ability to change cultural practices and norms is again being exercised with New Horizons. Launched by CAF in September 2012, New Horizons is Air Force’s program of cultural change as part of the Department of Defence’s Pathway to Change iniative.

“We had the Skype affair, we had the Broderick Review [into the ‘Treatment of Women in the ADF’], and I think there’s just been a general realisation that a diverse, inclusive workforce is probably a better workforce for us,” CAF notes.

“Now, we have had cultural change programs in Air Force that started back in Angus Houston’s time, in 2002. In lots of ways, the Broderick Review and Skype have allowed us to reinvigorate aspects of that. So I think they’ve been pretty successful. Like any organisation, we’ve still got workplaces out there that aren’t perfect, but that’s reducing. ” New Horizons is centred on the Air Force’s stated values of respect, excellence, agility, dedication, integrity and teamwork.

“I am absolutely committed to shaping Air Force as an organisation of people that have the courage to always do the right thing. We need to be honest, ethical and demonstrate sound judgement,” CAF said at the time of launching New Horizons.

But has it been a challege for Air Force to implement New Horizons, deploy for Operation Okra, and transition to new aircraft types all while looking to the future with Plan Jericho? “Every organisation has got a purpose, ours is a pretty clear purpose,” CAF says. “It’s good platforms, people and processes. If you say platform-wise, from a headquarters point of view, a lot of that work’s been done, although we’ll continue to look at execution. The next thing to look at is the overall cultural piece with people and processes, and that’s where you’re going to get the improvement in the organisation.

“So the focus on the people part, I think, is where Air

We’ve got a workforce that’s willing to be innovative and agile.

Force gets its next jump in capability. ” That jump will go further if Air Force is successful in its bid to increase its manning levels.

“I think we could get more capability out of what we’ve got with just a few more people,” CAF says.

“One thousand would be nice. I think that would allow us to crew all the platforms up a little bit more than what we’ve got. It’d give me a bit more flexibility with intel support and security support for the new platforms. ” Does that mean that CAF feels the Air Force is a little lean at the moment? “Yes, I think we are. We’ve probably leaned off our airbase support a little bit too much. We’ll have to go back and have a look at that.

“So, if I was to describe a prime limitation, I’d just say it’s the number of people in the Air Force. ” A bid for more personnel is being considered as part of the new Defence White Paper process now underway (the new Defence White Paper is due for release mid-year).

And in arguing that case, AIRMSHL Brown highlights that the RAAF is “actually the cheapest service to operate. We have the smallest fraction of the defence budget of the three services. I think we’re pretty efficient in the way that we do business. ” An increase in personnel could be “easily” managed CAF says, particularly with low ‘wastage’ rates at the moment (currently around six per cent a year).

“So we’ve got more capacity in our training. But that is all part of the White Paper deliberations. It’s up to government as to what they wish to finance and what capability they want. ” In the meantime Air Force continues to manage and plan for a number of new aircraft and capability transitions.

“These transitions are not trivial things to do,” CAF observes. “C-27J comes back in a month or two. So that training is underway in the States. P-8 training has already started. Balancing all those transitions is not an easy task, especially if we’re committed to operations, especially if we even have half the year we had last year. ” The biggest transition of all will be from the classic Hornets to the F-35A later this decade. But CAF says he is comfortable with transition planning and timelines to date.

“I think our timing’s probably about right to get into it. ” When it does arrive, it should further ensure the RAAF can achieve Geoff Brown’s aim of an “innovative and agile and flexible” service.