By FLTLT Basil Bradford
Volume 48, No. 14, August 10, 2006
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FIRED UP: Hawks from 79SQN are set to tackle Ex Firebird at Learmonth next month. 79 and 76SQN Hawks, like the one photographed, have been busy with a number of exercises, including Navy’s Principal Warfare Officers’ sea week. |
AFTER its successful and historic deployment to Butterworth for April’s Exercise Bersama Shield, 79 Squadron is deploying 10 Hawks, a SAR helicopter, supporting assets and 90 personnel to Learmonth for Exercise Firebird.
Firebird, to be held from August 14-25, will exercise the squadron in deployed operations, including maintenance and support functions, navigation sorties, the work-up and upgrades of Hawk aircrew as well as complete Hawk AF/BF/TA servicing training for aircraft on deployment.
The exercise will validate the Learmonth air weapons range by conducting missions onto the range using BDU-33 munitions.
Firebird will fly each weekday from 8am to 5pm, maintaining a high rate of effort, with an average of 22 missions planned daily.
B Flight Commander SQNLDR Ray Simpson said the exercise provided a great opportunity for the squadron to deploy as a whole.
“It is a great opportunity to train operational conversion student pilots in navigation sorties in a different and unfamiliar environment and to train and upgrade operational flight pilots in four-ship opposed strikes into realistic target sets,” SQNLDR Simpson said.
“It will also be a challenge for our maintenance personnel to conduct operations through a dispersed flightline.”
Meanwhile, six Hawks, including two from 76SQN, deployed to Darwin in July for the Navy’s Principal Warfare Officers’ (PWO) sea assessment week.
Playing the enemy, the Hawks flew both fighter and missile profiles in the face of the ships’ organic anti-aircraft defences and combat air patrols provided by 75SQN Hornets. They also used the opportunity to conduct intercept and pilot category upgrade training.
C Flight Commander, SQNLDR John Young, said the deployment was very successful and achieved its objectives.
“It was a very successful exercise with 100 per cent mission accomplishment,” he said.
“Junior aircrew were exposed to a variety of mission profiles and performed very well.”
A busy period has meant the squadron’s maintenance section has been very busy maintaining serviceable aircraft to cover day and night operations, and preparing aircraft, kit and explosive ordnance to support Exercise Firebird.
