Following on from its combat mission deployment to the Middle East during 2014 and 2015 the F/A-18F Super Hornets at RAAF Amberley have a busy operational year ahead, including the current deployment to Exercise Red Flag in the United States, and returning to the Middle East in the future to continue combat operations against ISIS forces.

Newly appointed Officer Commanding 82 Wing, Group Captain Glen Braz, said participation in Red Flag was a major training activity for the Super Hornet aircrews of No 1 Squadron and a high priority for the ongoing development of the Super Hornet capability.

“We face dedicated adversary systems and aircraft at Red Flag, so it’s a great training location for that reason. Our jets will be part of ‘Blue Air’ forces, working with our allies as a true multirole strike fighter.”

This is the first time Super Hornets are participating in Red Flag and they bring an expanded air-to-air capability to the exercise.

“Previously with the F-111 we flew in Red Flag missions in a pure strike role relying on limited information from controllers and onboard systems, largely avoiding threats. But now in the Super Hornet we can actively engage those threats and control the fight far more than we could in the F-111,” GPCAPT Braz said.

“We have always been highly regarded at Red Flag, and that has been taken to a new level with connections we made in the Middle East and the expanded capability the Super Hornet brings to the fight.

“Also, 6 Squadron is about to deploy to Exercise Cope North in Guam involving air forces from the United States and Japan, so most of the Amberley-based units will be deployed for the first part of the year,” he said. “Later in the year we will be involved in Exercise Pitch Black when we will again fly multirole missions such as self-escort strike as well as air defence, taking advantage of the jet’s outstanding precision strike capability, as we have seen on operations.”

The deployment to the Middle East so early in the Super Hornet’s operational development has enabled the RAAF to accurately assess the aircraft’s capabilities in the modern warfare context.

“This is certainly the case in the air-to-ground capability and it’s given us the opportunity to really bed that down – and with the new weapons such as the new laser JDAM it gives us that blended laser and GPS guidance option, providing an enhanced moving target capability,” GPCAPT Braz said.

“There are other things coming along as we upgrade the hardware in the jet, in terms of its digital targeting capability, so the jet is getting more and more capable.

“It’s also given us some insights into where we want to take the aeroplane in terms of that armed strike capability and the spiral development program, coordinated with the US Navy.

These operations have also confirmed we are on the right track and that we are doing very well with the platform.”

The duration of missions over Iraq with air refuelling, extended to 10 hours on average, which makes it a long day for aircrews strapped in to a small cockpit.

“That’s been great experience for the team and the jets performed really well, with great serviceability provided by our maintenance personnel – almost a faultless mission availability outcome,” GPCAPT Braz said.

“Using our own maintenance personnel also enabled us to test our logistics systems and bed that down in a deployed environment.”

The connection with the KC-30A air refuellers was also important. “The KC-30s were engaged in multiple taskings, primarily supporting the Australian Super Hornets, but also flying multiple missions daily to support the Coalition fighters,” GPCAPT Braz said.

“So there was very close teamwork between all of the Air Task Group elements that were there in a one-team approach within Air Task Group.”

The interaction between Super Hornet, KC-30 Air Refuellers and E-7 Wedgetail AEW&C has increased markedly during the early stages of operational development of these three relatively new highly capable platforms.

“KC-30 is maturing into a fantastic tanker, really impressive with the boom (ARBS) coming on line, which will be a real bonus for coalition operations,” GPCAPT Braz. “It fits very well into the current and clearly the future Air Force role.”