Hornets and Falcons

By Michael Brooke

FLTLT Darren Hughes joined 75SQN just weeks before Exercise Thai Boomerang, held from August 25 to September 9 at Korat Air Base in central Thailand.

Photo provided by 75SQN

EXERCISE Thai Boomerang has reaped many valuable lessons with Air Force F/A-18 pilots and Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) F-16 pilots learning a lot from each other in a range of air combat roles, including strike and close air support.

The bilateral exercise was held in Thailand recently involving more than 120 Air Force personnel and nine F/A-18s from No. 75 Squadron at RAAF Base Tindal.

Commanding Officer No. 75 Squadron Wing Commander Steve Roberton said Exercise Thai Boomerang served to improve interoperability between the Air Force and RTAF, and followed on from the success of Exercise Pitch Black in 2004.

He added that Thai Boomerang “represented an important opportunity for our Air Force personnel to practise operating with their Thai counterparts and to improve the working level relationships between the airmen and women of both air forces”.

“The F/A-18 Hornet pilots and ground crew deployed to Korat Air Base practised air-to-air missions with RTAF ‘Fighting Falcon’ F-16, L-39ZE Albatross and Alpha jet squadrons from Wing 2,” he said.

Wing Commander Roberton said the exercise this year has changed emphasis for the first time from being purely air intercept and dog-fighting to larger packages in strike and close air support.

“The first few days were dedicated to dissimilar air combat training but our two air forces have learnt a lot from each other in mixing packages in many roles,” he said.

No. 75 Squadron flew over 140 training sorties in two weeks operating out of Korat Air Base, which is the RTAF’s major F-16 base and has hosted the exercise since 1989.

The opportunity to experience great training by dog-fighting Thai F-16s, which are armed with the same Raytheon AIM-20C BVRAAMs found on Australian F/A-18s, was an exciting start to the operational career of No. 75 Squadron’s young Hornet pilots. Flight Lieutenant Darren Hughes, who joined No. 75 Squadron only weeks before the Thai Boomerang deployment, said “the training exercise was awesome”.

“We’ve had brilliant training with the Thai F-16s and the entire trip has been the best possible start to my fighter career,” he said.

The exercise also provided Thai pilots with an opportunity to better understand the capabilities of the F/A-18.
Exercise Thai Boomerang ran from August 25 to September 9 and followed on from Thailand’s participation, for the first time, in Australia’s largest multinational air combat exercise, Pitch Black, that was conducted in the Northern Territory in August 2004.

Wing Commander Roberton said Thailand’s participation in Pitch Black was “an important step in the relationship between the RTAF and the RAAF, and Thai Boomerang builds on these developments.”

Thailand, which has one of the largest fighter forces in South-East Asia, hopes to build on its good relationship with the Air Force and visit Australia next year for Exercise Pitch Black 06.

Wing Commander Roberton said the personnel of No. 75 Squadron on deployment to Thailand also made a positive impact on the local Thai community through a donation to a local school.

“The squadron members all donated money totalling more than $1000 and this was used to purchase a drinking water filter machine as well as sporting and audio visual equipment for the local school,” he said.

“The Thais are so incredibly friendly and welcoming, it was an easy task to raise money for such a worthy cause in a poorer part of the local community”.

Corporal Glen Lally of No. 75 Squadron said the school visits for the donation and subsequent language class assistance were highlights of the trip.

“The Thai kids were very welcoming and incredibly grateful for our relatively small contributions. It was enormous fun, very rewarding and very humbling to see the impact on their school.”

At the conclusion of the exercise, No. 75 Squadron personnel handed over its F/A-18s and equipment to No. 3 Squadron in Butterworth for Exercise Bersama Lima, a Five Power Defence Arrangement exercise involving more than 1000 ADF personnel.

Australia’s participation includes nine F/A-18s, a B707 tanker, two AP-3Cs, Air Force airspace surveillance and control elements, seven Navy ships, a clearance diving team and an Army ground-based air defence troop.

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