Inside the RAAF: On Short notice

Operation Okra

The US-led multinational coalition to defeat ISIL comprises Canada, France, Britain, Australia, Jordan, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Morocco.

Initially, in August 2014, Australia’s contribution took the form of air drops by 37SQN C-130Js over Mt Sinjar to ethnic minorities threatened with massacre by rampaging ISIL forces. The next month saw combined Air Mobility Group C-130Js and C-17s drop over 200 tonnes of ammunition and weapons to Kurdish Pehsmerga forces who were then providing valiant resistance to ISIL’s ongoing offensive.

By October, Prime Minister Tony Abbott had pledged Australian air assets to the campaign, with 600 ADF personnel deploying to the Middle East in support of Okra, with the majority (400) serving under the Air Task Group (ATG) and the balance under the Special Operations Task Group (SOTG), assisting the Iraqi army.

ATG began its prosecution of Operation Okra in October with six F/A-18F Super Hornets, a KC‑30A tanker and one E-7 Wedgetail, all based at Al Minhad Air Base near Dubai in the UAE. The Combined Air Operations Centre that generates the daily mission taskings for the coalition forces is located at the Al-Udeid air base in neighbouring Qatar, 700km away.

In April 2015, the six Super Hornets returned home to their RAAF Amberley base, replaced in theatre by six classic Hornets from RAAF Tindal-based 75SQN.

The RAAF’s deployment of such a broad spectrum of force-multiplying, complementary capabilities to a coalition operation is a departure from previous practice, and has seen Air Combat Group Super Hornets refuelled from Air Mobility Group 33SQN tankers while under the control of Surveillance and Response Group Wedgetails in the skies above Iraq.

ROE and red cards

GPCAPT Robert Denney, Chief of Staff Headquarters Air Combat Group, told Australian Aviation that another unique aspect of the deployment was the lack of any work-up prior to deployment.

“The time from government announcement to operations was very quick. So there wasn’t an opportunity to have a traditional work-up and that’s why, as a defence force, we have to maintain a high state of readiness at all times. In an ideal world we have time to work up for these types of operations, however these things can happen pretty quickly so we essentially rely on those core skills that we maintain on a dayto-day basis, to be able to deliver on this occasion.”

GPCAPT Denney explained that while Australian aircrew are employed on taskings decided at a coalition level, they operate over Iraq under rules of engagement (ROE) specified by the Australian government.

Aircrew are thus permitted to play the so-called ‘red card’ during the prosecution of a ground attack if they feel that unacceptable collateral damage might result.

“We know our men and women in the cockpit are highly trained, knowledgeable and skillful,” GPCAPT Denney explained. “And that gives us the flexibility to throw things into the cockpit more readily when the Air Operation Centre doesn’t have the full picture. But there’s time when the AOC may have a better picture than those in the cockpit and in those circumstances we’re more hesitant to give more responsibility to those in the cockpit.”

Okra in action

On the evening of October 5 ATG’s Super Hornets flew their first missions over Iraq, and three days later had engaged Islamic State targets. Australian Supers were engaged as part of a wider coalition effort to destroy a wide variety of vital targets such as tanks, HMMWVs (high mobility multi-wheeled vehicles), staging areas, buildings, fighting positions and oil collection points and refineries, the latter especially crucial as their destruction deprives the Islamic State of vital, illicit revenue.

“Primarily, there were two main roles – deliberate strike missions, targets identified in advance, going out and spiking them. And close air support for the Iraqi security forces and other coalition forces on the ground in close proximity to the enemy.”

Staging out of Al Minhad, the Super Hornets would fly along the Arabian Gulf, staying well clear of Iranian airspace to their right as they tracked towards northern Iraq. En route air-toair refuelling occurred two hours into the sortie.

Operational tempo

In a seven month deployment, ACG’s six F/A-18Fs flew roughly 400 missions over Iraq and accrued 3,300 hours of flight time. Australia was not allocated a set area of operations but rather was assigned target areas on an as-needed basis. The fluid nature of the conflict saw high tempo operations being conducted both during the day and at night.

“We were flying between two and four Supers a day, the Wedgetail a few days a week, and the tanker one or two sorties a day. It’s about two hours each way, depending on where in the battlespace we were going, so four hours in and out. And that’s a pretty impressive rate of effort for airframe and crew, over the long haul,” GPCAPT Denney explained.

“There was no dedicated split – operations would happen any time of day or night. Over a long period you would operate around the clock, but not simultaneously around the clock. The systems on the aircraft provide you that opportunity.”

With prodigious amounts of fuel available from tankers such as the KC-30, missions of 10 hours were not unknown for Super Hornet crews. GPCAPT Denney outlined how fatigue among aircrew was managed: “It was a challenge, over a long period, and the real challenge is sustaining that for months on end. It’s something that we’ve been cognisant of, and we haven’t stretched our men and women too far. So it’s been an interesting learning experience. Even the logistics of food and water and all those things in the cockpit is quite a challenge. But, the aircrew themselves have been really good at identifying when they’re starting to get tired [so we could] manage that.”

Deploy and sustain

Sustainment of aircraft in the Middle East for long periods was perfected by the RAAF during the AP-3C’s and C-130J’s long stints in theatre. Nonetheless, keeping three complex weapon systems combat ready requires careful logistical management,

“It’s a big effort and a real challenge to maintain so far from home. Even if you put something on an aircraft and send it over [to the Middle East], you’re talking 15 hours of sheer transit time, let alone the cost of doing that every time you need a spare tyre. The other side of that is making sure you don’t have too many logistics in theatre. The logisticians did a sensational job of keeping those aircraft going, going and going.”

Brutal realities

As if further evidence of Islamic State’s depravity was warranted, IS fighters in February burnt alive a Jordanian F-16 pilot, First Lietuenant Muadh al-Kasasbeh, who had been shot down by a heat-seeking missile near the city of Raqqa.

“Everyone was steeled to the fact that there’s a bunch of people on the ground who do not wish us well. We had our crews trained for that. It put a personal face on the risk associated with that. It’s not something they pushed to the back but to the front. It was a case of asking, ‘how do we manage that individually and collectively?’ So, their response was to become more focused on the mission.”

Exit Super, enter classic

After seven months of sustained operations, 1SQN aircrew and support personnel were rotated back to RAAF Amberley, to be replaced at Al Minhad by 75SQN F/A-18As following a comprehensive handover process that saw the two squadrons operate simultaneously for a brief period.

As to why classics are replacing Supers as the ATG’s primary strike asset, GPCAPT Denney pointed out: “Partly it’s about aircrew – we could keep having the same aircrew to go over there, but that would really put them in a situation over the long term. So we’re instituting a long-term, sustainable plan, and we’re spreading it around Air Combat Group. The classics are more than capable of doing the job over there, so there was no reason not to spread the task and experience across the workforce.

“Because we’ve got three times as many classics as Supers, we’ll rotate a number of classic units through there and go back to the Super in time.”