Defence

Once upgrades are complete, RAAF Tindal is expected to house some of the RAAF’s 72 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, as well as US long-range bombers.

The giant cash splash at the Tindal RAAF Base is set to continue on-schedule despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The upgrades will be Tindal's most significant for 40 years as the RAAF base prepares to house an expanded range of military planes and equipment as well as serve as a base for collaboration with US forces in the Indo-Pacific region.

An estimated $773 million of the package is for a reenforcement and extension of Tindal's existing runway to 3.3 kilometres long, while other works will include expanded accommodation facilities, an above-ground replacement for military control bunkers and an enormous 'fuel-farm' to contain 6 Olympic swimming pools worth of fuel.

The Tindal RAAF base is considered Australia's most vital for defending our Northern borders due to its ideal position 300 kilometres inland providing adequate warning of any attack.

Following a request for clarification by the Katherine Times, the Defence Department released a transcript of Brigadier Matt Galton's comments to the recent Senate inquiry. "There is currently no impact on Defence's proposed works at RAAF Base Tindal due to COVID-19," Brig. Galton said. "Pending Parliamentary approval, the current early procurement activities will enable initial construction to commence from around September 2020, with the full program of works scheduled to be delivered over the subsequent seven years with completion by late-2027. "This schedule was planned prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 and has not been slowed down or extended by the pandemic. "Defence has extended the tendering period to a minimum seven-week period to give industry sufficient time to prepare their submissions and source supply during the current uncertainties. Otherwise, we do not see any immediate impacts on this project. "Defence's managing contractor, Lendlease, has developed a Local Industry Capability Plan that articulates how they will engage with local industry and maximise opportunity for local suppliers to be involved while providing value-for-money to the Commonwealth," he said.

A planned hearing to be based on Katherine on April 21 was instead conducted as a teleconference as works move through the lengthy approval process.

First of Class Flight Trials

Navy’s cutting-edge platforms have combined, with the 230-metre long Landing Helicopter Dock HMAS Adelaide embarking an MH-60R ‘Romeo’ helicopter for first-of-class flight trials off Australia’s eastern coast.

Adelaide is carrying out the trials with the aircraft from 816 Squadron in Nowra, NSW to establish new safe operating limits.

Personnel from Navy’s Aircraft Maintenance and Flight Trials Unit (AMAFTU) are collecting real-time data on the different ways an MH-60R can approach and land on Adelaide’s flight deck in certain weather conditions at sea with a particular focus on warm and humid environments.

Adelaide is one of two Canberra-class Landing Helicopters Docks based at Fleet Base East in Sydney, while the MH60R is one of 24 anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare helicopters based at the Fleet Air Arm in Nowra.

808 Squadrons MRH-90 helicopter ‘MIDNIGHT’ prepares for landing onboard HMAS Adelaide as she departs Sydney for First of Class Flight Trials. ABIS Jarrod Mulvhill.

The maintainers of the Air Mobility Task Element (AMTE) C-130 Detachment have achieved their 50th rotation to the Middle East since the aircraft first deployed to the region in 2003.

Over the past 17 years of C-130 Hercules operations in the Middle East, maintainers from No. 37 Squadron have worked hard to keep the workhorse in the air.

Flight Sergeant Wayne Francis is currently the secondin-charge of the team, which works tirelessly to fix any issue that might arise. "My team consists of 21 staff ranging from A Tech’s to AvTech’s, safety equipment and metal bashers," FSGT Francis said. "A typical day for us is working six to six, working two 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day dictated by the maintenance required on the aircraft and the flying program. "The sort of maintenance we carry out here is just generalised unless something goes wrong, then it's all hands on deck to fix it and hopefully not let our guys on the ground down."

FSGT Francis joined Air Force in 1988, initially as a Transport Driver, before remustering as an Aircraft Technician in 1992. "This deployment has been an amazing experience, I’ve been in the Air Force 32 years and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to be deployed. You spend so much time in your career training and organising your life around the job and I finally got the opportunity to do it," he said. "I’m extremely proud of my team, they just do an amazing job. If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t be able to maintain an aircraft in theatre and bring all those diggers who need to move around back to the main operating base. "After 17 years of contributing to the Middle East, it's fairly well ingrained how we move people and equipment around the region, so it's imperative that we stay here and do that to help our troops on the ground."

Corporal Allan ‘Sid’ Reitfma is an Aviation Technician and has completed six deployments to the Middle East as part of No. 37 Squadron. "My first deployment was in 2009," CPL Reitfma said. "Looking back over this time, not much has changed, our work rate is just as busy. The aircraft and our job as maintainers is the same. "Our job is simple; keep the aircraft flying so Defence personnel and cargo can move in and out of different operational theatres. "The only major difference is the number of aircraft that has fluctuated over that time and until now based on operational needs and tempo."

Courtesy Defence Connect

Remote Operations Trial

A first-of-its kind trial was to remotely pilot a small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) from the back of a C-130 Hercules aircraft at RAAF Base Edinburgh recently.

The trial has potential to open up a range of capability options for Defence, providing air-land integration options, improved situational awareness, and an ability to pull live feeds from different sensor systems into a combat cloud.

Date will be collected aiding in evaluating the ability to operate military/commercial off the shelf sensor systems. It will also ensure the UAS can operate safely over satellite communication in an active airspace environment without infringing on aircraft operations. Lastly, the trial will ensure the UAS can produce a live and clear video feed during remote operation from an airborne aircraft.

No. 3 Security Forces Squadron members undertake drone training, preparing a Sky Ranger R70 drone for operation from an airborne RAAF C-130J Hercules. LACW Jacqueline Forrester.

Scientists at Defence Science and Technology Group (DST) are working with counterparts from the United States to demonstrate the capabilities of hyperspectral imaging for use by the Australian Defence Force.

Hyperspectral imaging exploits the unique spectral characteristics of targets to aid in detection and identification of materials.

DST scientist Tim Bubner said it was very hard to hide from these spectral sensors, which scan across multiple electro-optical frequency bands.

“While artificial camouflage does the job matching the surrounding environment in the visible spectrum, it actually can make you stand out in the other bands, if you can exploit them,” he said.

Mr Bubner’s team has been collaborating with a team from the US Naval Research Laboratories (NRL) for several years, honing skills in exploiting hyperspectral phenomenology and developing state-of-the-art sensor technology and systems for use in airborne surveillance.

“Hyperspectral sensing is unique,” Mr Bubner said. “Very seldom can you create camouflage that defeats all the wave bands that are accessible to us." "In the past, hyperspectral sensors were predominantly used in the daytime, but a thermal hyperspectral sensor currently operating on DST’s Defence Experimentation Airborne Platform (known as the DEAP aircraft) gives us both a day and night time capability.”

Another advantage of this type of sensing is that it allows users to scan the environment accurately and silently from a safe distance.

Jonathan Neumann, an NRL scientist integrated with the DST team, said the partnership had been valuable for his team.

Very seldom can you create camouflage that defeats all the wave bands that are accessible to us.

“There are limits to what we can accomplish back in the US,” Mr Neumann said.

“DST Group nicely complements what our research is aiming to achieve. The partnership has included experiments of direct relevance to Australian and US Defence problem spaces, including supporting the Australian AIR7000 and US PMA290 programs.

“DST’s DEAP aircraft, which has flight-certified pods custom-built for mounting advanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors, was a key enabler for the program.

“Recent flight trials, including experiments in tropical North Queensland, were exceptional. The DEAP aircraft carried dual Reflective (daytime) and thermal hyperspectral payloads, enabling our respective teams to do everything necessary to support the trial objectives.”

A key focus of the research has been to demonstrate to Defence the unique capability that hyperspectral technology offers.

Keen to see the uptake of this technology, the experiments carried out by Mr Bubner and his colleagues have informed

Gavin Fowler and Tim Bubner (under the DEAP aircraft) conduct a performance check of the sensor systems just installed on the aircraft at RAAF Base Edinburgh.

Defence of the wavebands, spectral resolution, pixel size and other parameters that should be considered when defining future capability options.

Underlying it all is an understanding that hyperspectral sensing is an evolutionary and complementary enhancement over high-resolution motion imagery video snapshots or video clips.

DST scientist Gavin Fowler said it was much more than just looking at a picture.

“Hyperspectral sensing provides an understanding of the target materials’ properties, which is not available from other imagery,” Mr Fowler said.

“We’re working with high performance thermal sensors and extremely long-range, short-wave IR (SWIR) hyperspectral systems for surveillance tasks, including maritime surveillance, target detection in cluttered environments, stand-off gas plume detection and overwatch.

The other real strength of our system is that it allows for automated processing.

“If we can retrieve the spectral characteristics of the target, analysts get a much better understanding of what’s happening on the ground.

“The other real strength of our system is that it allows for automated processing. You can have an on-board processor which can auto-detect, identify and geo-locate targets of interest. We’ve demonstrated automated stand-off detection of invisible gas plumes in near real-time and automated anomaly detection in the maritime environment.

“A main theme for us now is to promote how Defence can use hyperspectral sensing by showing how we can insert these products into an enterprise level situational awareness capability into the bigger picture. That’s the next big challenge.

“No sensor will provide all the answers but we’ve reached a level of maturity with these that allows us to say that if you had these sensors you could work out if that was a life jacket 'anomaly' at sea or a camouflage net in a natural hide, or that

Sharing the Load there is an invisible gas plume in this location.”

Mr Bubner said having Mr Neumann and his US colleagues embedded in the DST team at RAAF Base Edinburgh had been crucial.

“We’ve been doing real research work, side by side. The trust and friendship that builds up is critical to collaborative success. It’s been a classic partnership, allowing DST to build an indigenous capability that our partners can engage with,” Mr Bubner said.

“Because it’s been an integrated team, we’ve all been learning from each other. Everyone’s got such a variety of skills and experience – it’s a real melting pot of technologists, sensor operators, engineers, image exploitation experts and spectroscopy specialists. "That variety of skills and expertise has allowed us to fulfil the outcomes we’ve been demonstrating.”

The Australian Defence Force provided customised support to the Tasmanian Government to reinforce, amplify and expand their capacity to deal with the impacts of COVD-19.

ADF health personnel deployed to Burnie, Tasmania and were embedded with an AUSMAT Specialist Coordination Team to support the re-opening and ongoing operation of the emergency department at the North West Regional Hospital.

Defence remains postured to provide additional support, across Australia, as required.

The Royal Australian Air Force’s highly advanced airborne early warning and control capability, the E-7A Wedgetail, recently celebrated 10 years since its introduction into RAAF service.

RAAF Medical Officer, Squadron Leader Benedict Whalley, conducts a routine daily temperature check of an ADF member in Burnie Tasmania during COVID-19. CPL Nicci Freeman. Supporting our Neighbours

Courtesy Defence Connect.

The Australian Defence Force recently contributed to the whole-ofAustralian Government response to a humanitarian crisis in Fiji as a result of Tropical Cyclone Harold, which impacted Fiji on 6 April 2020.

To support the disaster relief efforts of the Government of Fiji, a Royal Australian Air Force C-17A Globemaster III from No. 36 Squadron was loaded with pallets of humanitarian aid at RAAF Base Amberley for airlift to Nadi, Fiji.

Today, Air Force operates six E-7A Wedgetail aircraft from RAAF Base Williamtown, which provide Australia with one of the most advanced air battlespace management capabilities in the world.

Based on a Boeing 737-700, the E-7A Wedgetail combines long-range surveillance radar, secondary radar, passive detection surveillance receivers and tactical/strategic voice and data communications systems. This provides the Australian Defence Force with its ability to survey, command, control and co-ordinate a joint air, sea and land battle in real-time.

As the sole operating squadron for the platform, Commanding Officer of Number 2 Squadron, Wing Commander Jason Brown, said over the past 10 years the E-7A fleet has been regularly dispersed throughout the world supporting concurrent exercises and operations, often with all aircraft deployed simultaneously with mission success.

Major contributions since the E-7A’s introduction into RAAF service include Operations Spate, Atlas and APEC Assist; providing concurrent support for Operation Okra; and achieving a high mission success rate with No. 2 Squadron E-7A maintenance and aircrew, in support of the US-led coalition operations.

The important partnerships and successful collaboration with the Airborne Early Warning and Control System Program Office (Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group) and defence industry partners, have been a key contributing factor to the effectiveness and operational success of the platform, from its introduction into RAAF service to the ongoing sustainment and contribution to the Australian Defence Force capability at home and abroad, as called upon by the government.