Where Sky Meets Sea

Vessel plays key role in getting trainee pilots on deck

The Royal Australian Naval College at HMAS Creswell is considered to be the cradle of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), graduating its first cadets in 1916. As such, a vessel sitting nearby offshore in Jervis Bay is nothing particularly unusual. However, as part of the recently developed Helicopter Aircrew Training System (HATS), based at HMAS Albatross at Nowra NSW, this vessel is serving a pivotal role in the training of today’s military helicopter pilots. And she goes by the name Sycamore.

Answering the call

When HATS was conceived under the initial guidelines of the AIR 9000 Phase 7 project, the goal was to “provide a new training system incorporating both live and synthetic training elements to consolidate Navy and Army helicopter training into a single joint helicopter aircrew training system…” In doing so, it brought the two services together geographically at Nowra, combined under the banner of the Fleet Air Arm’s 723 Squadron.