Page 42 - Australian Defence Magazine July 2019
P. 42

DEFENCE
LAND SURVEILLANCE
P-8A
“GPCAPT Grime recognises that RAAF is only just starting to exploit the capabilities presented
by Poseidon.”
the weapons bay), enables ground crews to learn how to maintain the various parts of the Poseidon with highly realistic replicas. Computer-based simulators also enable ground crews to learn how to deal with a variety of system issues without having to touch an actual aircraft.
Two full-motion cockpit simulators for the aircraft’s pilots enable most introduc- tory training to be conducted off-aircraft, saving time and resources. These can also be used to simulate complex in-flight emergen- cies, which would be too risky to subject an actual aircraft (and crew) to.
These ‘front-end’ simulators can be vir- tually connected to one of 292 Squadron’s two ‘back-end’ weapons tactics trainers, which are used to train 92 Wing’s sensor managers and operators. These can provide training in the full range of the Poseidon’s sensors – acoustic, EO, ESM, as well as the TOMS, which is used to manage these. Each year 292 Squadron produces two full Poseidon flight crews who are then posted to 11 Squadron.
By being able to immerse an entire flight crew into any part of a mission, 92 Wing can reduce wear on aircraft, save the time taken for a crew to get from their offices to on-sta- tion, and also reduce the need to require oth- er assets, such as RAN ships and submarines,
Officer Commanding Number 92 Wing, Group Captain John Grime with his team.
to be present for certain training. According to GPCAPT Grime, “the scenarios that we can put in, the stress we can put under the crew, is at the stage where, in some senses, it’s better to do a series of simulators than it is to go to some of the lower-scale exercises.”
Future simulators
In the future, 92 Wing’s new simulators will be connected virtually to other simulators across the ADF enabling, for example, a full Poseidon crew to conduct an exercise with some of the crew of a RAN vessel, neither of whom are actually in an aircraft or aboard a ship, but are instead in simulators in dif- ferent parts of the country. This means that certain training, which could only with the
Orion, be conducted as a live-exercise (with the associated movement of actual people and assets), can now instead be conducted virtually and live-exercises can become more focussed on exercising and testing specific capabilities.
Operations
92 Wing’s Poseidon’s have already been busy on exercises and operations through- out Australia and internationally. The first
Operation GATEWAY with a P-8A flying from Malaysia was conducted in 2017, and more such deployments will take place in 2019 and into the future. The Poseidon is also conducting sorties from bases in northern Australia as part of Op- eration RESOLUTE.
P-8As have conducted various exer- cises in the East Australian Exercise Area (EAXA) and West Austra- lian Exercise Area (WAXA) with
the RAN as part of the Navy’s fleet exercise program, which has assisted in keeping 92 Wing ‘into ASW’ and maintaining this per- ishable capability.
In mid-2018, a Poseidon launched an AGM-84 anti-ship missile while on Exer- cise RIMPAC in Hawaii, in April 2019 a P-8A conducted Exercise Ausindex with the Indian Navy (who also have Poseidon in their inventory), and in mid-2019 an air- craft is to be deployed to RAAF William- town (along with an MTOC) to participate in Exercise Talisman Sabre.
Triton teaming
The RAAF is expecting to receive the first MQ-4C Triton aircraft in 2023. While
the P-8A will provide an aircraft that has a response capability, the MQ-4C has range and persistence, which cannot be matched by Poseidon. 92 Wing sees the P-8A and MQ-4C as a family of systems that can per- form maritime ISR and GPCAPT Grime stated that there needs to be some thinking done as to how these two platforms will be used and integrated, as well as figuring out who will be the people using them.
“We’ll use P-3 and P-8 people to seed Triton (and we’re also) analysing at the moment what’s the temporal discipline of how you get someone that arrives off the street and they said ‘I want to be in Air Force and I really like the idea of working with P-8 or Triton’. Recruiting the right people to support these capabilities is a challenge but achievable, and I look for- ward to seeing the next generation of tal- ented men and women who will no doubt continue to maintain the high standards our crews have set.”
GPCAPT Grime recognises that RAAF is only just starting to exploit the capabili- ties presented by Poseidon.
“We’re going to have to learn how to op- erate this aircraft. Both differently in terms of how we employ it, how we disseminate the information and the capability of the aircraft is going to be substantially differ- ent in, even five years’ time, and certainly 10 and 15 years’ time from what it is now.”
But the ability to do this will not come from the aircraft alone.
“We are beginning to think in a com- pletely different, holistic way, than we’ve ever done before, because that’s how we need to think because the battle is going to be different.”
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