Page 28 - Australian Defence Magazine Sep-Oct 2022

28 DEFENCE BUSINESS AWIC22
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
The concept was expanded with equivalent courses for intelligence instructors and fighter combat controllers in 1992 and again in 2017 for Air Mobility Group crews, 2018 for E-7A Wedgetail crews and also 2019 for EA-18G Growler crews. The three new courses in AWIC 22 were: F-35A FCI (replacing F/A-18A Hornet), P-8A MCI and 4 Sqn CCI.
“THE SIX-MONTH AWIC 22 COURSE WAS HELD BETWEEN FEBRUARY AND JULY AND WAS A SERIES OF INTENSIVE ACADEMIC AND PRACTICAL TRAINING EXERCISES”
AWIC 22
The six-month AWIC 22 event was held be- tween February and July and was a series of intensive academic and practical training exercises that exposed candidates to a range of complex tactical scenarios.
Included in these were three exercises in the Diamond series of training events, the first being Diamond Seas conducted in Rockhampton, Shoalwater Bay Training Area (SWBTA) and Yeppoon on February to provide candidates with air-maritime inte- gration training.
The overarching Air Warfare Instructors
Course was created in 2017 to co-ordinate
the growing number of courses under the
auspices of No.88 Squadron, a newly created
unit within the RAAF’s Tactical Training Di-
rectorate (TTD), an element of the Air Warfare Centre.
Diamond Seas was followed by Exercise Diamond Shield, an air combat exercise held off the east coast of Australia in April which added defensive counter air training to the mix. Finally, AWIC 2022 concluded with Exercise Dia- mond Storm, held in the Northern Territory in May and June, presenting students with a high-end warfighting sce- nario and included support from the US Marine Rotational Force Darwin (MRF-D).
“We set a complex problem, with a scenario design such that we provide them the right environment to be able to integrate all those platforms, to solve the tactical problem as part of that integration remit. We will have missions in Diamond Storm where it is all platforms operating together to solve the tactical problem, but we have other elements
ABOVE: MV-22B Ospreys from the Marine Rotational Force Darwin (MRF-D) played an important role in supporting the 4 Sqn Combat Control Instructors (CCI) course
LEFT: An EA-18G Growler crew return from
a gruelling Growler Tactics Instructor (GTI) flight during Exercise Diamond Storm 22
“What we’re striving to do is generate tactical experts, who are critical thinkers and who will go on to become the key integrators across all of the platforms, systems and ca- pabilities we have,” Wing Commander Andrew Hagstrom, Commanding Officer of 88 Sqn explained.
NIGEL PITTAWAY
NIGEL PITTAWAY