By
PTE John Wellfare
AUSTRALIAN
aircrew from No. 11 Squadron fought hard but have been unable
to hold onto the Fincastle trophy, which this year went to the
UK.
HMAS Farncomb acted as the target for Exercise Fincastle, the
premier submarinehunting competition between Australia, New Zealand
and the UK, which was a closefought contest between the most capable
aircrews from each country.
Australian Air Force Detachment Commander Wing Commander Richard
Larking said there has always been very little, in terms of skill,
separating the aircrews of Ex Fincastle participant countries.
“In anti-submarine warfare there’s a combination of crew training,
crew tactics, aircraft equipment performance and just a small
element of luck involved,” he said.
“The RAAF won it when it was last held in 2003 and this year it
was a very close competition, but the UK turned up the best results
on the day.”
The aim of the exercise is simple – find, track and attack the
target submarine as accurately as possible.
“HMAS Farncomb was given an area to operate in and some instructions
as to how difficult to make things and then each crew was tasked
to go into that area and try to detect the target,” WGCDR Larking
said.
“If they detect the target, they get some marks, they get further
marks for localisation, tracking and making a simulated attack.”
Simulating an attack meant dropping a device called a signal underwater
sound, which would emit an acoustic signal that could be heard
by the submarine.
Once the signal was detected, the submarine would deploy a smoke
marker so assessors could measure the accuracy of the attack.
“The crews of each nation flew two sorties over the two-day period,
trying to detect, localise and attack the submarine.”
Ex Fincastle is taken very seriously in the sub-hunting fraternity
of each of the nations that participate, so crew selection is
a lengthy and demanding process.
“Each squadron selects its best crew by an internal process,”
WGCDR Larking said.
“We had a small competition in No. 11 Squadron and No. 10 Squadron
did the same and then there was actually a competition between
those two crews to see which was the best one to represent the
Air Force.
“This competition has been going on for well over 40 years. It’s
probably one of the longest running military competitions in the
world.”
Canada
usually participates in Ex Fincastle, but this year was unable
to send an aircraft due to operational commitments. Honours
in Ex Fincastle sports.
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