Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Air Commodore Tim Alsop explains what happens during night flying for Exercise Pitch Black

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Air Commodore Tim Alsop explains what happens during night flying for Exercise Pitch Black · 360 with Katie Woolf

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  Speaker 1: I think that most of us understand that Exercise Pitch
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Black is well and truly underway at the moment. And
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  Speaker 1: joining me in the studio is the officer in charge
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  Speaker 1: of Exercise Pitch Black, air commodore Tim Alsop. Good morning
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  Speaker 1: to you, timok great have you in this studio. Now
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  Speaker 1: we know that exercise pitch Black it's moving into a
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  Speaker 1: new phase this week, most notably for Darwin and Catherine.
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  Speaker 1: It does mean that there is some night flying.
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  Speaker 2: Talk us through what's planned. Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 3: So we're into week two of the three week activity
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  Speaker 3: and people will have noticed that we've shifted our days,
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  Speaker 3: so we're now into an afternoon and night cycle where
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  Speaker 3: where we're starting to bring in some of the complexity
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  Speaker 3: of doing this really complex training at night.
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  Speaker 1: How is that then for the pilots and what does
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  Speaker 1: it mean for everybody that's involved in the exercise.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we train to operate at night as a standard thing,
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  Speaker 3: but it does bring all sorts of complexity. So you
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  Speaker 3: still need to get a vast volume of aircraft out
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  Speaker 3: into the training airspace and get them back safely when
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  Speaker 3: it's dark, but you get too employ all sorts of
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  Speaker 3: other technology that we have so things like night vision
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  Speaker 3: goggles or, in the case of the F thirty five,
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  Speaker 3: a pretty astounding three hundred and sixty degree system that
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  Speaker 3: projects the environment into your visor to the point where
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  Speaker 3: you can look down at your legs and you see
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  Speaker 3: the ground.
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  Speaker 2: That's wild. Let's see, it's pretty freaky.
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  Speaker 1: The first time you do it, most of us can't
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  Speaker 1: even imagine what that would be like. It sounds like
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  Speaker 1: a computer game, but definitely not real life.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: It looks a bit like an eighties video game. It's
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  Speaker 3: all green because that's sort of optimized for the way
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  Speaker 3: your eyes work. But it's but it's pretty staggering and
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  Speaker 3: you get used to it really really fast.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah right, What is it like when you're trying that
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  Speaker 1: new sort of technology and doing that kind of thing
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  Speaker 1: for the first time.
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  Speaker 3: We do a lot of our training, particularly F thirty five,
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  Speaker 3: A lot of the training is done and simulate it
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  Speaker 3: because there are only one seat versions of this aircraft.
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  Speaker 3: There's no two seat training versions. So the first time
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  Speaker 3: our pilots fly this thing, it's by themselves, which is
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  Speaker 3: pretty cool. But by that stay, they will have done
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  Speaker 3: probably a couple of months of simulator training where they're
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  Speaker 3: really good at the systems. They know what to do
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  Speaker 3: if it goes wrong, they can manage all of the
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  Speaker 3: procedures and stuff.
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  Speaker 2: So really you're just applying that knowledge into the real world.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, so a couple of months you know, training before
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  Speaker 1: you even get up in the air.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a fabit to learn.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there would be. And yet it sounds like it'll
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  Speaker 1: be incredibly interesting. Also, you know, I guess you'd be
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  Speaker 1: slightly nervous going up the first time too. Although you
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  Speaker 1: guys are used.
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  Speaker 3: To it, you're still nervous. It's more excitement though, Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: and I've been flying fighters for twenty something years, but
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  Speaker 3: still it excites me. And I was very lucky to
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  Speaker 3: do a conversion on of the new jet a couple
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  Speaker 3: of years ago, and that was it's sort of so
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  Speaker 3: energizing because it's all new again, and you are nervous
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  Speaker 3: because you've got so much knowledge to sort of assimilate
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  Speaker 3: and then apply, and you're conscious that you sometimes come
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  Speaker 3: in with some of your old biases.
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  Speaker 2: Or your old habits.
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  Speaker 3: And it's really fascinating to watch some of the new crew,
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  Speaker 3: how sort of younger aircrew that are coming through that
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  Speaker 3: have never flown anything but this, and they apply it
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  Speaker 3: really differently, They think differently, and it's better.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have to be a bit of an adrenaline junkie,
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  Speaker 2: do you reckon?
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  Speaker 1: No?
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  Speaker 3: You probably want to enjoy being challenged and exciting stuff. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: but you also want to be able to harness that
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  Speaker 3: a little bit. So we don't want people who are
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  Speaker 3: reckless to you want people who who think quickly and
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  Speaker 3: apply knowledge and can.
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  Speaker 2: Reprioritize quite quickly.
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  Speaker 3: But the skills and stuff we teach very very slowly
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  Speaker 3: from it from a start of zero. We build them
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  Speaker 3: up over a couple of years.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: Now with the night flying that is going underway at
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  Speaker 1: the moment there are it does mean that obviously people
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  Speaker 1: can hear those jets a bit later in the night.
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  Speaker 2: What time is it happening?
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  Speaker 3: Usually the waves are getting away from about seven or so.
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  Speaker 3: It's spaced out, so you'll notice that there'll be an
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  Speaker 3: initial launch of some of the tankers, which it really
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  Speaker 3: is no different to the airline traffic you get at Darwin,
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  Speaker 3: and then you'll get generally two distinct waves of fighters
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  Speaker 3: around about that seven thirty eight o'clock at night. The
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  Speaker 3: challenge we have is to get all the aircraft airborne
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  Speaker 3: really quickly, because as soon as the first fighters are airborne,
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  Speaker 3: they're starting to burn the time they have available. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: so you've got to compress, get everyone down there, get
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  Speaker 3: them through the tankers, get the training done, which is
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  Speaker 3: the block of training is usually.
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  Speaker 2: About an hour and a half, which is way down south.
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  Speaker 3: It's down as far south as about Tenant Creek because
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  Speaker 3: you're covering the distance pretty fast, and then get them
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  Speaker 3: all back in an orderly and safe fashion.
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  Speaker 1: And what kind of activities are they doing, like to
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  Speaker 1: you know, to our regular people out there listening who've
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  Speaker 1: got absolutely no idea, what kind of activities are they doing?
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  Speaker 3: So the best way to describe it is we call
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  Speaker 3: it large force employment, which really describes it. It's taking
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  Speaker 3: the skills that each of us learned individually, and each
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  Speaker 3: of the countries have done where they've trained the individual pilots,
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  Speaker 3: and then formations, smaller formations, and then squadron sizes. But
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  Speaker 3: then to bring that all together. So now you've got
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  Speaker 3: eighty aircraft at once and they're all trying to get
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  Speaker 3: after a common problem. So yesterday's problem that I was
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  Speaker 3: involved with, for example, we had a heavily defended notional
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  Speaker 3: area that had a series of forty or fifty notional
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  Speaker 3: targets had to be struck. We also, at the same
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  Speaker 3: time had to get a relatively slow moving transport aircraft
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  Speaker 3: French transport aircraft to go in and insert paratroopers, but
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  Speaker 3: had to defend it the whole way, and it takes
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  Speaker 3: a long time for it to get all the way
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  Speaker 3: to Delamere and back again. And all this time you've
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  Speaker 3: got Red Air, who are providing the training for us,
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  Speaker 3: replicating and again a notional adversary trying to pick our
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  Speaker 3: plan apart. So the challenge is to make sure that
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  Speaker 3: you've got enough layers of protection and you can you
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  Speaker 3: can defeat that problem and not then have everyone run
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  Speaker 3: out of fuel very end and leave the transport plane.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: So protected.
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  Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting, but very much you know scenarios that
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  Speaker 1: at some point you know you may or may not
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  Speaker 1: be in.
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  Speaker 3: That's right, and the scenarios themselves are almost irrelevant. What
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  Speaker 3: we're trying to do is create very very complex problems
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  Speaker 3: because the challenge of this, what we're really doing is
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  Speaker 3: training humans, training humans to be able to pick apart
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  Speaker 3: that complex problem, come up with a plan that's simple
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  Speaker 3: enough and robust enough that when it changes, because it
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  Speaker 3: always does, that we've got options we can we can
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  Speaker 3: make it work. So yesterday was led by the Indian
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  Speaker 3: Air Force and it was just it was beautiful to watch,
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  Speaker 3: really really cleverly.
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  Speaker 2: Planned and the way it was executed was fantastic.
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  Speaker 1: And I tell you what, the community has been very
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  Speaker 1: much behind Exercise Pitch Black. I mean I think they
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  Speaker 1: always are, but this time around, you know, the public
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  Speaker 1: events have been absolutely fantastically attended.
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  Speaker 2: How does that make you know?
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  Speaker 1: All of you guys that are taking part.
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  Speaker 2: Feel it's really great.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, we put so much work into planning this,
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  Speaker 3: and we put a lot of work, particularly into Mindle.
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  Speaker 2: Beach for example.
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  Speaker 3: The plan behind that was very deep because you've got
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  Speaker 3: to make it happen quickly and safely and have it
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  Speaker 3: effective for everyone. But to go down to the beach
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  Speaker 3: and see that seven or eight thousand people, they're all smiling,
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  Speaker 3: and then to talk to a lot of particularly young people.
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  Speaker 3: I was talking to a young a young teenage guy
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  Speaker 3: who'd come up with his mum from Bathurst just for
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  Speaker 3: that and the open day, and then to talk about
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  Speaker 3: talk to a lot of other locals.
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  Speaker 2: It was just really nice, ah, good stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Now I know that there are still some people out
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  Speaker 1: there who might be trying to put their babies to
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  Speaker 1: bed at night and that kind of thing, so it
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  Speaker 1: is a little bit louder for them, But there are
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  Speaker 1: different things that are in play to try to minimize
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  Speaker 1: that noise, isn't there.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 3: So to be honest, we're actually almost looking at the
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  Speaker 3: end of the exercise. The last flying is actually next Wednesday,
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  Speaker 3: but night flying will happen tonight Thursday. We won't do
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  Speaker 3: any flying Friday night or over the weekend, and then
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  Speaker 3: we wrap up next Wednesday night. So we try to
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  Speaker 3: condense it into the smallest duration possible to achieve the
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  Speaker 3: aims and the departures they're probably louder just because we
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  Speaker 3: need to get everyone out quickly, and then for the
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  Speaker 3: recoveries we deliberately bring people back on what's called us
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  Speaker 3: straight in approach, so slow and on a very controlled path,
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  Speaker 3: just like an airliner, to make sure that that's as
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  Speaker 3: as nondisruptive as possible.
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  Speaker 1: Well, tim it sounds like it's a very interesting time
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  Speaker 1: for you guys, a very busy time for you guys,
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  Speaker 1: as well, I really appreciate you coming in this morning
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  Speaker 1: and telling us a bit more about it.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks Katie, thank you.