Page 32 - Australian Defence Magazine Feb 2020
P. 32

32  AIRPOWER  5TH GEN
FEBRUARY 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
ONE OF THE MOST CAPABLE AIR FORCES IN THE WORLD?
The RAAF defends Australia’s air, space and cyber domains, in cooperation with the Navy, Army and coalition partners. It does this by providing air defence, surveillance and reconnaissance, air transport and strike capabilities. Its stated goal is to become a fifth-generation air force.
ROB NAPIER | MELBOURNE
ABOVE: The MQ-4C Triton will provide broad-range maritime surveillance.
THE RAAF operates some of the world’s most ad- vanced military aircraft and technologies. More than 14,000 full-time personnel and 4,000 re- servists are stationed across Australia, with small
contingents deployed overseas. However its effective size is much larger as many uniformed roles have been replaced by public servants and civilian contractors.
Eight years have passed since former Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Geoff Brown claimed, “The RAAF is one of the most capable air forces in the world and certainly the best in our region.”
With such rapid change in world affairs since AIRMSHL Brown made that comment, ADM asked him whether this statement is still true today and how it sits with the goal of achieving fifth-generation capability.
“Building a fifth-generation Air Force is an ambitious goal, but it’s a goal worth setting. Government has continued to commit to new technology, improved approaches to training, and smarter ways to organise and manage the people who operate and maintain our aircraft. I have absolutely no doubt that the RAAF is still one of the most capable air forces in the world, and certainly the best in our region. And I am equally confident that we have the people at all levels of the organisation to build a fifth-generation force that will contin- ue to protect Australia’s interests,” AIRMSHL Brown said.
THE TIDES OF CHANGE
The drive to achieve greater efficiencies dates back to the late 80s. With service chiefs changing the way Defence approached leadership and organisational development, the concept of Force Element Groups (FEG) was born. Air Force moved away from the old Operational Command/Support Command mod- el, replacing it with Air Command, which manages six FEGs:
■ AirMobilityGroup–airliftandaerialrefuellingcapability
■ Air Combat Group – air combat capability
■ Surveillance and Response Group – surveillance and re-
connaissance capability
■ Combat Support Group – combat support and air base
operations capability
■ Air Warfare Centre – information warfare, intelligence
and capability development
NORTHROP GRUMMAN


































































































   30   31   32   33   34