Inside the RAAF: The hunters

Australian Aviation visited the two squadrons to report on their current operations, progress of the AP-3C drawdown and their gradually ramping up preparations for its replacement, the Boeing P-8A Poseidon.

Lineage

For three-quarters of a century, 10 and 11 Squadrons of the RAAF have been engaged in roles of long-range maritime patrol, search and rescue and the prosecution of attacks against surface and underwater vessels. Upgrades to the Orion capabilities have seen its role expand to include an increasingly important ISR overland mission, which both squadrons performed during the type’s decade long deployment to the Middle East.

WGCDR John Grime is the commanding officer of 11SQN, who comes to RAAF Edinburgh via the Royal Air Force where he flew Nimrod MR2 aircraft. He explained how labours are divided between 92WG’s two Orion squadrons.

“There’s nothing that they do that we can’t, and vice versa. The tasking essentially comes into the Wing, and gets pushed out to the squadrons. The way the squadron runs is that I’ve got three flight commanders who supervise two crews each. They get to know them, their strengths, weaknesses, what works, what the crews need to work on. The crews themselves make sure they’re proficient, capable, and they all have currency periods in the basic, core roles that we do.”

Both squadrons maintain an equally brisk schedule of training and operational commitments that see them deployed within Australia’s borders and beyond.

“We’ll have a couple of rotation plans to put towards Operations Resolute and Sovereign Borders. Generally one squadron will run that for a period, and one squadron will pick up the exercises like RIMPAC and any other tasking. In the middle weeks, crews will transition and the other squadron will take it over.”

11SQN flight commander SQNLDR Ashley Joslin outlines the nature of the two squadrons’ deployment to Darwin as part of Operation Resolute.

“At the moment we’ve got two crews and several aircraft up there to provide the capability of border protection mission, so that’s been ongoing for a number of years now, generally every crew goes up for two to three weeks at a time, and they’ll do four or five of those deployments a year, per crew. Depending on what’s going on at the time, the crew can fly 10 or 20 hours in a deployment, or up to 130 or even 140 in that three-week period.”

The activities of 11SQN during the month of August illustrate the scope of both training and tasking undertaken by 92WG’s Orions. One aircraft was deployed to Honiara to conduct maritime surveillance over the Bismarck Sea as part of Operation Island Chief (assisting the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency Intelligence Team with anti-fisheries interdiction), while another was in Guam as part of the international sub-hunting wargames, Exercise GUAMEX.

Team dynamic

With a crew comprising two pilots, two flight engineers, a tactical co-ordinator (TACCO), navigation/communication officer (NAVCOM), a sensor employment manager (SEM) and six airborne electronic analysts (AEA), the Orion boasts the largest complement of any aircraft in the RAAF.

Managing such a large crew presents relatively few problems, according to WGCDR Grime, with roles well defined. “It’s not difficult, but it’s an awareness you’ve got to have. Within the crews there are little groups – flightdeck, tactical officer group, sensor employment managers (SEM), ACOs, and then you’ve got the sensor operators themselves. In one sense, there are groups within groups and that’s where you look at how people interact.”

Vital to the performance of any AP‑3C is the TACCO, who essentially fights the aircraft. “I’ll look carefully at the TACCO and SEM interaction. The SEMs are more experienced; they’re former AEAs or sensor ops, so they’ve got a real depth of maritime aviation specialised knowledge, but they don’t ‘fight’ the aircraft like the TACCO does. Two very strong-willed TACCO/ SEMs could find it difficult to let the other one get on with their job. But likewise you don’t want inexperienced or more consultative guys, you then struggle for the decision-making.

“But the advantage you get out of it, is that the captain is in charge and unity of command is a military tenet, and when the deed needs to happen, ultimately the captain will consult his TACCO or SEM to the point where the crew says ‘ok, we’ll go that way, happy with that’.”

Poseidon on the horizon

The Boeing P-8A Poseidon has been confirmed as the manned component of Australia’s future maritime patrol force mix, with acquisition in the MQ‑4C Triton UAV as part of AIR 7000, Phase 1B expected to be confirmed in the 2015 Defence White Paper.

Meanwhile, against the backdrop of a gradual AP-3C drawdown, preparations to introduce the P-8A into ADF service are well underway.

WGCDR Grime explained that a number of personnel from both 10 and 11SQNS have been tapped to undergo training on the Poseidon in the US: “Apart from a TACCO here who did four years in [the US Navy’s P-8 training squadron] VP-30, we’ve got ten guys going this year, ‘The Jacskonville 10’, as we call them. They’re comprised of seven aircrew and three groundies, and they’ll work with VP-30 to become instructors, ready for when our first full crews and maintainers go across.”

Careful consideration went into the selection of the ten Australians due to train in Florida, according to WGCDR Grime.

“There was a very specific selection process. You want people with instructional ability, strong potential, experience and you need to make sure they’re wanting to stay in the Wing when they get back because they’re some lucky people.”

Having greatly impressed the AP‑3C community with its performance during Operation Southern Indian Ocean, there is growing excitement about Poseidon’s arrival.

“There’s a real feel around the squadron, because the first full crew is going in 2016, and there’s people of all kinds – pilots, TACCOs, operators – and they can all do the maths and realise they’re going to be one of the first in line. You can’t send all of your really experienced people, because when they come back, they’re all due for posting; they’re the ones going out to be QFIs or qualified navigation instructors. So, you’re going to have to send some ‘boggies’. They’re going to be some of the first crews to transition to P-8s. So you get some people with a real smile on their faces.”

Those 92WG personnel who have seen the aircraft up close, including its visit to RAAF Edinburgh for the 75th anniversary celebrations, have lauded a range of features they say represent a definitive advance in both capability and comfort. Specifically, they cited the Poseidon’s large capacity bomb bay, high resolution imagery turret, widescreen monitors, overall systems integration and countermeasure suite. Of particular note was the 737 derivative’s generous crew accommodation with additional seating and storage for over a dozen, permitting self-deployment with maintenance personnel.

SQNLDR Joslin was similarly favourable: “It still had the new car smell, and it’s been designed from the ground up; everything is very ergonomic and it seems to have been built for aircrew. From a pilot’s point of view, I’m hugely excited. It’s a modern aircraft with modern navigation system, HUD and its integration with the backend is fantastic.”

Despite the positive reception afforded to the Poseidon, SQNLDR Joslin noted there was one group in the Wing who were a little less sanguine. “All the aircrew are very excited about it. Except for the flight engineers.”

75th celebrations

The P-8A being closely scrutinised at RAAF Edinburgh in October is operated by the US Navy’s second Poseidon squadron, VP-5. The ‘Mad Foxes’ are based in NAS Jacksonville, with the aircraft present at Edinburgh forming part of the squadron’s detachment to Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan.

SQNLDR Joslin, who spearheaded the joint anniversary organisation, explained how the aircraft came to play a part in the weekend’s proceedings.

“I wanted to get where the squadron has been, so along with the Catalina and Neptune [which subsequently went u/s], I wanted something to show the spread of 92WG. I called in a few favours with Australians who are in the States on exchange, and worked out who we needed to talk to, and in the end, Air Commander Australia, AVM Gavin Turnbull, invited the US to come to our anniversary, specifically with a P-8 for that reason.”

However, for many the enduring image of the two squadrons’ 75th anniversary celebrations will be of the four-ship formation of AP-3Cs over their home city of Adelaide. Formation flying in such a large aircraft like the Orion is uncommon in Australia, and as SQNLDR Joslin explained, crews readily applied themselves to the challenge.

“We used a mix of guys who’d flown formation in the P-3 and guys who haven’t, and with the number of platforms we have it’s very difficult to get that many serviceable on a day, [but] we were lucky enough in that [Air Force] wanted us to do a formation for the 75th. We had a two-ship practice the week prior, and we managed to get a three-ship practice on the Wednesday prior, and then on the day we did the four-ship. Nobody had flown a fourship in a P-3 before, so they did a pretty good job.”

Those executing the flypast drew on considerable experience, with SQNLDR Joslin noting that aircrew selected were second tour captains with a minimum 2,500 hours on Orions (and 1,000 hours on PC-9s as QFIs at 2FTS or BFTS). Experienced or not, the effort of keeping station with three other aircraft in the Orion during the two-hour flight demanded great stamina. “It does wear you out, it’s not like flying in a PC-9 or CT-4. The P-3 has got so much more inertia, and the controls are so much heavier than a PC-9, the sheer size of the aircraft that you’re trying to fly next to makes it that bit more challenging. That said, all the basics are the same.”

Motive power

A wealth of experience on the Nimrod and Orion (in addition to an hour’s command time in HARS’ visiting Catalina) has left WGCDR John Grime ideally placed to reflect on the respective merits of propeller-driven versus jetpowered maritime patrol aircraft.

“If I’m honest, the Nimrod was easier to fly than the P-3. My first QFI [in the RAF] reckoned I regarded rudders as footrests. Every time you change the power on a P-3, you have to move your feet, because the props will spin the same, constant way so that the thrust line’s displaced. And because it’s not down the centre, the aircraft yaws, so you have to correct that with rudder. Whereas the Nimrod was a jet, with engines close to the wing root, so it didn’t matter. It’s the same with P-8.”

It is not only in terms of flight characteristics that the two powerplants differ. There are also differing costs and benefits related to maintenance. WGCDR Grime continued: “In terms of jet versus propeller, you do get a bit of extra transit speed with jets, and the P-8 is Mach .78, whereas we fly more Mach .55. But a jet will burn more fuel at low level than we will. You trade one off for the other. In one sense, jets are easier to service. Effectively the P-3 has a jet engine; we just have a prop on the front. and it adds a level of complexity. If something goes wrong with the prop, for example, it might be the valves controlling pressures within the prop dome housing which control the blade angle, then the prop needs to be rigged properly and then it needs a test flight to prove it works. So in that sense, a P-8 is easier to operate.”

The dyin’ Orion

As the AP-3C fleet’s planned withdrawal date approaches in 2019, aircraft are now being removed from service when it becomes uneconomical to keep them in service. They are then being ‘parted out’ and subsequently scrapped.

WGCDR Grime explained the thinking underpinning the retirement process: “We have a drawdown plan, being run by Maritime Patrol Systems Program Office (MPSPO). They look at when these aircraft are due for a major service like an R3, where they take the engines and control surfaces off, do some corrosion remediation, all of which gives you a number of thousand of hours before it needs to be done again. MPSPO look at it and say ‘it’s due to have another R3, so we’ll retire that one’. So there is a drawdown plan going on now. And that becomes complicated when the P-8s start arriving.”

Commemorative nose art worn by 10 and 11SQN Orions duly acknowledged the aircraft such as the Sunderland, Catalina, Lincoln Mk31 and Neptune that have helped to establish the reputation of both 92WG’s squadrons as maritime aviators par excellence. It is the Orion, however, that looms largest in the history of both units, having served for nearly 50 of their 75 years.

Not surprisingly, its inevitable passing will be greatly mourned. As SQNLDR Joslin reflected: “It’s definitely a pilot’s aircraft. It doesn’t have the automation that other aircraft have. The autopilot is very basic – it holds pitch, yaw, roll and altitude. And you can’t couple it to the navigation system and it can’t fly to waypoints. So it’s all hands and feet-type flying. When we’re flying the P-3 and we get down to 100ft over water, and you’ve got a number of fishing boats for example, it’s all hands-on flying, really throwing the aircraft around, and you can get some significant roll rates. It’s surprising what it’s capable of. I’m going to miss flying it.”