Page 29 - Australian Defence Mag March 2020

MARCH 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
DEFENCE BUSINESS KC-30A 29
DEFENCE
Spain. The original five jets were built to the same specifications as Qantas com- mercial aircraft (including the same airline seats), with the exception of the MRTT modifications and the additional aircraft or of the same vintage, thereby simplifying support.
“The fleet is now at seven aircraft are we are flying just under 5,000 hours a year, which is a marked in increase in the rate of effort, but also an increased sortie genera- tion,” explained GPCAPT Pesce to ADM.
“This year we will be busy supporting the
for the F-35A as they deploy to the United States, and the ongoing KC-30A Middle East operations will continue to be a key driver for the foreseeable future.”
In addition to its own busy schedule, 33 Sqn has also been assisting allies and partners to introduce their own MRTTs to service, including the air forces of France, Singapore and South Korea.
“We are doing a lot of work with the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and we hope to do more work to assist the Re- public of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) with many of their receiver clearance activities and we’ve also been working closely with
the French Air Force and the (NATO) Mul- tinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport Fleet (MMF),” GPCAPT Pesce added.
“We’re assisting them by providing the ‘read across’ from all our technical data so that they can take delivery of their own aircraft with ready to go, cleared, fighter receivers.”
MAINTENANCE MOVES
However, there have been challenges along the way and the recent ‘elephant walk’ was largely made possible by improvements in
“LAUNCHING FIVE KC-30A AIRCRAFT DEMONSTRATES A CAPACITY TO CONCURRENTLY TRANSPORT OVER 1,000 PASSENGERS OR FERRY MORE THAN 40 HORNETS ACROSS AUSTRALIA.”
exercise program
the way 33 Sqn plans maintenance. The introduction of a new Rolling Maintenance Program early last year takes only one aircraft off the line at a time for routine sched- uled maintenance and sufficient work is performed on it to ensure it can operate without further scheduled main- tenance for six weeks. Together with other reforms, this has resulted in an average three-fold increase in mission- capable aircraft, represented by a 51 percent increase in monthly sortie generation.
Training of personnel has also provided a recent chal- lenge, particularly in the generation of significant numbers of Air Refuelling Operators (AROs), or ‘Boomers’, since the