Down in the weeds
Training for airborne operations is intense, demanding teamwork in a constantly changing threat environment, as PTE John Wellfare found when you’re...

By PTE John Wellfare

A 36SQN C-130H demonstrates low-level flying, as taught in the tactical operations course, in formation with other C-130s (H and J models) over the drop zone at Shoalwater Bay Training Area as part of Exercise Crocodile ’03.

Photo by SGT Mark Eaton

SGT Andrew Materne watches through a portal as the C-130 dispenses flares during the course.

Loadmasters on 36SQN TACOPS course load Army Landrovers into the back of a Hercules.

Loadmaster SGT Jason Lester keeps watch at the rear of a C-130 during tactical flying for the 36SQN TACOPS course.

Personnel load ordnance on a 36SQN C-130H. Rapid loading of ordnance, such as flares, is a key part of the training as part of the tactical operations course, held at RAAF Base Pearce in Western Australia, for personnel of 36SQN.

FLTLT Matthew Nunn briefs his crew and passengers before departing for an assessment flight on the 36SQN TACOPS course.

Crews carry personal weapons as part of the airborne operations course.

A FINAL notice comes over the Hercules’ internal communications system from the cockpit and the loadmasters at the rear bend their knees slightly, just before the aircraft thumps down and the landing gear squeals, then the power blasts back on and hauls the lumbering hulk and its crew back into the sky.

A C-130H is almost 30m long, has a wingspan of more than 40m and can weigh up to 70,000kg fully loaded – it doesn’t touch down lightly under any circumstances and this was the eighth touch-and-go so far in what was becoming a tiresome repetition over a remote West Australian airstrip at night.

This is how No. 36 Squadron operates at its most heightened threat level, flying at low level into enemy territory to insert or extract personnel and supplies.

The touch-and-go work is just one part of the overall training program – called the airborne operations course – that teaches the squadron’s aircrew to perform the most dangerous of the unit’s roles.

Gone are the days when flying tactically meant switching the interior lights to red – the interior isn’t just dim; it’s pitch black and totally impossible to move around without night vision goggles. From the ground, the aircraft is nothing more than a dark shadow rumbling through the night.

Everyone who crews a 36SQN Hercules – the pilots, navigator, flight engineer and loadmasters – all do the course at some point, and they’re not allowed to fly tactical operations until they do.

Course coordinator Flight Lieutenant Dion Wright says the students are already experienced in their field before beginning the airborne operations course.

“Once they come off whatever their initial training course is – whether it be pilot training, nav course, engineers course or loadmasters course – they will go out and fly in the squadron for a period doing air-lift support tasks, pretty much high-level stuff,” he says.

“Once they get proficient to a certain level, they’ll do an airborne operations course to introduce them to C-130 low-level flying and aerial delivery. In most cases it’s an introduction to threats, aircraft survivability equipment and all those sorts of things.”

Crews spend five weeks of the course at the unit’s home base in Richmond, learning and practising the procedures, then they deploy to another location for two weeks of concentrated testing in all aspects of operational flying. The first of two airborne operations courses for this year deployed to RAAF Base Pearce in Western Australia from April 11-23.

“It’s a fairly intense course,” FLTLT Wright says. “But at the end of it all the pilots, navigators, engineers and loadmasters will probably be as proficient as possible, because they do get an intense bit of flying in over that period and in the last two weeks they’re really into it.”

And they have to be. Operating tactically in a Hercules means a lot more than just flying low and working with night vision; flying into enemy territory is flying on borrowed time and everything has to be flexible, from the navigation legs and timings to the location of drop zones and the stability of the airframe under fire.

“The workload just triples,” says Flying Officer Kevin Baker, a pilot on 36SQN’s recent airborne operations course.

“It takes all of what we do in the strategic environment and if you triple the workload and put that into a shorter period, that’s tactical.

“It brings out your professionalism because you’ve got to do your own job to a high level, now you’ve got to help out others as well. So you haven’t got time to think about your own job, it’s just the mission and as a group you’re mission-orientated.”

Crews on the deployment phase of the course don’t just perform tactical manoeuvres, they operate in a simulated tactical environment. The mission changes constantly and, with the instructors controlling the switches, onboard communications and navigation systems are not always fully operable. The crews wear kevlar vests and carry personal weapons as they go about their duties in the air.

According to flight engineer Warrant Officer Glen Evans, another student on the recent course, teamwork is the only way a crew can make it through the type of tactical scenarios they face.

“We’ve gone from straight flat flying to monitoring systems, dealing with emergencies and still doing our primary role,” he says.

“Then getting into doing communications and doing a bit of nav, we’re also looking at threat manoeuvres and, if we do take rounds, how to keep the aircraft flying. And then once we come back, we’ve still got to do all our primary duties, get the aircraft ready for the next day and organise loads for the following day.

“You’ve got to work together really well and you’ve got to plan how you’re going to work together or it falls over.”
Sergeant Andrew Materne, a 36SQN loadmaster, says a lot of the course’s demand comes from within.

“There’s a certain pressure you put on yourself knowing that there’s someone standing behind you, looking at you and writing things down,” he says. “But it’s only for your own development and they wouldn’t put you on this course if they didn’t think you were capable of it.

“Still, you put pressure on yourself, more than what there is at times. I suppose that’s how the course is designed, just to see how you cope under those conditions.”

WOFF Evans says the instructors, all of whom are taken from the ranks of 36SQN, have every reason to keep the standards high.

“The instructor is always looking at the fact that he’s going to have to fly with this person one day. Given the professionalism of staff at 36SQN, they wouldn’t let you progress that far if you were going to cause damage to the aircraft or the members.”

The students endure long working hours, stressful flying conditions, highly pressured decision-making, short preparation times and the exhaustion of having to remain totally focussed for prolonged periods.

So is it worth it? At the end of it, they’re no longer restricted to flying straight supply routes at 30,000ft, and face the thrills and the dangers of combat flying – something they may well be tasked to do operationally not long after completing the course.

If that means enduring a seemingly endless string of touch-and-go manoeuvres in blackness, calculating and recalculating navigation routes through a constantly changing battlefield and working in an environment where there are no right and wrong answers – but one false move can mean the difference between life and death – then so be it, according to the 36SQN crewmembers.

“The flying is definitely a lot better, down in the weeds manoeuvring,” says WOFF Evans.

“The Herc squadrons, we pretty much do what we do in peace and wartime, this just escalates it with the real threats that are out there.”

 

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