F-111 crews make practice perfect

By Andrew Stackpool

From left: the graduates of the No 57 F-111 Operation Conversion Course – FLGOFF Chris Lowrey, FLGOFF Dave Murphy, FLGOFF Greg Nicol and FLGOFF Steve Thorton.

Photo by LAC Allan Cooper

FOUR new aircrew have joined the ranks of F-111 aviators when they graduated from the 57th F-111 Operational Conversion course recently in Darwin.

Flying Officers Steve Thornton, Chris Lowrey, Greg Nicol and David Murphy began the course in January and reached its climax with their participation in Exercise Northern Challenge.

Part of 6SQN’s task is the responsibility for the conversion training of navigators and pilots to the F-111 before they are posted to No. 1 Squadron.

CO 6SQN Wing Commander Ken Quinn said the exercise provided them the final operational phase of the five-month conversion course.

It challenged them to put into practise all they have learned on the course, including the aspects entailed by the deployment from Amberley, and culminated in a series of increasingly complex, night-time live ordnance deliveries using terrain-following radar.

“This was the culmination of five months of very hard work for them,” WGCDR Quinn said.

“The complexities of Northern Challenge included delivering the threat brief, planning to achieve their time on target, ingress while dealing with airborne and ground threats, deliver their loads on time and then egress the area safely – it was pretty full on.

“They commenced flying day sorties and then moved on to night sorties, climaxing in the night drop of high-explosive weapons.

“Since January they have put in a lot of hard work to reach this point and this continued throughout the exercise. Northern Challenge and a deployed environment provided them a great opportunity to bring it all together.”

The students will now remain with 6SQN for another six months to complete their operational upgrade to Category C pilots and navigators.

.