Exercise Diamond Shield 2017 has commenced at RAAF Base Williamtown and will highlight the benefits of Air Force’s Air Warfare Centre training of air warfare instructors.
Diamond Shield is one of the practical components of the air warfare instructors’ course, whose graduates are experts in ADF capabilities and integration across the services, and have technical mastery of their own roles, platforms and systems.
Air Commodore Joe Iervasi, Commander of the Air Warfare Centre, said that the Air Warfare Centre was created under Plan Jericho to prepare Air Force for the fifth-generation platforms coming into service now.
“The public demonstration at the Avalon International Airshow of the F-35A Lightning II, EA-18G Growler and PC-21 aircraft has shown that integration of systems across the Australian Defence Force is already taking place,” AIRCDRE Iervasi said.
“For the first time we are bringing together different Defence units in the warfare space to integrate their roles in a process of continuous improvement to match the fifth generation platforms coming into service.
“As our platforms interact electronically, so too must the human elements to get the greatest benefit from this technology.
“The air warfare instructors’ course developed by the Air Warfare Centre has done that and over the next few months each component of the course will prepare our 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 ADFs joint warfighting capability using fifth-generation platforms,” he said.
US Air Force airmen from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, have touched down at the base to participate in the Exercise.
With a dedicated support team topping nearly 150 personnel, over 20 pilots assigned to the 18th Aggressor Squadron will work with the Air Warfare Centre instructors to train and prepare RAAF fighter combat instructors, airspace battle managers, fighter intelligence instructors and fighter combat controllers.
The exercise is the second of four Diamond Series exercises conducted by the Centre, where high-readiness forces deploy quickly to remote locations in Australia in response to a simulated security threat. The exercise will see members of the ADF rapidly deploy to counter a fictitious force posing a threat to Australia's national security in the Kimberley region in North Western Australia.
As a benchmark for aerial combat training through its annual series of Red Flag-Alaska exercises, integration of Eielson’s 18th Aggressor pilot’s enhances interoperability and ensures the RAAF can operate in a combined environment to respond to any contingency in the region and provide an agile, decisive and effective deterrent to any future challenges.
Diamond Shield is set to run until March 31 and will incorporate RAAF C-17A III Globemaster’s, C-130J Hercules’, AP-3C Orion, and Eielson’s signature Aggressor F-16 Fighting Falcon’s. Future components of the Diamond Series Air Warfare Instructors course will be conducted until June.