Aviators get well at RAAF East Sale
...at no time during a new officer’s career will he or she feel they are anything less than an essential element of our future capability...

By CMDR Ian Newbery

Navy Pilots and Observers are two of the most critical manned categories in the RAN today, but they are on the mend. Elsewhere in this edition you will read that the Navy presence at RAAF East Sale is at an all time high level.

With ten RAN students on No 47 Basic Observer Course it is the biggest on record, and courses are set to get bigger, just over twice that size by 2008.

In the July 3 issue of Navy News you read about the twelve pilot students at No 2 Flying Training School at RAAF Pearce, the biggest number of students there in over twenty years. Pilots’ courses are getting bigger too; by 2008 there will be 20 students at 2FTS.

This increase in Aviator training results from efforts of many who have worked very hard over the last year and include the manpower planners, recruiters, staff at DNOP, HMAS Creswell and ADFA.

All aviators across the fleet have also assisted by completing a very comprehensive survey which went to build the ADF Aircrew Decision Support System, which will help the Service Conditions staff identify what is required to keep the aviators we have in the Service.

All RAN Aviator students are being provided with a mentor to whom they can turn for help and advice when the need arises. This is not to circumnavigate the divisional system or the normal chain of command but to provide that little extra support. The aim is to ensure that at no time during a new officer’s career will he or she feel they are anything less than an essential element of our future capability.

The genesis of this Aviator get well program was the Aviation FEG Management meeting in November 2000, when it was decided to stand up a PRINCE2 project to initiate the program. In April 2002 the Sustainable Pilot and Observer Capability project or SPOC was borne.

The aim of SPOC is to create change that will provide qualified pilots and observers to fulfill Navy’s capability requirement by mid 2013 and to ensure a sustainable structure is in place to retain the capability.

Any resemblance to the Starship Enterprise is coincidental but we believe in positive thinking.

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