Page 101 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2021

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AIRPOWER 101
would prevent the ground crew from acquiring the cargo and potentially even blow the supplies right across the ice. The AAD set a 25 knot wind limit, which forecast a one to three hour window available to drop and secure the supplies.
“First, we had to be close enough to execution to analyse the met forecast – so lining up with the rough window – and then, with 12-24 hours from execution, making a deci- sion on the exact time to execute the mission and drop,” FLTLT Huber explained. “And when I talk weather condi- tions I mean weather fronts causing blizzards so the crew on the ground can’t actually grab the cargo. The biggest ob- stacle really was the wind blowing the cargo across the ice.
“There was a lot of back and forth with Bureau of Me- teorology and AAD to essentially build a picture and then make a coordinated decision on the time of drop.”
Given the distances involved the contingency plan was simple: if the winds were too high, the C-17A would simply have to turn around and come home.
“We essentially carry the fuel reserves to get us safely back to Australia. So, in the worst case we would have flown down there, the wind was too high and we’d turn around and come home,” FLTLT Huber said. “Best case, we take a little bit of extra fuel if we can, orbit down there and wait for the wind to decrease so that we can drop.”
Once everything was in place, the C-17A took off from Perth International Airport just before midnight for the 11,000-kilometre journey with additional crew members on-board to share the burden of a long flight.
Somewhere over the Southern Ocean the Globemaster met a KC-30A tanker for a lengthy 15-minute air-to-air refuelling. The exact location was decided by a balance between the C- 17A’s fuel burned and the diversion range of the KC-30A.
ABOVE: A C-17A airdrop at Davis research station, taken in 2017.
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