Page 28 - Australian Defence Mag March 2020

28 DEFENCE BUSINESS KC-30A
MARCH 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
KC-30A – AUSTRALIA’S VERSATILE TANKER
In November last year, five Airbus KC-30A multi-role tanker transport (MRRT) aircraft from the RAAF’s 33 Squadron conducted an ‘elephant walk’ along one of Amberley’s main taxiways, underscoring Australia’s significant air refuelling and transport capability.
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
AN ‘ELEPHANT WALK’ is the mass movement of aircraft under their own power on the ground, in this case represented by five of the RAAF’s seven KC-30As. After the demon- stration, four aircraft departed from Amberley on a range of missions, including air to air refuelling (AAR) training, flight test development and the airlift of civilian firefighters to bushfire affected areas.
Of the two aircraft which did not take part in the demonstra- tion, one aircraft was deployed on operations in the Middle East Area of Operations (MEAO) and the other was under- going scheduled heavy maintenance. While the event was a great public relations event for the RAAF’s Air Mobility Group (AMG), it nevertheless demonstrates the utility of the KC-30A fleet and its ability to perform a range of different missions.
RAAF KC-30As have been supporting the ADF’s Opera- tion Okra in the MEAO on an almost continuous basis since September 2014 and the most recent deployment began in August 2019.
The KC-30A is based on the Airbus A330-200 commercial airliner in service with airlines all over the world and the military derivative is known to Airbus Defence and Space as the MRTT. Sixty MRTTs have been ordered by 13 nations, with around 40 in service so far and other customers in the region include Singapore and South Korea, both of whom have taken delivery of their aircraft in the last year or so. By the end of last year, the global MRTT fleet had accumulated more than 200,000 flight hours in service.
PROVEN CAPABILITY
To put the aforementioned ‘elephant walk’ into some per- spective then-Officer Commanding 86 Wing, Group Cap- tain Steve Pesce noted that Air Force’s capacity to generate that capability has previously been beyond its capability.
“Launching five KC-30A aircraft demonstrates a capac- ity to concurrently transport over 1,000 passengers or ferry more than 40 Hornets across Australia,” he said. “Alterna-
tively, five aircraft could position 1,800 kilometres from base and offload 250 tonnes of fuel to receivers over four hours.”
Other recent demonstrations of the tanker’s capability include supporting the trans-Pacific delivery flight of seven RAAF F-35A joint strike fighters from Luke Air Force Base in Arizona to RAAF Base Williamtown; and the ongoing commitment to the Middle East. In addition, 33 Sqn has supported Air Force Air Combat Group exercises in Japan and in South East Asia as well as the airlift of international United Nations forces to the Middle East.
The KC-30A first entered service in 2011 and although the UK was the first customer Airbus signed a contract with, Australia was the first to take delivery of its aircraft and to- day it remains the lead customer in terms of development.
The original fleet of five aircraft was bolstered by the 2016 Defence White Paper, which oversaw introduction of two additional aircraft under Project Air 7403 Phase 3. These additional airframes were delivered in 2018 and 2019 respectively and are ex-Qantas A330-200s converted to KC-30A configuration by Airbus Defence and Space in
ABOVE: The KC-30A is based on the Airbus A330-200 commercial airliner.