Ready or not

And the planned appearance at the Avalon Airshow of the RAAF’s first two F-35As in early March will only further serve to highlight the fact that Air Force’s much-vaunted ‘fifth-gen’ future is here now.

Indeed Avalon Airshow attendees will be able to see on display almost every piece of equipment that will make up that fifth-gen Air Force. As not only will the F-35A make its debut wearing RAAF roundels, but so to will the EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft and the P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance platform. And they’ll be jointed on the flightline by the E-7A Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft, while a mockup of the MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance UAV will be on show outside the trade show halls.

All of these will be key tools for Air Force to exploit in the information age.

(As an aside Avalon shapes as the high watermark in the recapitalisation of the ADF’s aircraft fleets – also in line to make their debuts wearing the kangaroo roundel will be the PC‑21 trainer, C-27J tactical airlifter, the MH‑60R ‘Romeo’ Seahawk maritime combat helicopter, the CH‑47F Chinook heavylift helicopter and the EC135 helicopter aircrew trainer.)

But as Air Force has recognised for some time, it is one thing to operate advanced ‘fifth-gen’ aircraft, it is another thing to operate them and network them to best exploit the huge amounts of data and information they generate. Hence Plan Jericho, and now the Air Force’s new strategy document, due to be formally released by Chief or Air Force Air Marshal Leo Davies at his symposium on the day before Avalon begins.

“The Air Force Strategy outlines a set of strategic change vectors that will shape how Air Force will transform to a fifthgeneration force over the next decade and beyond – a period of increasing strategic uncertainty, rapid change and complex operational challenges,” CAF’s foreword to the strategy reads. Perhaps the most pertinent word in that statement is “change”.

Air Force Strategy is just the latest in a number of change and reform programs that Air Force has implemented, such as the Air Force Improvement program and Plan Jericho, not to mention broader Defence change programs which have affected the RAAF, from the Strategic Reform Program to One Defence.

In an interview with Australian Aviation CAF acknowledges the risk of change fatigue. But he also acknowledges the success of Plan Jericho, which has focused on achieving practical results from small demonstrations, and which has encouraged a culture of greater innovation, as laying the foundations for the Air Force Strategy, for showing that change done properly brings results.

That’s a mindset and approach that will be needed to best exploit the capabilities of the F-35A, EA‑18G, F/A-18F, E-7A, P-8A, MQ-4C et al.

But it is also a mindset and approach needed to foster and develop the workforce that will operate and exploit those systems, and that which will generate the best ideas for new and better ways of doing things.

For as seeing the F-35A wearing a RAAF roundel at Avalon will so powerfully demonstrate, the fifth-gen future is here already. Ready or not.