Page 40 - Australian Defence Magazine July 2019

RAAF’s Number 92 Wing
New capabilities need new thinking
THE replacement for the Orion (the AP-3C variant of which entered service in 2002), 12 of these aircraft are to be delivered to the RAAF by 2021, providing the capability to conduct Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW), Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Search and Rescue (SAR) missions.
To gain an understanding into how the RAAF will operate the aircraft and prepare its people (both air and ground crew), to the author visited RAAF Edinburgh, the home base for Number 92 Wing, located in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. A tour of the Wing’s new state-of-the-art training facili- ties and time with the Officer Command- ing Number 92 Wing, Group Captain John
Grime gave ADM an insight into the work being done by the Wing.
GPCAPT Grime was keen to emphasise the step-change in capabilities presented by the P-8A. While Poseidon has a suite of sensors – acoustic, electro-optic (EO), electronic support measures (ESM) – and a system to manage these, each is an im- provement on their equivalent, which was on the Orion.
According to GPCAPT Grime, “the in- formation they can get to enable them to do their mission is an order of magnitude change with the P-8. The way it’s connected, both to tasking agencies and to other plat- forms that are working for, maybe, the same tasking agency, is a revelation.”
MATT RAINBOW | ADELAIDE
Last month, the RAAF received its eighth P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol and Response Aircraft (MPRA).
40 | July 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au