Page 78 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2021

78 AIRPOWER GALLERY
NOVEMBER 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
AFGHANISTAN TO ANTARCTICA – THE RAAF ON OPERATIONS AND EXERCISES
Since its involvement in East Timor in 1999 and 2000, the Royal Australian Air Force has experienced a sustained period of increased operational tempo.
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
AFTER a decade or more of operations in the Middle East Area of Operations (MEAO), the RAAF formed an organic Air Task Group in September 2014 for further operations over Iraq and later Syria in support of coalition efforts to defeat ISIL forces.
Under the banner of Operation Okra, RAAF Super Hor- net, Hornet, Wedgetail and KC-30A aircraft supported coalition airstrikes over a five-year period, until the final rotational deployment in 2019.
That the RAAF was capable of raising an organic task group and then sustaining it over a long distance for an extended period of time demonstrated a depth of capabil- ity arguably not seen since the Vietnam War.
Even during this period, a full series of domestic exercis- es were maintained, including deployments throughout the region and across the Pacific. Exercises such as Pitch Black and Talisman Sabre here in Australia; the Bersama series in Malaysia; Ausindo with TNI forces; Red Flag and Cope North in the US and, most recently, Bushido Guardian with the Japan Air Self Defense Force, has seen the RAAF’s air
combat and ISR assets regularly engaged with its partners. While the RAAF’s air combat capabilities capture the headlines, it is the Air Mobility Group which has arguably been the busiest over this period. As well as supporting Okra and the wider ADF’s exercises and deployments and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) under Operations Southern Discovery; AMG has provided extensive support for disaster relief operations at home and abroad. These include Operation Bushfire Assist in Australia, COVID As- sist throughout the Indo-Pacific region and most recently,
the evacuation of Kabul.
Maritime surveillance Orions and (more recently) Posei-
dons have also experienced a constant series of operations and deployments and today are still actively engaged in Operations Gateway (South China Sea), Resolute (Austra- lia’s EEZ) and Argos, the latter supporting UN sanctions against North Korea.
The following gallery of images is a tribute to the men and women of the RAAF who have tirelessly supported these efforts, from Afghanistan to Antarctica.