IN
the Air Force’s most momentous actions since the Vietnam War,
F/A-18 Hornets have flown combat missions over Iraq, guarding coalition
air-to-air refuellers and early warning aircraft.
Flying
Defensive Counter Air Operations, the Hornets’ missions have
lasted between five and six hours and taken them deep inside Iraqi
territory.
Prime
Minister John Howard said the F/A-18 Hornets played a crucial
role in the first actions of the war.
A
veteran F/A-18 pilot, Wing Commander Steve, said the operation
nvolved escorting “high value assets” in the form of
US airborne early warning and tanker aircraft.
“The
aircrews were basically given a vulnerability period, a period
for which they were responsible to defend coalition forces, not
just in the air,” WGCDR Steve said.
He
said their specific job was to defend US aircraft against threats
from Iraqi aircraft and they had completed the mission for the
whole time they were allocated in their sector.
“In
many ways it is really the next step up from the training that
all the aircrews and the maintenance and supply people have been
exercising for many years. The scale of the conflict here is enormous
and that is new.”
He
said the pilots had been anxious about their missions but also
very confident, and they carried out their task professionally.
The pilots were “relieved and excited” about having
done the job.
The
Hornets, some of which are up to 18 years old, have been upgraded
with new electronics, radars and weapons and equipped with technology
that allows the delivery of laser-guided bombs.
“We
have been able to come across the globe and plug into a major
theatre of conflict and it has been very successful,” WGCDR
Steve said.
Chief
of Air Force Air Marshal Angus Houston praised the work of the
Air Force personnel committed to the disarmament of Iraq.
Despite
opposition at home to the war, tens of thousands of messages of
support for Australian personnel in the Middle East have already
poured in to the Department of Defence.
Prime
Minister Howard, in his address to the nation following the commitment
of Australian forces to the war, was also full of praise for ADF
personnel.
“To
the men and women of the Australian Defence Force in the Gulf
– we admire you, we are thinking of you, we want all of you
to come back home safe and sound,” he said.
“This
has been a very difficult decision for the Government but a decision
which is good for Australia’s long-term security and the
cause of a safer world.”
