Top Stories
Bang on target
By CPL Mike McSweeney and Barry Rollings

Volume 49, No. 03, March 08, 2007
 
JOINING FORCES: Army Joint Terminal Attack Controller BDR Douglas Chapman with 1SQN pilot FLTLT Russ Allison in front of an F-111. BDR Chapman got a ‘bird’s eye view’ during an F-111 bombing mission over Evans Head range.
Photo by CPL Mark McConnell
 
AIR Force’s invitation to their Army colleagues to “fly a mile or two in our boots” is having mutual benefits for participants in the Joint Terminal Attack Controllers’ course, says former OC 82WG
GPCAPT Leo Davies.

The latest of these co-operative exercises took place in December when Brisbane-based Army BDR Douglas Chapman took to the skies in an F-111 over the Evans Head range to gain an airman’s perspective on operations.

GPCAPT Davies said land and air commanders were convinced that a shared understanding of roles was the way forward for JTAC.

“What we’ve done at the working level is try to bring Air Force and Army operations in a close air support context closer together,” he said.

“We have improved the JTAC course, we have stood up the JTAC troop at Williamtown as part of that FACDU unit and we have more aeroplanes focused on close air support and training of JTACs than we have had over the past five or 10 years.

“The theory doesn’t necessarily amount to much, but if we can get the workers – the guys who are doing the flying, the guys who are doing the controlling and the guys who will actually be seeing the effects in the field – to understand each other’s task in this Joint Fires concept, then they can educate themselves and each other along the way.”

GPCAPT Davies said what they have not been able to show the bombardiers or the corporals – who are doing the controlling – is what it’s like from the air.

“We wanted to give that perspective to a JTAC, so that he could try and understand what it’s like in the cockpit and know the environment in which the aircrew are operating,” he said.

Describing the concept as a success, GPCAPT Davies said, “82WG intends to mature the cross-pollination of aircrew to JTAC operations and JTAC to aircrew operations.”

GPCAPT Tony Grady has since replaced GPCAPT Davies as OC 82WG.