Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / RAAF's Matthew Harper says training exercise Diamond Storm will cause some noise this month. but also a bit of a show or those who like planes

Transcript

RAAF's Matthew Harper says training exercise Diamond Storm will cause some noise this month. but also a bit of a show or those who like planes · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You may have already heard some action in the skies
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: over the top end and Catherine and we know that
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the Royal Australian Air Force is currently conducting a training
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: exercise out of THEBAF bases in each region, and I'm
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: joined by the director of that exercise group, Captain Matthew Harper,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: to explain a bit more about it. Good morning to you, Matthew,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: how are you, hi.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Katie, Thanks for having me on the show. It's actually
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: great to be able to talk to you and your
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: listeners about Exercise diamond Storm.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Well, we are excited to find out a little bit
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: more about it. Who's involved in Exercise diamond Storm.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: So Diamond Storm is predominantly a Royal Australian Air Force
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: led exercise, but it's a great opportunity to bring to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: capabilities across all of the ADF, to include both from
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: our Army and Navy where we have representation, but we
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: also have participants from the United States Air Force, the
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: United States Marine Corps. We have some partners that are
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: fine with us from the Royal Air Force and we
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: also have a few members from the United States Navy
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: also here as well.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Now, how long is it going to be running for
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and how often are resident's going to be hearing the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: aircraft in the skies.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Well, the Diamond Storm officially kicked off yesterday, I'm sure
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the residents of Darwin and Catherine would have heard the
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: aircraft getting airborn and heading down south into the airspace.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: We're going to be flying out of here for the
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: next four weeks from the thirtieth of May through to
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: the twenty fourth of June, where actually planning on flying
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: both during days and nights during the exercise. This week
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: is the first week of the exercise and we're just
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: going to be conducting some dayflying, but for the following
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: two weeks commencing next week, we will actually be doing
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks of night flying as well. We'll
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: we be flying predominantly in the afternoon and then into
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the early evening. Noting that we're not planning on doing
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: any night flying or anything like that on a Friday,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah right.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I know that there is always a lot of work
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: done with the community to try and cause the least
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: disruption possible, but it is one of those things that
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you know, these exercises are incredibly important, not just for
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the Northern Territory, but also for our defense thoughts, aren't they?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: They certainly are. And Diamond Storm itself is actually part
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: of a much larger, larger course that we're running at
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the moment called the Air Warfare Instructor Course, which is
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: a six month course that we put some of our
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: highest performing members across the Royal Australian Air Force through
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and the whole purpose is to grab them who are
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: you know, they're already really good at operating their platforms
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: and their capabilities, and our whole idea is to grab them,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: put them all together, take them through a course where
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: they can become experts on their capability, look to then
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: integrate them across a number of large force employment exercises
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: such as what we're doing here at Diamond Storm, with
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the objective at the end where we graduate them as
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: in Air Warfare Instructors, that we then reinvest back into
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: our Royal Australian Air Force community to help train our
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: next generation of war fighting leaders.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: So it is certainly pretty critical training by the sounds
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of it. How much I know that there is a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: bit of disruption though that it causes. How much disruption
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: is it likely to cause? When you talk about you know,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the noisiness. I guess that you hear. I certainly understand that.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I think we live in a defense town, so we've
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: got to understand that there are going to be exercises
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: from time to time.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I'll telly is the everyone that
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: I've engaged with across the community here in Darwin, and
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: certainly Dan and Katherine, like everyone is so supportive of
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: when Defense sort of rolls into town with our platforms
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: and capabilities, and they really understand the mission and what
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: it is that we're trying to do. But it's also
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: I think important that everyone understands that we take noise
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: and community disruption really seriously, and as a fighter part myself,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that it's something that we discuss
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: every day. We design our flight profile so that we
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: can get off the ground as quickly as possible. We
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: try and fly across flight paths that we know are
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: going to provide the minimum amount of disruption to the community.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: We limit our speed over populated areas, we avoid using
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: afterburners when it's safe to do so, and we try
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: and get as high and away from the community as
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: quickly as possible, while we then transit down into the
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: airspace to conduct our missions, and equally, on return, we
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: try and fly a flight part that will get us
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: onto the ground as quickly as possible to minimize the disruption.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: I'd also say that we're very careful about when we
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: choose to night fly, and we only choose to night
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: fly when we know that that's something that we really
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: need to do for the training of our men and
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: women that we have participating in the exercise.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Now. There are a lot of avid plane spotters or
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: aircraft spotters who listen to the show. When's the best
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: time for them to be able to to really see
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: some of some of these aircraft.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: So our normal takeoff times from just before nine o'clock
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: for about an hour or so, just depending on what
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: the day is, when we're flying in the morning and all,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: and also in the afternoon, with afternoon takeoffs commencing around
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: that sort of one thirty timeframe. When we fly from
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: the afternoon and into the evening, it's usually around that
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: sort of one or two o'clock that will take off,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: and then just after sunset, once all the bats and
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: birds have kind of dispersed around that time of evening
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: is when we'll look to launch from both Darwin and
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: also from down at Katherine.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: And where can people get some more information if they
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: are listening this morning and thinking I want to know
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: a bit more about what's happening. Can they find it
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: on Facebook or somewhere.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, we've got a great social media presence on
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: all the usual social media platforms, and territories can also
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: find more information about our flying operations by the Air
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Force dot gov dot au but certainly all the role
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Australian Air Force social media pages are a great resource
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: for everyone to get involved in the action and also
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: see some hopefully some cool images and some of the
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: data about the exercise here that we're conducting.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now, Matthew, just before I let you go, is
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: there going to be more exercises throughout the way this year?
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah? There is. So what's fantastic about coming up to
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: the Northern Territory is obviously that the weather up here
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: is sensational at this time of year, and we've also
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: got some fantastic airspace down to the south that allows
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: us to really spread out and get some great training
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: while we're flying around up here. And so whilst Diamond
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Storm happens to be the first to exercise that the
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Air Force is going to be conducting. It really does
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: start a period of about three or four months now
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: where I think it's more likely that Territorians will alsoe
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: a bit more of a defense presence. In the top end,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: we have quite a large activity plant exercise Pitch Pack,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: which some of your listeners might have heard about in
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the past, and that's going to be a little bit
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: later in the year as well, and once that's complete
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: we start to wind things back up.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like it's going to be a very
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: busy time for you guys. There is a lot happening
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: throughout the year, but so much happening now throughout the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: month as well. We really appreciate you taking the time
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to have a chat with us this morning.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Group.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Captain Matthew Harper, you are indeed well a diamond Storm,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the executive director of that of exercise diamond Storm, So
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: we appreciate you having a chat with us because I
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: know you're a very busy man at the moment.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Ah. Well, thanks for having us on the show, Katie,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you, and we may talk to you again throughout
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the exercise or I'm sure later in the.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Year fantastic, we'll look forward to it.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you,