Clearly demonstrating the capacity of Air Power to operate an ongoing detachment of combat aircraft and personnel in the Middle East and carry out other combat-ready training in Australia, Exercise Diamond Storm stretched resources to train leaders and instructors in warfare tactics.
Exercise Diamond Storm, conducted during June from RAAF Bases Darwin and Tindal, continued the training regime of the Air Warfare Instructors Course (AWIC).
This exercise involved Pilots, Intelligence Officers and Air Combat Officers across a range of Air Force platforms, including F/A-18A Classic Hornets, F/A-18F Super Hornets, E-7A Wedgetail, and C-130J Hercules aircraft.
Conducted by the Air Warfare Centre, the aim of the AWIC is to graduate expert leaders and instructors capable of tactics development, validation and instruction.
This last in a series of training exercises, Diamond Storm required air operations over the Northern Territory training areas.
The Diamond Series of exercises is designed to integrate people and systems; an objective that is now achievable with the introduction of fifth generation capabilities into the RAAF.
As ADF platforms interact, electronically, so too must the human elements interact more closely to get the greatest benefit from this technology.
The AWIC, developed by the Air Warfare Centre, has done that, and each component of the course has prepared the instructors to be effective in the integrated Air Warfare space.
Graduates will provide leadership in the development of future tactics and help determine how those tactics can be used to enhance the ADF’s joint warfighting capability using fifth generation platforms.
The course exercises complex war-like scenarios and the students put their newly developed skills into practice and make decisions that will shape the way Air Force fights in the future; in an integrated war-space using fifth generation platforms.
More than 1000 personnel and around 40 aircraft took part in the exercise.