the journal of the australian army aviation

THE JOURNAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY AVIATION ASSOCIATION INC. | SPRING 2011

FOUR AYS SPRING 2011 1

1 Editorial

2 President’s Message

3 Commander’s Message

4 Honours and Awards

6 Vale

7 Book review

8 Black Dog

9 Instructor training

11 Letters to the editor

12 Anzac Spirit

16 Fourays photo competition

18 BG Cavalier

20 Photo copy

22 UAV Shadow

25 Member profile

29 Tales of the Dreamtime

32 Museum Happenings

34 A Golden Oscar

Published byAustralian Army Aviation Association Inc.www.fourays.org

EditorPeter [email protected]

Production EditorBill [email protected]

Graphic DesignRene [email protected]

PrinterGoprintwww.goprint.qld.gov.au

Cover photo Oakey Sunset by LT Chris Heinemann

CONTENTS

In this issue our cover features the Kiowa, mainstay of the Australian Army aviation reconnaissance, command and liaison effort for forty years. We began with leased

US Army Kiowas in South Vietnam in July 1971. Since then scores of Army pilots have relied on the capabilities of this great little aircraft. A venerable workhorse indeed – how much longer will it soldier on?

Helping serving and ex-Service Army Aviation personnel and their immediate family members who have become handicapped, disadvantaged or infirm is the first listed objective of the Australian Army Aviation Association. PTSD is a crippling infirmity that is difficult to detect in others who try to soldier on under its weight. Its long-term effects have become the focus of much effort by welfare agencies in recent years. In this edition we publish an article written by one of our most highly respected aviators who reveals that he suffered deep depression silently and alone while commanding an AAAvn squadron. He has written about this in order to lend a hand to others who are in a similar plight.

In this edition we are fortunate to have a shortened version of a recent speech by Major General Jim Molan, Honorary Colonel of AAAvn and one of the most senior of our badged pilots. As we have come to expect from Jim, retired but never retiring, it is an entertaining read with a challenging message. And Alf Argent, perhaps our most prolific contributor over the years, recalls

in quite amazing detail the time when he and Laurie Doyle undertook Instructor Training in the UK in the 50s.

We who watch the development of the Australian Army Aviation capability from the sidelines experienced a vicarious sense of pride this year when Battle Group Cavalier assembled and took to the field. Steve Jobson, CO of 6th Aviation Regiment, gives his account of the performance of the aviation force in exercises Diamond Dollar and Talisman Sabre.

If you enjoy the range of topics presented in Fourays and would like to add to it, just send an article with images, or simply write a letter to the editor. Articles should be between 900 and 2000 words, in Microsoft Word format and accompanied by images – the higher the resolution the better. They can be e-mailed to the editor (preferred) or mailed on a CD or DVD. The editor will assist with spelling, grammar and so on, so do not feel your contribution is not worthy of publication just because you think it needs a bit of polish.

As always with Fourays, the views expressed are those of the writers. They should not be construed as being those of the Australian Army Aviation Association or the Australian Defence Force. So, serving contributors, we encourage you to present your personal views without some of the constraints you might feel are present in normal service channels.n

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EDITORIAL Peter Simpson

FOUR AYS SPRING 2011 3 2 FOUR AYS SPRING 2011

It is a cliché to commence a report on the previous six months’ activity in the Association with ‘it has been a very busy time’ but it is no less

true for that. Your committee has been at work on a number of fronts to improve the services to members and ensure the sound financial position of the Association. Elsewhere in the magazine is a report on the Fourays Photos competition and the subsequent decision to publish a calendar. At the time Fourays was going to print sales for the calendar were encouraging, if not spectacular, so if you haven’t got a copy yet use the order form on the back of the mailer, or download it from the link on the website. The calendars will make excellent Christmas presents.

One area of committee activity that has seen enormous growth in the past few years is welfare, and it is worth highlighting a few statistics to provide a snapshot of what our advocate, Kevin Moss, actually does. In the past twelve months to September this year he conducted 23 interviews with members and others for repatriation benefits and helped prepared 11 claims. Of these, eight have been successful and the other three are still under consideration. In addition, he has prepared four claims for military compensation, with three successful and the other rejected for lack of proof relating to an incident from 1964. On the welfare front he has received 119 enquiries resulting in 61 interviews with 17 widows, 13 currently serving personnel and 31 ex-service members. In all he has travelled 3,440 kilometres on our behalf on welfare, advocacy and compensation matters!

Kevin has noticed in the past few years an increasing rate of claims from Vietnam veterans as they have reached retirement age and left the workforce. While this is to be expected, sometimes the entitlement to benefits following the onset of sudden and serious illness can take time to establish if the claimant is not known to DVA. This may result in the veteran or his family being seriously out of pocket at a time of great stress and concern for all, but it is a situation that need not arise. All that is required is that DVA be aware of a veteran’s identity to set up a file as a precaution, something similar to making out a will. Then if something untoward does happen, Kevin can help establish the entitlements in a timely manner which can save a great deal of stress and angst in the unfortunate circumstance of a major illness. For those who want to take advantage of this planning, please contact Kevin either through the website or from the details on the advertisement on page 31.

One other area of significant change has been the re-development of the Association website. Unfortunately, due to the absence of key personnel this has been delayed, but there is work being undertaken behind the scenes. The new look has been tested among a select group and has been favourably received. I anticipate that the new website will be unveiled early into the New Year.

At the end of June, a ceremony was held at Oakey to rename the base Swartz Barracks, after the first Honorary Colonel of the Australian Army Aviation Corps, Sir Reginald Swartz, KBE, MBE(Mil), ED. The ceremony was well attended and

held in the presence of a large gathering of Sir Reginald’s family. At the Annual General Meeting in September, a motion was passed to complement this action by naming the airfield at Oakey Constable Army Airfield, after Major George Constable, who was killed in action in South Vietnam in 1968 while the Officer Commanding of 161 (Independent) Reconnaissance Flight. While it is noted that the naming of Defence establishments is entirely a matter for Defence to decide, I have written to the Director General of Aviation, Brigadier Neil Turton, who is Head of Corps, to advise him of the AGM decision and recommend the naming of Constable Army Airfield.

It remains for me to wish all our members and their families a happy and safe Christmas and all the very best for the New Year.

STOP PRESS

As this issue was in the final stages of editing I received a reply from Brigadier Turton indicating that the naming of Oakey Army Airfield after George Constable was a “great suggestion” and it would be considered at the next meeting of the Aviation Corps committee. Very encouraging news.

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Bill MellorCOMMANDER’S MESSAGE

Brigadier Greg Lawler

It has been said, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and I think the saying may be partly true, especially if you substitute it with “an old pilot”.

Two months ago I had the opportunity to fly one of the 1st Aviation Regiment’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters on a training mission around Darwin and the training Areas. As an aircraft and a weapons platform the Tiger is an incredible machine. Aussie Tiger is leading the way and is the most advanced Tiger type helicopter in the world. The Australian Army is scheduled to take delivery of the 22nd and final aircraft from Australian Aerospace on the 1st of December this year.

From a pilot’s perspective this aircraft is exceptionally easy to fly and with the firepower that can be bolted to the wings, the Tiger is a formidable, modern and agile weapon of the 21st century battlefield.

My sortie was hands on experience with this new capability. Much to my delight, of the 2.4 hour mission, I had 2.3 hours on the controls. The Tiger is able to provide an amazing amount of information to the pilot through the LCD panels in the cockpit and also displayed into the visor of the helmet. Being the old pilot and the pedantic instructor that I am, this was a difficult and different experience, from flying with your eyes outside.

The biggest take away from the sortie, is our aircraft are becoming increasingly more sophisticated inside the cockpit. Pilots want to look at everything. What I want to reinforce is the pilot must still do the basics, the “old tricks” first and do them well: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate and Administrate. I may not be able to be taught

all the new tricks, but I reminded our young and talented pilots of the old tricks. The kit may be fantastic, but we still have to fly it.

During the year, I have been privileged to see the excellent work of Battle Group Cavalier, which included the first Tiger squadron mission during the lead up activities to Exercise Talisman Sabre in Shoalwater Bay. LTCOL Jobson took more than 400 soldiers to the field and put an Aviation Battle Group into a greenfield site. It has been more than 12 years since we have put a Battle Group sized organisation in the paddock. Most of the young soldiers had not been in the field with Army Aviation before, but had seen many operational deployments in East Timor or Afghanistan. As with all exercises I saw tradesmen and groundcrewmen worked harder than anyone else on the position (cooks and OPSO being the only exception). These soldiers are the true unsung heroes of our capability. I look forward to the next large exercise and the further development of the Tiger capability, as it is yet to be released to operational service.

I would like to reflect on the year, and the first year of my command of the 16th Aviation Brigade. The year started earlier then usual with most of the Brigade being recalled to help with Operation Queensland Flood Assist and Operation Yasi Assist. I was inspired by our people when they left their loved ones and homes in Townsville, threatened by Cyclone Yasi, to protect our aircraft and help others in need. Our combat aviators demonstrated true professionalism during the summer of natural disasters.

We continued to do a marvellous job in East Timor with another two rotations

and yet another rotation of Chinooks to Afghanistan. No one expected to hear the news on the early morning of the 30th of May when we were informed we had lost one of our young officers, Lieutenant Marcus Case, had five crew injured in the accident and Chinook 102 was destroyed. Marcus was a young pilot from the 173rd Aviation Squadron and had been attached to the RAAF, deployed in Afghanistan flying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. We brought him home on the 6th of June to his family and friends.

This year has also seen many firsts in the history of Army Aviation. Black Hawk has never flown so much and achieved a record number of hours. As mentioned earlier, the Tiger has flown its first Squadron sized mission during its deployment to the field in Shoalwater Bay and has integrated into the land battle extremely well for a true combined arms effect.

Recently two of our combat aviators were seriously injured in a rogue Afghan National Army shooting incident where three Australian soldiers lost their lives. They are now home, resting in hospital and I wish them a speedy recovery.

As I write this, our people are still working very hard preparing for the next rotation overseas or have just completed tasking for CHOGM and the Presidential visit. We are committed to the job until the task is done but ready for a well-deserved break at Christmas with friends and family.

I have thoroughly welcomed the challenges presented this year and look forward to the next. I wish everyone in the Association a very happy and safe Christmas and prosperous New Year. All is well.

2011 has proved to be a vintage year for formal recognition of those associated with Army aviation, with no fewer than

eleven individuals being recognised with civil and military awards under the Australian honours system.

Heading the list on the civil side of the house are Helen Bawden and Frank Benfield, two very well known Association members, who have been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.

In Helen’s case it is for her services to the community in respect of her work as a volunteer and secretary of the board of the Museum of Australian Army Flying, the Oakey Carers Support Group and on the board of Toowoomba, Golden West and South Burnett Tourism. A very dedicated volunteer at the MAAF for more than 20 years, Helen has worked tirelessly in promoting the museum in the regional area and wider. Her efforts in organising the annual MAAF Fly-In are fundamental to the success of the event, which has elevated the Museum sixth on the list of most popular tourist attractions on the Downs.

Frank has been awarded the OAM for his services to the veteran community, and again he has been a committed advocate for improving services and conditions for ex-service men and women for many years. A former President of the 161 Recce Association, he has been a member of the Veterans Review Board for the past 12 years and is currently serving on the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on Ex-Service Matters. Frank has also served on the Military Compensation Board.

Another on the civil list is Brian Huddleston from the Army Aviation Centre at Oakey who has been awarded the Public Service Medal for outstanding service as the Project Manager of the

MRH 90 project and his planning for the helicopter’s introduction into service.

The military list also sees the services of two other Association members recognised and three other serving members have also received awards.

Brigadier Shayne Elder was appointed to be a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his outstanding performance over many years culminating in four years as the Deputy Commander and then Commander of 16 Aviation Brigade. During this time Brigadier Elder reinforced the warfighting ethos of the modern combat Army aviator.

Brigadier Shayne Elder, AM

Warrant Officer Class One John Phillips was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the Military Division. The former RSM of the 5th and 6th Aviation Regiments and of 16 Aviation Brigade is recognised for his commitment and dedicated hard work in these appointments as well as his time as the Aviation Corps Career Manager in the Soldier Career Management Agency. John is continuing his demanding postings and is currently the Aviation Corps RSM and RSM of the Aviation Training Centre at Oakey.

Operationally, Captain Michael Whitney’s service as a Chinook troop commander in the Rotary Wing Group 4 in Afghanistan in 2009 has been recognised with the award of a Distinguished Service Medal. This is an outstanding achievement and reflects very favourably not only on Michael’s worthy performance, but on the RWG as a whole.

Similarly, the award of a Conspicuous Service Medal to Sergeant Thomas Bauer, the forward repair team leader and maintenance manager of the Timor Leste Aviation Group XII on Operation Astute during 2009-10 is fitting recognition of his logistic skills and dedicated service and again highlights the commitment of many Army combat aviators over the long time that the Black Hawks have been in Timor Leste.

The other members of the Army aviation capability to be awarded medals recently are Major Terry Johnson who has been awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross for his outstanding achievement as the Staff Officer Grade Two Maintenance Standards at Headquarters 16 Aviation Brigade; Warrant Officer Class Two Vivian Anderson awarded the Conspicuous Service Medal for meritorious achievement as the acting officer-in-charge of the Oakey Detachment of the Joint Logistics Unit (South Queensland); and Corporal Ben Balchin from the 6th Aviation Regiment, who has also been awarded the CSM for his achievements in very difficult and demanding circumstances performing the ground liaison duties in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea during the recovery of bodies from an aircraft crash site.

Finally, Group Captain David Scheul from the Defence Materiel Organisation has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the Military Division. David

HONOURS AND AWARDSis a software engineer on the Tiger program and Program Manager of the MRH90 project and has worked tirelessly in the interests of Army aviation. Even though both programs have suffered delays and problems, his superior efforts have helped to stave off even further delays.

The Simkin Trophy for 2011 has been awarded to Major Andrew Middleton, the Officer Commanding 173rd Aviation Squadron, 6th Aviation Regiment. As such he has been responsible for the professional and technical development of many junior and inexperienced junior officers and has approached that task with zeal and determination.

Major Middleton set about establishing and developing the governance, technical, safety, training and administrative framework for the squadron in a particularly measured and comprehensive manner. As a result 173rd Aviation Squadron has been able to exceed transformation and development

milestones in order to reach full operating capability in a timely manner. The unit has provided effective support to numerous Army units and has made a significant contribution to the Queensland Flood disaster; thereby, proving its operational ability and raising the profile of the Army Aviation Capability.

The Aviation Soldier of the Year trophy, sponsored by the Army Aviation Association, has been awarded in 2011 to Craftsman Lachlan Fraser of 5th Aviation Regiment. Craftsman Fraser is an armament fitter working on the Chinook mini-gun system who demonstrated maturity and moral courage when he identified a systematic error in the management of the maintenance procedures of the system. Having alerted the chain of command about the problem he then set about rectifying it and instigating robust measures to prevent recurrence. A soldier not afraid to shoulder the extra effort required, Craftsman Fraser is highly regarded by all as a hard working

and professional soldier and a very worthy recipient of the ASOTY award.

The Swartz Shield for 2011 has been award to B Squadron, 5th Aviation Regiment. In an extremely busy twelve months the Squadron has continued to refine and develop its own airmobile skills and those of supported units throughout Australia as well as providing support to a wide range of individual training and administrative and VIP tasking. Over the Christmas New Year period the Squadron was called out to provide assistance to the Queensland floods and shortly after again to assist in the clean-up after cyclone Yasi. During this entire period, the Squadron, ably assisted by the Technical Support Squadron of the Regiment more than doubled its allocated domestic Rate of Effort; a clear indication of the resilience, professionalism and commitment to excellence of the men and women who make up B Squadron, 5th Aviation Regiment.

ASOTY Craftsman Lachlan FraserAOTY Major Andrew MiddletonBrian Huddleston PSM

Captain Michael Whitney, DSM Frank Benfield OAM 2011 GPCAPT David Scheul, OAMHelen Bawden OAM MAJ Terry Johnson, CSC

WO1 John Phillips, OAM WO2 Viv Anderson CSM


vale

GARY TICEHURST

The Army aviation community lost one of its

true characters in the recent aircraft accident

in outback Australia that claimed the life

of Gary Ticehurst and two of his ABC-TV

journalist colleagues. Gary never forgot his

military roots and was a strong supporter

of the Association and the current Army

aviation capability. A member of 18 Army

Course, Gary got his wings at Oakey in 1974

and was posted to 161 Recce Squadron,

Holsworthy, at the old Anzac Rifle Range site

and shortly thereafter relocated on the then

new Luscombe Army Airfield. He achieved

early notoriety when, not long after the

move, while in the circuit at the new location,

he misjudged the pullout from a wingover

and made pretty severe contact with the

ground. He and his passenger suffered only

minor injuries, and the accident was put

down to the contractor building the airfield

four feet too high!

Apart from his courses, Gary spent all his

time in Army aviation at Holsworthy, albeit

from that firm base he ranged far and wide.

A survey operation in the Torres Strait and

on Cape York Peninsular in 1975 lead to

a keen interest in the history of the early

outback explorers, which in turn lead to

his early exposure to the television industry

on an expedition to retrace an explorers

early journey. In 1980 he resigned from the

Army to commence flying with the nascent

NSW Police Air Wing and eighteen months

later he set up his own aviation company

and secured a contract with ABC-TV. It was

a contract that he was to hold for nearly

thirty years during which he became one

of the most accomplished media pilots in

Australia. His film work includes working on

Australia, the Matrix series, Superman Returns

and many others. During his coverage for

ABC-TV of the tragic 1998 Sydney to Hobart

yacht, Gary spent many hours out in the

appalling weather providing information

and direction to the rescue services and

comfort to the distressed crews.

In a flying career spanning nearly forty years,

Gary Ticehurst amassed a total of 16,000

hours. Always good company, with a ready

smile, he will be missed by all who knew him.

To his family and friends, the Australian Army

Aviation Association offers its condolences.

BILL MELLOR

LIEUTENANT MARCUS CASE

LT Marcus Sean Case, who died in an aircraft

accident on operations in Afghanistan, was a

very much liked and loved member of 173rd

Aviation Squadron based at Holsworthy. His

likeable character often led to more larrikin

behaviour both around the Squadron from

day to day and often also into the weekend

in his social life.

Since Marcus’ passing there have been

many anecdotes passed around by his

many friends and family, over a quiet beer,

in gatherings all over the country and at

times the world. Although incredibly sad,

Marcus’ passing has brought together his

many families and highlighted just how

much he was loved and respected in life.

His loving parents Bernard and Lee, his

adoring older brothers and sisters, Robert,

Michael, Jackie, Liz and Chris took great pride

in nurturing the fiery redhead into the young

man that would touch so many people’s

lives. After leaving home Marcus’ joined his

Military family, first as a Commando and

then as an Aviator.

It was through the sad events of the 30 May

2011 that these families and many other

friends came together to share their lives and

stories of Marcus. His 173 brothers took great

pride in being invited to Bernard and Lee’s

home to get to know the family. Although

the Case family were thankful, the honour

really rested with the men of 173 in being

able to share this time with such amazing

people. We just hope that through the days,

weeks, months and years that follow that

we can continue to gather together, all his

families, to continue to recount and learn

new anecdotes of the man we so tragically

lost and who was loved by so many.

Within the Squadron we have taken it upon

ourselves to ensure Marcus is not forgotten,

his face will now adorn the walls for all that

are here now and for all that will follow. In his

old office still remain two passport photos of

him, moustache and all, stuck on the white

board as a cheeky reminder of the larrikin

that once graced this office. I often look as

these photos, as the stress of the week gets

to me, and have a quiet chuckle to myself

and am comforted in the knowledge that

I had the privilege and honour of knowing

such a likeable, lovable and always cheeky

man.

LT PAT WALTON


BOOK REVIEW | Dee Vee

Since 2003, Fourays has published reviews on more than twenty books. The vast majority of these have had

an aviation theme of some description or another, and a good percentage have featured Army aviators from several nations in action from Vietnam through to Afghanistan. Immediate Response is a variation on the theme. Mark Hammond is a Royal Marine officer and a helicopter pilot; one of 60 or so in the RM. He has flown Lynx and Gazelle in the UK and Whisky model Cobra on exchange with the US Marine Corps. Seemingly at the end of his RM flying career a loathed staff appointment beckoned; he considered emigrating to Australia as an alternative. Enter a kindly mentor who arranged for Hammond to be posted to one of the several RM exchange positions with the Royal Air Force flying Chinooks. This, of course, meant deploying to Afghanistan where the RAF Chinook fleet was heavily committed. Immediate Response is an account of Hammond’s second and third tours in 2006 and 2007.

In the same way that the Iroquois and the Cobra became emblematically linked to the Vietnam War so have the Chinook and the Apache come to represent the rotary wing support to the war in Afghanistan.

Black Hawks are there in numbers, of course, but the elevation of the terrain in many of the regions has limited their effectiveness. The deployment of the new Mike model Black Hawks is redressing this imbalance somewhat but, in the public view, it is the venerable old ‘Chook’ that is seen to be leading the way and, for the British forces, is the vehicle of choice for medevac.

Hammond provides the obligatory ‘how a Chinook flies’ segment in the book, supported by a two page see-through diagram of a Chinook annotated with 139 individual parts of the aircraft! He describes the modus operandi of the RAF Chinook fleet which, while based in Kandahar, are regularly forward deployed into Camp Bastion. It is out of Bastion that most of the action takes place, including some very impressive night flying into some heavy enemy fire to recover casualties. This action ultimately results in the award of a Distinguished Flying Cross to Hammond. His account of the various actions, however, is, to this reviewer, diminished by the constant use of slang and vernacular that is the everyday language, apparently, of RAF Chinook pilots. Some of it verges on the juvenile, and it becomes distracting and an impediment to a clear understanding of what is happening. But, on occasions,

clarity breaks and it is as if the ghost writer,

Clare MacNaughton, has gained the upper

hand and insisted on writing intelligible

English. The further this reviewer advanced

into the book, more ardent was the wish

that MacNaughton might have gained that

upper hand on page 2 and retained it until

the end.

Of course, operations are not non-stop

action, and Hammond feels obliged to fill

in the space between the excitement with

descriptions of how he and his crew steal a

Humvee from the Americans, dissuade an

Army officer from using the toilet in their

lines and other riveting activities such as

pumping iron and smoking. Fortunately

such sojourns are few but, combined with

the language, they reduce the impact of the

book from a serious account of warfare to a

boys-own adventure in the desert. Get this

one for your adolescent son or nephew; he

will probably enjoy it.

There is no doubt that Major Mark

Hammond is a very brave and competent

pilot, and that he more than deserved the

DFC the Queen pinned onto his chest.

But if Immediate Response is anything to

go by, he should stick to his day/night job,

and leave the writing to the professionals.

IMMEDIATE RESPONSE Mark Hammond, Penguin Books, 2010, 300pp

THE DOG THAT BIT ME WAS

BLACKTOM PARTRIDGE

For me, the worst thing about

Vietnam was coming home. The

vilification from our peer group

was particularly galling and I

can neither forgive nor forget

the bitterness, anger and hurt

veterans felt at their betrayal.

The next seven years of my service was okay, but sometime thereafter I began to suffer anxiety and depression. In September1978 I was promoted from 2IC to OC at 161 Recce Squadron. In 1979, all seemed to be reasonably successful with 161 being awarded the Regimental Shield for best squadron. Perhaps we were still coasting on a ground-swell of good will left by Graeme Maughan.

Andrew Robb, MP (Black Dog Daze: Public Life, Private Demons) writes of his mornings

spent staring at the wall in his office. That was me in 1980 as I spent the bulk of that year in a state of helplessness and depression, staring at my office wall. Until Andrew Robb went public, I thought I was alone with my torment. Emma Jane, columnist, (The Weekend Australian) took courage from Andrew’s honesty and “came out” also. The example of these two has prompted me to “come out” and perhaps help others in need.

During the second half of my service I was struggling to keep my head above water as my condition deteriorated. I wish to apologise to Bill Mellor and the crew at 161 and especially to my successor Peter Ferguson for the God-awful mess I left behind. All I could think to do was to avoid the consequences and run.

Gary Ticehurst, a dear and faithful friend gave me my first civilian job as second pilot at the ABC (AS350B). Jobs at Network Ten (AS355) and Child Flight (B0105/IFR BK-117) followed and finally back to Ten (Bell 206).

During the last ten years of flying I suffered ulcerative colitis (ulcerated colon) which, when I was stressed (usually daily), manifested itself by severe cramps followed

by bloody diarrhoea, which made flying very difficult indeed.

In 1999, my colleague at Ten in Brisbane crashed and burned and I was advised over the radio while airborne. I was immediately transported back to Vietnam and was convinced that my controls had ceased to function and that we would plunge forward into the ground. From that time on, I suffered continual flash-backs and panic attacks while flying and Paddy O’Brien’s death in 2000 was the last straw, so I resigned following the Sydney Olympics.

In 2001 I had a breakdown and friends, who were themselves TPIs, took me to the Vietnam Veterans’ Association to seek help. I was diagnosed with “chronic severe post-traumatic stress disorder, with deep depression”. Department of Veterans’ Affairs agreed that I was barking mad and presented me with a gold card as an unemployable TPI.

While all this was going on, I searched for answers, so I studied Psychology at UNE, graduating in 2003. This knowledge, together with my experience as a psychiatric patient (four months in a psychiatric clinic thus far, and monthly visits with my shrink plus considerable medication for these past ten years) has helped, but I’m not out of the woods and never will be.

I wish to thank my beautiful wife Beverley for supporting me over many difficult years. Her loyalty and support is treasured.

Now to the crux of the matter:

I feel that I may be in a position to help anyone who can relate to the above. I have helped several fellows over recent years by chatting and guiding them (full confidentiality) in the direction of professional help, and to gaining TPI in one case.

If anyone feels the need, please contact me (from January 2012) at:

Tom Partridge105 Mahogany Driv Pelican Waters Qld 4551Mob: 0427 227 237email: [email protected]

Editor’s Note: There are many readers who served with Tom Partridge and worked for him as OC of 161 Recce Sqn. We remember his approachability, sincerity and thoughtful guidance. All will agree that his ability to inspire by example while bearing alone the weight of such debilitating depression is an amazing example of commitment, but absolutely typical of Tom.

In early 1956, I was 2IC A Coy

3RAR, Ingleburn, NSW and

warned that later in the year I

was to go to the UK for a flying

instructor’s course and, prior to

that, I would be posted to the

Air OP Flight at RAAF Fairbairn

to build-up my hours. Thus 28

February saw me doing up the

Sutton harness in Auster Mk III,

A11-56.

The AOP Flight was a RAAF unit, the only khaki being the five gunner officers. The OC was Sqn Ldr Leon Brown

who I knew from BCOF Japan days and I also knew his successor, Sqn Ldr Bill (“Curly” for obvious reasons) Keritz from parachute courses at RAAF Williamtown. My second last Auster flight was with him in A11-41 on 5 November 1956 for 50 minutes of IF. Capt Laurie Doyle, RAA,

who was also to attend an instructor’s course, joined the Air OP Flight a little later than I, also to get more hours. (Ten years on, Laurie was to command 161 Independent Reconnaissance Flight, Nui Dat, South Vietnam, 29 July 1966-2 August 1967.)

On 10 November 1956 he and I, clutching our £780 ($1 560) 1 First Class return tickets, Sydney-London-Sydney, boarded Qantas Super Constellation VH-EAH at Mascot for Singapore via Darwin. The airport at Singapore was then at Kallang, about two nautical miles north east of the then city. It was later a housing estate. Passengers remained overnight at Raffles.

The route then was Singapore-Bangkok-Calcutta-Karachi-Istanbul-

1 Average weekly earnings in 1956 was £15.7.7 ($31.76), in early 2011 $1 300, so a rough estimate of the cost of the ticket in today’s dollars maybe calculated. UK living-in allowance was £A264 per annum, outfit allowance £A25, UK allowance 6/3 per day (62 cents) and traveling allowance 10/- sterling a day (about $1.20). The pay of a four-year ARA captain in 1956 was 84/9 per day ($8.48). This included 5/-(50 cents) flying allowance. (1956 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mozart. The Olympic Games were held in Melbourne in late 1956 just when B & W television began in Australia.)

Rome-Frankfurt-London. Typically, for that time of the year, Heathrow was closed due to fog, so the landing was at Blackbush, 30 nm south west of London.

As it was necessary for Laurie and I to convert to the RAF basic trainer, the Hunting Provost T Mk 1, and have a RAF instrument rating, we reported to 3 Flying Training School, Feltwell, Norfolk on 20 November 1956. Next day we joined eight RAF officers and NCOs and became members of No. 170 Refresher Course and I had my first flight (40 minutes) in the Provost that afternoon. My instructor was Master Pilot T W Good, an Irishman who, naturally enough, answered to “Paddy.” After one hour the next day with him and then 15 minutes, I was sent-off for 40 minutes. All pilots had their own radio call signs e.g DV 12. Tail or serial numbers were never used.

The Provost had a profile similar to the RAAF’s basic trainer, the Winjeel, except instead of a Pratt and Whitney up front there was a supercharged 550 HP Alvis Leonides radial driving a three blade propeller, the brakes and flaps were

MEMORY, BAR THE DOOR

RAF CENTRAL FLYING SCHOOL 1957 – AND BEFORE AND AFTER

By Alf Argent


pneumatic and there was a cartridge engine start. The standard six in those days differed from today’s analogues in that the altimeter was placed under the ASI on the left and the VSI and turn-and-balance were on the right of the central AH and DI. There was two-stage amber for IF practice when we donned violet goggles, though winter skies meant frequent actual. There were many days when the airfield was closed due fog. A wartime poet summed it up in a few words: “…Flat fields, no sun, the muddy, misty dawn, / And always, above all, the mad rain dripping down…. ”

OC RAF Feltwell, a group captain, was an Australian who was a cadet at RAAF Point Cook in 1930 under an arrangement that, on graduation, he would be transferred to the RAF. Four of the ten cadets on his course came to the UK under this scheme. (After he retired from the RAF he sailed his yacht to Australia.)

The East Anglian skies were busy. Within 25 nm of RAF Feltwell there were no less than 10 major RAF airfields. The terrain was flat, Feltwell was 63 feet AMSL and its satellite Methwold (not one of the above 10), 4 nm to the north-east, was all of two feet higher.

For return to Feltwell after upper airwork we would request the tower for a QGH, meaning, “May I land using VHF

DF.” We would be identified after a turn on to a certain heading and then the tower would give headings for overhead Feltwell at, say, 5 000 feet and then outbound on a certain heading for a short time, followed by power right off and a very steep descent, almost a dive, so as to remain close to the airfield. After becoming visual, one hoped to pick up some landmark to help find the airfield.

It was easier to ask for “a QGH with GCA pick-up.” There was the same steep descent and then contact with RAF Lakenheath GCA, a field only 5 nm to the south of Feltwell and occupied by the USAF and with USAF GCA controllers. A confident US accent would put us on base about seven miles out and give a series of headings to be on finals at 600 feet. There was a reminder to complete landing checks, not to acknowledge any further instructions and details of what to do in the event of radio failure and not being visual at minimums. Then it was just a matter of doing what you were told, “50 feet high on the glide path, descend slightly,” “left of glide path, turn right on to a heading of 045 degrees.” It was a great relief to hear, “Over the threshold, look ahead for landing” and see the long black runway, glistening after rain, directly ahead. We did not land at Lakenheath but began a missed approach

and flew low level over a railway line and a river the 5 nm to Feltwell.

The conversion to the Provost and the instrument rating cost £38 sterling (£A47.10 shillings/$94, say about $A2 900 in 2011 money) per hour. This covered rations and quarters, medical (not that we used it), administrative overheads, a slice of the pay and allowances of our instructors as well as the direct and indirect running costs of the Provost

In addition to ab initio training of cadets and refresher courses for those already badged, there were courses that ran for two weeks, mainly for Air Ministry staff officers. Included in these were a number of Battle of Britain and Bomber Command pilots, now wing commanders and group captains with rows of decorations and ribbons. A regular visitor was Air Commodore J E Johnson, the RAF’s leading fighter pilot of WW2. He flew up from London, solo in an Avro Anson on Friday afternoons, and returned the following Monday morning. He often came to our crew room for a chat. During the Korean War he was attached to a USAF squadron flying the F-86 Sabre.

Our Course ended in February 1957, so with our White Cards as proof of our competency to handle the English weather, and my Log Book showing “Provost T Mk

letters to the EditorGood Afternoon Bill,

I have recently read the latest Fourays mag, which I enjoyed thoroughly. After reading the article by Alf Argent on the Cessna 180, I felt I would just like to add a little extra regarding the history of two of these aircraft. I don’t know whether you feel it of interest enough to publish.

I was first introduced to the Cessna 180 at Amberley in 1965, whist I was an Engine Mechanic with the R.A.A.F. and posted to 16 A.L.A. I later returned to the R.A.A.F. and subsequently entered “civvy street” as a Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer. After several positions and a number of years, I joined the Queensland Police Force and as a Constable stationed at Redcliffe and Petrie, I became

responsible for the maintenance

of the Police Air Wing Aircraft.

At this time the two aircraft were

in fact Cessna 180s and both

were ex 16 A.L.A. aircraft. These

were registered VH-PFM and PFT,

I am unsure at this time of their

previous A98 numbers. During

the time I was maintaining these

aircraft, most of the work was

undertaken at Redcliffe airport,

although on one occasion we

flew one aircraft to Oakey, where

the maintenance squadron

personnel were happy to

lend a hand with a couple

of tasks. Both these aircraft

were still in service with the

Police Air Wing when I left the

Police Force, however later one

aircraft was severely damaged

during a thunderstorm at

Archerfield, despite being tied

down. This aircraft I believe was

subsequently written off. The other was later sold and the last info I heard was it was flying somewhere in Victoria.

Regards,Bob Jamieson

Dear Editor,

Perhaps you may be able to use the following.

It was an in-country check and the instructor-pilot in the left seat of the UH-1H 61-202 was a keen and enthusiastic West Pointer. As the T53-L-13 carried us towards the southern outskirts of Saigon he was telling me what a lovely machine the Huey was. It was, he said “ ....the Rolls-Royce of helicopters!” Then he quickly corrected himself with a chuckle, “ I should have said “the Lincoln of helicopters, shouldn’t I.”

When I was fairly new in the

country we were approaching

the Cambodian border and I

called up the province artillery

on VHF-FM. An American voice

rattled off what was happening or

about to happen and mentioned

“high altitude artillery at thirty

thousand feet.” This perplexed

me for a moment as I had never

heard of trajectories of that

magnitude. Then left-seat just

said, “B-52s from Guam.” Some

time later, we could see where

they had been after their long 4

480 nm round trip. There were

lines of large craters in the open

terrain and holes in the tangled

jungle, some filled with water

and reflecting the noon sun.

Sincerely,

Alf Argent


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ANZACand the

Mameluke Sword

efficiency, effectiveness and accountability spirit

A summary of a speech delivered to the

Australian Industry and Defence Network

— Northern Territory In Darwin on 25 Oct 11

by Major General Jim Molan, Honorary Colonel

of AAAvn

Looking around the room, I see what is

perhaps an unusual coming together

of the military, Territory and Federal

government, Territory and Federal

officials, lobby groups, and of course,

the sinews of war - defence industry.

I have been asked to speak tonight on the Anzac spirit. I am going to take the coward’s route and not define that in the confidence that we know

it when we see it. The role of today’s Anzacs is to fight

our current wars and to prepare to fight and win our future wars. Our current wars are difficult but our Anzacs are doing what the Government bids them, and doing it superbly. I happen to think that the operational aim is wrong but that is another speech.

If we make the mistake of thinking that the biggest challenge that we face is running our very limited current operations, then when we have to get involved in the kind of war that we are buying JSFs, AWDs, AEW&Cs, MRTTs etc (the

alphabet soup) for, we will be in for a big surprise. To conduct sophisticated joint warfighting operations against anything even approaching a peer competitor is at least one thousand times harder than maintaining 1550 personnel in the Middle East Area of Operations.

But most people say, we will never have to do that will we? And if we do, we will have lots of time to prepare, won’t we? And the US will be there, won’t they?

Well I hope so. But then I come from an army that actually believed the Defence strategist when they said that we would never fight in the Middle East again, who said that our only enemies were to be “nongs in thongs”, the same strategist who missed the fall of the soviet union and the rise of Islamists, the same department of Defence who reacted to the Russian invasion of landlocked Afghanistan by - buying frigates!

My father was in the Army during WWII. This army was the result of seeing the Great War as being the war to end all wars. It was not initially a highly efficient or effective army, because due to unpreparedness, it expand far too fast.

When you heard him talk, he used to talk of the indomitable spirit of his mates, the Anzac spirit, and the triumph and tragedy of their situation. But who were the diggers mostly trying to overcome – our Japanese enemy? No way! It seems that the Aussie digger relied on the Anzac

spirit as much to overcome the idiocy of his own military (the dearth of equipment, weapons and facilities that were imposed on our troops by our lack of preparedness, and our lack of a clear strategy achievable by the tactics) as to using that spirit to defeat the enemy.

Our record in the early days of wars is not good, Anzac spirit or no Anzac spirit.

It should be no comfort that it is not only Australians who have made an art form of being unprepared for the next war. We see it at the moment in the US and the UK, as the UK blows its collective military brains out and the US is about to start.

Half the time, we rely on the Anzac spirit to overcome problems that are not caused by an enemy, but are caused by us. A disproportionate number of our challenges every time we go to war are caused by our unpreparedness. It is so normal that we face such problems at the start of wars that it looks like it is inevitable. Unpreparedness is not inevitable. We merely make it so.

It leads me to conclude, and this is the theme of my speech on the Anzac spirit, that the most prominent characteristic of the Australian experience of war may not be the ANZAC spirit, as we always seem to think, but national unpreparedness overcome by the ANZAC spirit.

But there is a strong belief in our society, and I suspect in Governments, that we will never really have to use all the weapons that we are buying. Let me

quote Trotsky who said to all those people who say, arrogantly and mindlessly, that they do not believe in war: “You may not be interested in war”, asks Trotsky, “but is war interested in you?”

So generals and politicians must be as much Anzacs as the digger in a hole in the ground. They too must have the Anzac spirit.

Let me expand more on the Anzac spirit by talking about Napoleon.

When you become a general, you are given a ceremonial sword called the Mameluke Sword. Mamelukes were professional soldiers, originally slave soldiers, who dominated warfare across the Muslim world for 400 years. The Brits so respected the Mamelukes as soldiers that they adopted the Mameluke sword, and with our Brit traditions, we too wear it for ceremonial occasions.

This sword teaches, or should teach, Australian generals a lesson. Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798 and at the Battle of the Pyramids, he defeated the Mamelukes. Rather, he annihilated them. The French lost 30 killed, the Mamelukes lost 5000 and ceased to exist after 400 years.

The lesson for Australian generals is to never become complacent. Just because you seem to have been top dog for years, look out for the new boy on the block. Never believe your own propaganda. Napoleon used new technology and new techniques, and applied intellect to the practice of war.


The Mamelukes did not. So if the Mameluke sword reminds

generals of certain things, what is the equivalent for our politician? I stress that I am not making a pointed political statement. My comments are directed at all governments over many, many years.

The defence of Australia is not the responsibility of the ADF, it is the responsibility of governments. Last time I looked, the ADF does not set strategic policy, nor does it tax the Australian people, nor does it allocate resources between competing priorities.

We have seen recently a series of capability scandals that relate to subs, helicopters, amphibious ships and to sea mine capability. The popular view that I have struck numerous times in the last few weeks is that responsibility for these failures should fall on the ADF. Now we are all big boys and we in the ADF can take a bit of criticism, even if it is generally unfounded. To blame the ADF for these disasters is very dangerous because it takes the responsibilities off those who allocate resources to achieve a defence outcome.

I suspect that rarely in the future will Australia be able to establish hardware superiority to the extent that we may have claimed to have had it, at least in the close region, in the past.

To win in the future, Australia will need to bring the resources of the nation, military and non-military, to bear on any problem in an efficient and effective way. On the military side, this requires the best of intellect applied by the political and military leadership to very good equipment within a coherent strategy aligned from the top to the bottom.

This is what creates real accountability. What goes out at the top as strategy should drive the entire organisation. To give them their due, our political leaders are trying, or at least telling us that they are trying.

Most every minister for Defence has tried to reform Defence but none has succeeded to any great extent. What change for good there has been in certain areas of Defence has been achieved by insiders,

by competent CDFs or Secretaries, or by the sobering discipline of operational deployments. The last, operational reality, is the most effective change agent.

I fear that our leadership still does not understand the link between their strategy and our tactics.

Never has the military strategy expressed through a White Paper process been achievable by the ADF in terms of the tactical application of force.

Be it forward defence, defence of Australia, contingency operations, expeditionary operations, self-sufficiency, jointery, now Force 2030, the policy makers have lived in a world of their own unrelated to the reality of what the resource allocation was creating in the ADF. For most of my military career, nothing would have given the ADF a chance to win, even with a few years to prepare, because it was a military force designed “… for but not with…” joint combat capability.

The only reason that our strategy has not been exposed as the gross failure that it is over the last forty years is because it has never been tested. Lucky country indeed.

Perhaps part of the failure to achieve efficiency and accountability is that efficiency must always be balanced against effectiveness, and effectiveness has hardly ever been an issue. Effectiveness in Defence is not about bureaucratic processes, important thought they are. It is not about the creation of policy, even though that is a first step. It is not even about having ships and planes and tanks, critical although they are.

Effectiveness in defence is about the ability of the ADF, when required by the Australian people, to win in joint combat operations. That is why we do all this stuff.

A focus on outputs is the key to efficiency because it starts with effectiveness. If defence uses its inputs efficiently and achieves effectiveness, then accountability, what the Minister is trying to achieve, is relatively easy. If effectiveness cannot be measured because we are unwilling to state what we exist for in real defined operational terms, then we

will never achieve efficiency and so never achieve accountability.

The current attempt by government to achieve efficiency, somewhat separated from operational effectiveness but linked in some strange way to accountability, is itself commendable. This policy is encapsulated, as we all know, in the Black Review.

I am forced to express my personal view that the Black Review is amazingly flawed and unlikely to improve the situation in Defence. This is because it further bureaucratizes Defence, taking us back to the 1980’s that many of us know was both inefficient and ineffective.

I personally believe that the situation in the Defence bureaucracy is so bad that not much short of a first principles, public review of Defence, with a willingness to totally reform Defence including (critically) the ministerial function, will suffice.

But even a first principles review of defence will fail if we do not state our strategy as a strategy, operationalize our strategy (that is express the strategy in real world operational terms not fuzzy, self serving bureaucratic terms), ensure that the strategy is achievable by the force to be created by any strategy document such as a white paper or a DCP, and defence industry is a basic part of all this, and then allocate (or not allocate) resources.

In this way, efficiency, effectiveness and accountability can be managed. This is what I would call an operational accountability statement, which should be made public

(and can be made public), so that our political leaders can be held responsible for defence. This is the Mameluke Sword of politicians.

We in this room all know that defence funding decisions are ultimately value judgements on how much risk we find tolerable and what price we are willing to pay to reduce a risk. However, at the moment only a few Australians understand the risk, and that is wrong. The Anzac spirit demands that we be prepared, and it can be done. Even without increased defence expenditure, at least the Australian people will know the risk that the government is

taking on our behalf, and the democratic process can function.

This Mameluke sword, unlike the one that I carried, may even have a cutting edge. This might produce ministers who share the Anzac spirit with their soldiers. At the moment it is hard to say that ministers are held responsible for the success or failure of the defence function or, given the current state of the ADF, we would see a littering of sacked ministers. We don’t see that. Defence ministers don’t seem to be accountable, at least for the prime defence function.

What I offer you is a the view that there is no point in trying to make Defence more efficient and more accountable unless you make the ministerial function and Parliament more efficient and definitely more accountable by stressing operational effectiveness.

Operational effectiveness is not something that should be left to the military alone. Like war, it is too important. The best civilian leaders of the military in and out of conflict are those that most tightly controlled their generals. I am not talking about the procurement policy or equity policy. I am talking about the ultimate defence output, how the ADF intends to fight and win our future wars, not our wars of choice such as in Afghanistan, or Iraq or East Timor or the Solomons. I mean the future serious war that we are buying serious weapon systems for.

Civilian leaders are responsible for the defence of this country. They are responsible to ensure that any strategy is able to be implemented by the force that they allocate resources to create. In order to do this, they must have or must gain adequate knowledge of operational factors, not just knowledge about the procurement systems or the equity system but also about the fighting system.

As I said before, no White Paper has ever actually been achieved by creating a force that was able to do what the White Paper said was necessary. But even worse than this enormous failure of alignment, in every White Paper, after some time, the investment promised is quietly removed to achieve other more immediately pressing political needs. If the removal is likely to be noticed, then Governments tend to stress the unworthiness of Defence to receive any of the taxpayers’ monies.

As I see it, there is little downside for governments in removing monies from Defence. Voters are impressed by talk in the White Paper of large numbers of fighters, submarines or tanks, and once the White Paper process is complete, voters move on to more immediate concerns on the assumption that Defence is in good hands. Then they express surprise that the subs don’t sink and the amphibs don’t float.

I am not advocating unrestricted defence spending. What I am advocating

is that we the public understand the risk that less spending creates.

See, the impact of removing previously announced investment in defence is visible to almost no one. The lack of public concern with the lessening of resources for Defence in the last budget is an example.

The tool I am proposing can be seen, in ideal terms if not truly practical terms, as a compact between the Australian people and their government, although it may be naïve to think that it will be used in this way in its ultimate form.

It is an operational accountability statement in that it states what the ADF should be able to do in operational terms to achieve the White Paper strategy at, for example, the end of the DCP, ten years hence. Then it should state what the ADF can do operationally now. The initiated can then see the difference between the two and so understand risk.

This is normally where the idea falters in Defence. The military intuitively knows that this is what is required to give any level of integrity to the strategic planning process. Without it, national strategy is not connected to military tactics, and by any definition, that is strategic failure. What you are actually doing with this tool is achieving a very basic level of strategic alignment, aligning future contingencies which drive military strategies which create tactical capability in the ADF which drives requirement and procurement. This is not rocket science. It is Strategy 101. Once you have done that, the only thing that needs to happen is that the decision is made as to what can be afforded.

If we did this, then there could be true accountability in defence. Accountability would start at the ministerial level where both effectiveness and efficiency are finally balanced.

Author’s Note: I outlined in some detail how we can create accountability

for ministers in a speech at a Rockwell Collins seminar recently and it has

being published in two parts in the Asia Pacific Defence Reporter.



After a year’s absence the Fourays Photos competition was again run in 2011, and what

a difference a year makes. In 2009 the quality of images submitted was high, but the number of entrants and images was low. In 2010, only three entries were received and the competition was suspended, however, this year we had a good number of entrants, and plenty of high quality images.

The judges, former DAvn and current editor of Fourays, Peter Simpson, renowned artist and Army pilot, Conway Bown and the graphic designer of Fourays and principal of Renegraphics, Melinda Rene, had their work cut out for them. All personal identifying information was removed from the images, and by a process of elimination the field was reduced from forty six images down to final round of twelve,

with the top three images being awarded the prizes on offer. As it turned out there was a clear winner and the $600 first prize went to Captain Dan Guillaumier from the Training Centre, but the next two couldn’t be separated and so equal second was awarded to both Corporal Stuart Evans of 5 Regiment and Captain Chris Heinemann from 6 Regiment. The second and third prize money of $400 was shared between them.

With such a bumper crop of imagery, the management committee took the plunge and commissioned the first ever Fourays Calendar. Designed by Melinda Rene and featuring imagery from thirteen of the entrants of the 2009 and 2011 competition and a restored Australian Flying Corps image from the MAAF collection, the calendar first went on sale at the Fly In at Oakey in October and has been a steady seller on the

Association website ever since. At the time of Fourays going to press there were still some calendars available. Either use the reverse of the mailer or download an order form from the website and get your order in. They won’t last.

The committee plans to run the competition again next year but don’t think you have to have all the best multi-megapixel, SLR camera gear to enter. In the past there have been scanned slides and photos entered and some made it into the calendar. Others have submitted images from ordinary point and shoot digital cameras, and even the ubiquitous phone cameras were well represented. If you have photos of Army aviation that tell a story and are well composed then keep your eye out for the 2012 Fourays Photo competition. Who knows, you might be in the 2013 Fourays calendar.

photos

above Winning entry from the 2011 Fourays photo competitionabove 2001 Fourays Calendar


Throughout the months of June and July, the Australian Army warfighting capability has been given a massive

boost through the raising, training and

employment of an Aviation battle group.

Battle Group Cavalier was formed by

bringing together numerous personnel,

squadrons and aircraft from across 16th

Aviation Brigade, Army Aviation Training

Centre and elsewhere to form a formidable

fighting unit of over 400 personnel, 90

vehicles and 25 helicopters.

Battle Group Cavalier was the second of

the contemporary, evolved aviation battle

groups after Battle Group Pegasus was

formed in Townsville in 2010 for Exercise

HAMEL. Battle Group Cavalier consisted of

the following:

■n Battle Group Headquarters: Headquarters

6th Aviation Regiment

■n Combat Team Marlin: 162 Reconnaissance

Squadron, 1st Aviation Regiment

■n Combat Team Warhorse: B Squadron,

5th Aviation Regiment

■n Combat Team Redback: 173rd Aviation

Squadron, 6th Aviation Regiment

■n Combat Team Berserker: Support

Squadron, 6th Aviation Regiment

■n Intermediate Staging Base Team:

Logistic Support Squadron, 5th Aviation

Regiment

This year, as the framework lead of Battle

Group Cavalier, 6th Aviation Regiment

sought to learn the lessons from 5th Aviation

Regiment from Ex HAMEL 2010 and take

this modern, highly capable warfighting

organisation into a deployed setting in

Shoalwater Bay Training area to be with

the troops of 7th Brigade during Exercise

DIAMOND DOLLAR and Exercise TALISMAN

SABRE.

This was one on the most successful training

endeavours for 21st century Army aviation

– as was clearly articulated by Chief of

Army, Commander Forces Command and

Commander 7th Brigade. It was an exercise

of firsts, successes and evolutions not

previously seen in Army Aviation’s history.

The first ARH squadron mission was flown

on Exercise DIAMOND DOLLAR in June,

followed by three more in July. It was the

largest strategic deployment by the Army

aviation capability in memory – from four

major centres, utilising strategic airlift, road

and air self deploy. Eight helicopters were

deployed by strategic airlift. It was the largest

Intermediate Staging Base activity in the

previous 15 years and the first time Army

aviation had deployed an entire aviation

battle group into an austere field location

since 1997. That was completed twice. It

was the first major aviation support to 7th

Brigade since its creation.1

Extremely gratifying was the level of up-

skilling provided to combat aviators of all

ranks, trades and corps. For two months

Combat aviators delivered high pressure

missions, conducted patrols, counter

improvised explosive device, numerous

downed aircraft recovery teams, counter

ambushing, vehicle check points, casualty

clearance, Forward Arming Refuel Point

(FARP) deployments, command & control

step-up, logistic and mission planning

& tracking. There were numerous staff

appreciations, live firing exercises, liaison

teams with ground battle groups and the

position was attacked by ground insurgents,

armoured vehicles and attack helicopters!

This last attack was courtesy of Combat

Team Redback, commanded by Major

Andrew Middleton, who had deployed

1 The last time a regimental aviation group supported 7th Brigade, was when it was 6th Brigade in 1994.

to Williamson Airfield for this stage of the

exercise to support the enemy forces. For

two months the soldiers of the battle group

cooked, planned, repaired, refuelled, packed,

unpacked, dug, shot, patrolled and flew

missions from the field. Combat aviators

supported the troops of the combined

arms team and were living in the same

location and conditions as the troops of

the combined arms team.

Without a doubt, one of the most impressive

accomplishments was the first aviation battle

group-level mission conducted in June,

followed by another in July. In the first, a

massed squadron of ARH conducted a live

laser time-on-target Joint Air Attack Team

into the Mt Hummock Sector with eight FA-

18s out of Darwin. On completion, a troop

of ARH executed an airborne Transfer-of-

Authority to the airmobile squadron who

subsequently inserted an assault company

into an airfield. The remaining ARH hot

loaded through a deployed FARP and

then returned to the Pyri Pyri Sector to

shoot 30mm cannon and 70mm rockets

in support of an infantry combat team live

fire conducted by Battle Group RAM (8/9

RAR). Meanwhile the airmobile combat team

completed the company airfield seizure

and dispatched a troop on an airborne VIP

movement. Once the infantry combat team

live fire finished, they conduct a battlefield

clearance which included an aero-medical

evacuation performed by another Black

Hawk of the airmobile squadron. The ARHs

returned to the FARP for another hot load

and then executed more live 30mm and

70mm shooting at Townshend Island Sector.

Throughout all this time, the aviation battle

group Forward Operating Base came under

ground attack, which involved a combination

of ground Quick Reaction Force response

and ARH close combat attack. For a short

time a Black Hawk was even in action! Finally, two Kiowas maintained station in an airborne Restricted Operating Zone to allow Command & Control to be effected by the Battle Group Commander.

The second battle group mission involved the allocation of a discrete Engagement Area (Killing Ground) to Battle Group Cavalier for destruction of withdrawing enemy armoured forces by Combat Team Marlin.

The area was protected by an integrated air defence system. Battle Group Cavalier conducted a three day deception campaign against the air defence in order to set the conditions for the final ARH assault, while concurrently providing aeromedical evacuation, close combat attacks, armed reconnaissance and patrol insertions for 7th Brigade lead battle groups. On the final day, the enemy launched a surprise attack on the extreme flank of 7th Brigade, which

consisted of 20 M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers driving rapidly toward a lightly equipped friendly battalion in a defensive position. The Brigade Commander ordered Battle Group Cavalier to destroy the enemy armoured attack, which was duly achieved in quick succession by Major Hayden Archibald, Officer Commanding Combat Team Marlin, in a massed ARH squadron ambush along the enemy axis of advance. At the same time the enemy launched ‘sleeper’ sections of armoured vehicles deep in the rear area of the brigade, which included Battle Group Cavalier Forward Operating Base and the Brigade Reserve. This in turn disrupted command & control for the 7th Brigade and things were looking difficult until the launch of the Battle Group Cavalier Command & Control aircraft. Commanded by Major Tony Dennis, Officer Commanding Combat Team Warhorse, the Black Hawk was able to provide essential airborne communications which enabled the situational awareness of Headquarters 7th Brigade and a successful outcome for the battle.

This is 21st Century mission execution for Army Aviation delivered by an impressive new presence on the Army’s order of battle. The aviation battle group has ensured Army Aviation has responded to the direction of the Chief of Army to reclaim Army’s warfighting capability. A whole generation of Combat aviators has been up-skilled and imbued with the knowledge, wisdom and capacity to deploy to any environment and deliver close combat aviation support to the troops of the combined arms team.

CavalierB A T T L E G R O U P L I E U T E N A N T CO LO N E L S T E V E J O B S O N

Left Tiger pilot Major John Barrow does a pre-flight check on his aircraft before a mission with Battlegroup Cavalier during Exercise Diamond Dollar at the Shoalwater Bay Training Area.


The review of Vietnam on Canvas – Ken

McFayden: An Artist at War in the last edition

of Fourays favourably commented on the

contributions of artists in recording military

history and highlighted the emotional impact

of paintings and drawings. Photography is

no less important in recording this history.

The preservation of our Army aviation

heritage is performed by a dedicated group

of volunteers at the Museum of Australian

Army Flying.

Bob Bell and Cindy Gordon form part of the

photographic team at the MAAF. Bob Bell

is well known to anyone who has served

at Oakey in the past twenty years; a former

RAEME warrant officer, he ran the base

printing shop for many years following his

retirement from the Army. Cindy Gordon was

a reservist with 25 RQR and a member of

the Photographic Club of Toowoomba. Bob

became aware of her interests and invited

her to join the effort at the MAAF. Craig

Robarts, also a former RAEME soldier, has

helped the section get on its feet in the past.

Some images have come from surprising

sources. An example is the ‘Amberley

collection’. In a clean up, the photographic

section at RAAF Amberley found negatives

from the days of 16 Army Light Aircraft

Squadron These were mostly photos of

graduations and technical images to support

defect reports. Thankfully, they contacted

the MAAF and several hundred negatives

of the early days of modern Army Aviation

were sent to Oakey. Similarly, a collection of

images of 6AD’s time on the airfield and early

deployments of Army aviation detachments

to Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya and Thailand

have also been preserved.

Most of the work is scanning images from

negatives, slides, prints and documents.

The team have a couple of high resolution

scanners, one capable of scanning at

12,000dpi. Once scanned, the image is

restored with the painstaking removal of

dust marks and other flaws, correcting the

brightness, colour and contrast. This can

take many hours to achieve. An example of

the team’s work can be found in the 2012

Fourays Calendar. The August image is of

a group of Australian Flying Corps men in

front of an RE8 in France in 1918. It has

been restored from a shabby print that Bob

bought at a flea market, and the end result is

a magnificent photo of early Army aviation.

The MAAF is always on the lookout for

images. If you have some that are of the early

days, contact the Fourays Production Editor

(email address on page 1) and arrangements

can be made to scan in your images and

have them returned to you. The MAAF is

establishing an imagery library that can be

used for research well into the future, and

you can help make it happen.

copy Photos Bob Bell with his camera and Cindy Gordon busy retouching an historic image on her computer

Requirements for JP129 first emerged in Project Land 53, more commonly known by its program name, NINOX

(named after the Powerful Owl, Ninox Strenua). This program was a land systems program charged with enhancing the Army’s night fighting and surveillance capabilities. Most readers will know its success through the night fighting and night vision equipment rolled out to the Army in the late 1990’s through Phase 1, but it was in the surveillance systems that it is more infamously known. Land53 Phase 2 aimed to equip the Army with an

Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) and a UAS capability. The UAS activities during Phase 2 were broken into two sub-phases, 2A to evaluate systems and technologies, and 2B to go and buy a system.

Phase 2A commenced in 1990 (yes, 21 years ago) after the ADF approved a series of studies, culminating in 1993 with a concept technology demonstration involving UAS supplied by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). These trials were run in July and August 1993. For the trials, IAI were contracted to bring out to Australia the SCOUT and SEARCHER Air Vehicles (AV). No systems at this stage of

technology development had automated take-off and landing capabilities, and as such, they required an external pilot to launch and recover the aircraft (think radio controlled aircraft control handsets) - the personnel selected to undertake this function, to fly the AVs, were a group of four RAEME CPL’s (Chambers, Choyce, Skriveris, and Towell) from 173 General Support Squadron. Once airborne, the automated functions of the UAS mission (waypoint navigation and sensor operation) were undertaken by a mix of AAAvn aircrew and RAA personnel.

The exercises, flown out of Kununurra and Tindal and evaluated by DTRIALS and DSTO were rated a great success, however, acquisition bureaucracy intervened for the next three years as the case was progressed up the chains of command until 23 May 96 when the capability committees agreed that Phase 2B, the acquisition of UAS, should proceed as a high priority. Year of Decision was scheduled for 97/98, ironically the same year that Project Air 87 Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) was presented for approval.

But it didn’t go well… When Land 53 Phase 2B went to committee, STRIKE 1! It was decided to break it away from Land 53 and create a separate program, titled Joint Project 129 ( JP129). The program was broken into two phases; Phase 1 was a risk mitigation phase (more studies and trials), and Phase 2 was the acquisition.

The studies started with support to a DSTO program, Project INGARA, which was an in-house developed Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system designed as a plug and play payload for small aircraft – initially onto NOMAD, then onto the ARDU C-47B Dakota for Exercise

KANGAROO 95, and then onto a King Air 350 operated by 173 General Support Squadron. The King Air INGARA system flew for Army on Exercise PHOENIX in Aug 98 and then again on Exercise CROCODILE in 99.

These broad area capabilities then narrowed in to focal area capabilities and the project conducted a study by leasing a Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) UAS in 1999, the Bombardier Guardian. This trial, also on Exercise CROCODILE 99 in Tindal, aimed to test the validity of an EO/IR sensor on board a tactical UAS supporting a Brigade. The trial demonstrated the utility of the system to the Joint Task Force ( JTF) Commander and paved the way for JP129 Phase 2.

Phase 2’s tendering processes achieved Second Pass Approval six years later in 2005. That approval was for new facilities in Enoggera, the establishment of 20 STA Regt, and the acquisition of two IAI Malat I-View 250 UAS through the prime contractor Boeing Australia Limited (BAL). This contract didn’t progress very well due to technical difficulties, was one of the first projects on the Governments Projects of Concern list, and was terminated on mutual terms in September 2008. STRIKE 2!

A market survey in late 2008 demonstrated that there was only one system that could meet the majority of Army’s requirements, the RQ-7B SHADOW 200 TUAS in-service with the US Army and USMC. A new acquisition strategy was called for and Government approved JP129 Ph 2 to pursue a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) from the US Army in July 2010.

And what a whirlwind innings the

ninth has been! In the space of twelve months from Government approval JP129 Ph 2 has brokered the FMS Case and obtained a diversion offer from the US Army that will see the first of the two systems issued from US Army inventory in order to enable expeditious fielding ahead of a manufacturing production schedule. We have trained the first operational rotation worth of personnel, received our simulation equipment, and commenced the final phase of deployment training!

29 Operators (of which four are Instructors), 10 Technicians and 5 Platoon Leaders have graduated their US Army training in desolate Fort Huachuca, and will soon fly the first Australian SHADOW 200 sorties in Woomera. Live flying aside, they have been flying the portable simulator since June.

While it does not stay airborne for the sortie duration we have come to expect from the SCANEAGLE over the past five years, it is a very large step-up in capability as it carries, all at the same time, an electro-optic camera, infra-red camera, laser pointer, laser rangefinder, laser target designator and VHF secure communications relay payload.

So where to from here? Deployment over summer to replace the SCANEAGLE in Afghanistan and the coming full circle for Army fixed wing aviation… there might not be a person in the aircraft, but the Royal Australian Artillery are once again conducting Aerial OP, and with bite – the Laser Target Designator is selectable for the full range of NATO laser guided munitions and the Laser Rangefinder provides target grid accuracy enough to employ joint fires.

This is SHADOW, Oscar Papa standing by …

And it’s a re-run in the

truest sense… the aerial

OP is back! Twenty years

in the making and Army

has a Tactical Unmanned

Aerial System (TUAS)

delivered by Joint Project

(JP) 129 Phase 2 – the

RQ-7B SHADOW 200.

right BDR Phillip Rawlings

main image GNR Tori Ritchie

BY MAJOR KEIRIN JOYCE ARMY’S RE-ENTRY TO FIXED WING AVIATIONE M E RGI N G FRO M T H E SH A D OW…



Whether on the front counter taking

admission or making sales, or

wandering around the floor of the

displays checking the cleanliness or tidiness,

Barry has been a volunteer in the MAAF for

more time than most people spend in the

Army. He has been as much a fixture of

the museum as many of the display items

and similarly has a background every bit as

interesting, and inspiring.

Barry Bawden was a National Serviceman,

called up in 1968, and shortly thereafter

accepted for flying training. He had a three

month wait for officer training and so Barry

headed off to Puckapunyal and completed

recruit training before entering the Officer

Training Unit at Scheyville. He graduated

with the Skill at Arms prize and was sent

to the Training Battalion at Singleton as an

instructor for six months while awaiting a

position on the Army course at Point Cook.

Following the course on Winjeels at No

1 Flying Training School, Barry headed up

to the Training Squadron of 1st Aviation

Regiment at Amberley where he did his

wings course on the (then) new Pilatus PC6

Turbo Porter. It was ironic that Barry was on

the first Porter course, because immediately

he had graduated he commenced a

conversion course on to the ‘old’ Cessna

180, as he was posted to Sydney and 171

Air Cavalry Flight which had not yet been

equipped with the newer aircraft. Needless

to say, when the Porters arrived in the Flight

eighteen months later Barry was sent back

to Amberley for a refresher!

Selected for instructor training in 1972,

Barry was disappointed to find out that the

course was not to be in the UK, where all

previous fixed wing instructor candidate had

gone, but at East Sale at the RAAF Central

Flying School. As the only Army pilot, he

hid his disappointment at the location by

topping the course. Capitalising on his

standing among his RAAF peers, the Army

then sent Barry to 1 FTS at Point Cook

where he instructed on Winjeels and helped

introduce the CT4 trainer into service.

After eight years in the Army and seven

in Aviation, Barry finally made it to Oakey

in 1976 to 173 General Support Squadron,

once again on Porters and now the Army’s

twin engine Nomad. His time with 173

included two deployments to Irian Jaya

(now West Papua) on survey operations

and numerous trips around Australia on

tasking. His aeronautical experience and skill

BARRY BAWDENM E M B E R P R O F I L E

Almost anyone who has

ever visited the Museum of

Australian Army Flying in

any of its guises in the past

twenty two years has come

across Barry Bawden.

1 - 28:10 dual and 43:10 solo,” we departed the flat fields of Norfolk and headed for the Central Flying School, South Cerney, in the gentle rolling hills, green woods, pleasant valleys and picturesque villages of Gloucestershire. The village of South Cerney was founded in 909AD and now had a population of about 2 500.

The Joining Instructions informed us that the working hours were 0815 - 1130 and 1400 - 1700, three lectures a day with a break of 10 minutes after the first lecture and that tea was 2½d (two and a h’penny = 4 cents) per cup, biscuits extra. Also mentioned were the names of the Ground Instructors (and the number of hours) for Principles of Flight (19), Science (17), Technical Training (18), Navigation (19), Meteorology (17) and Engines (13).

Central Flying School, initially an Army unit, was raised on 12 May 1912 at Upavon on Salisbury Plain, about 25 nm to the south of South Cerney. Its role then was to train pilots and the first course ran from 17 August to 5 December 1912. During the Great War the role was changed to training pilots to be flying instructors and this has remained unchanged to this day. CFS is now (2011) preparing for centenary celebrations.

Our Course number was 186(B), the B for Basic. The Advanced phase of the Course, jet flying, was conducted at RAF Little Rissington, about 15 nm to the north-east. Army students, naturally, did not go on to 186(A). (At the time of writing, Course numbers are now 430/431 on Tutors at RAF Cranwell).

All told, 31 officers and NCOs began Course 186(B). The great majority were junior RAF officers but there was one World War 2 pilot, now a wing commander, who was to command a Flying Training School. There were two RN lieutenants, one a jet pilot, the other helicopter. Both had flown in the recent Suez campaign. The Course was split into two groups. When

one group was flying in the morning, the other was at Ground School and the procedure was reversed in the afternoon. Each Monday, the groups swapped the routine. I was allocated to Group 1, Laurie Doyle to Group 2. After the usual issue of the “electric hat” (earphones, mask microphone and leads), a helmet with a sun visor and a grey flying suit, there were addresses by the CGI, the OC RAF South Cerney and the Commandant CFS, followed by Group photographs. After call signs were given (603 for me), our flying instructors were allocated. Mine was Flt Lt Lew Day, a New Zealander serving in the RAF. He had flown Sunderland flying boats, based at RAAF Iwakuni, Japan, during the Korean War. 2 I flew a familiarization flight with Lew in the Provost next day, followed by solo.

South Cerney was an all-over grass airfield, surrounded by low stone walls. It was 360 feet AMSL, so circuit altitude was 1 400 feet. There were other airfields close to us. Fairford was only 5 nm to the east. USAF B-47s were based there. They had a graceful image when airborne and one could not help but admire them but we kept our circuits close. RAF Brize Norton, 13 nm to the ESE, was also a busy field. Ten miles to the west were the sites of the Australian Flying Corps’ training fields of the Great War. 5 and 6 Squadrons flew from Minchinhampton and 7 and 8 from Leighterton. They came under 1st Wing AFC at Tetbury (Lt Col Oswald Watt).

The flying routine was fairly simple. We would be told that tomorrow the lesson would be, say, medium turns, and overnight we would study our notes. Then, next day, the CFS instructor, in the left seat, (in my case Lew Day) would give me the “patter”

2 Lew returned to New Zealand when his engagement in the RAF expired and was an instructor with the Auckland Aero Club at Ardmore. He trained Cliff Tait for his instrument rating for the round-the-world flight in a Victa aircraft. Years later, Tait was to ferry 44 of the RAAF’s 51 CT4s from New Zealand to Bankstown.

and demonstrate and I would give it back to him. Having got this right, students would then fly together and practice their patter on each other. These flights were called “mutuals”. My logbook shows I flew with ten of Course 186(B) students, ranging from fighter, transport, bomber and helicopter pilots.

Cross-countries were short by Australian standards. For example, with Lew Day I “pattered” the triangle South Cerney 47 nm to Lighted Obstacle 3 nm south of Ludlow, thence crossroads 3 nm west of Stratford-upon-Avon (a distance of 33 nm) and finally to South Cerney, 29 nm. The map scale was 1:500 000 and the Pilot Nav Log Card was RAF Form 4255. Flight time was 1 hour 10 minutes. There were no radio aids, just “map-to-ground.” The same route, later the same day, mutual, took 10 minutes more and again, I resisted the temptation to circle Shakespeare’s birthplace.

There were a few helicopters at South Cerney - the Bristol Sycamore, a Saunders-Roe Skeeter and a civil registered Westland Widgeon. One who flew them was Sqn Ldr Dowling who was writing some of the helicopter manuals, particularly the aerodynamics sections. We students looked him upon with some awe. The CFI RAF South Cerney (Wg Cdr Steedman) was learning to fly helicopters at this time. He was an enthusiast.

The Course also included formation flying and QGHs (i.e. VHF Direction Finding) “under the hood” but really two-stage amber screens up and violet goggles, and the “patter” to go with it.

Not all students completed the course for various reasons. Two on a mutual buzzed a car on a country lane. Unfortunately for them the car was a RAF grey Standard and in it was the Commandant CFS. For Laurie Doyle and myself all went well and we passed our final handling tests by testing officers (who were not our instructors) on


were clearly recognised in his next posting

which was to the RAAF Aircraft Research and

Development Unit at Edinburgh in South

Australia where he assisted with the Nomad

test flying program.

All good things must come to an end

and after twelve months at ARDU, he was

posted to his first staff job. To Barry it seemed

interminable, but actually only twelve

months later he was on the move to Papua

New Guinea where he conducted check

and training duties for the nascent PNGDF

Aviation Wing. Someone, however, must

have noticed his staff skills, for at the end of

two years, Barry was selected to attend the

Command and Staff College at Queenscliff,

a rare honour at the time for former national

servicemen, let alone Army aviators.

At the end of the year nearly all roads out

of Queenscliff led to Canberra and so Barry

was once again deskbound, but this time

in a particularly prestigious appointment

as the staff officer to a two star. It was a

pleasant two years, that allowed Barry to

spend a bit more time on his other passions,

steam trains and photography, and then it

was back to Oakey, by now a senior Major,

as the Senior Instructor of the Advanced

Flying Training Wing at the School of Army

Aviation. It was during this posting, while

on a trip to Canberra, that Barry’s life was

changed forever.

On Sunday, the 24th of August 1986,

Barry suffered severe head injuries as

a result of an accident on an historic rail

trip. So severe were the injuries that he

was initially not expected to live. He spent

several weeks in hospital in Canberra before

being transferred initially to Brisbane and

eventually to Toowoomba. His recovery was

slow and very painful, not only for Barry but

also for his wife, Helen, and two daughters,

Bronwyn and Diane. Unable to speak and

with little memory initially, it was thought

that a return to anything approaching a

‘normal’ lifestyle would be very unlikely and

a miracle if it were to be achieved.

Helen, however, was not about to give

up, and neither was Barry. As part of his

therapy she and later Len Avery would take

him out to the Museum, then in the old

Lysaght hangers, to be around aircraft and

the military system. As a result of his acquired

brain injury, Barry was discharged from the

Army in November 1987, and at about the

same time he returned home to live for the

first time since his accident. Helen persisted

with speech therapy for Barry and the visits

to the museum, and evident progress was

being made. While Barry still possessed a

valid driving licence, the Army paid for him

to have driving lessons and an assessment.

The instructor took Barry down to Brisbane in

peak hour and he drove around without any

difficulty. Another hurdle overcome. Slowly

but surely he regained confidence and some

independence. Of course, his personality and

manner were irrevocably changed, but with

patience and understanding a new ‘normal’

pattern for Barry’s life came into being and

Barry, his family and those with whom he

had regular interaction adjusted accordingly.

While he has not devoted much time to

the steam trains since the accident, his love

of aircraft and flying has not abated. Mostly

this has manifested in his work as a volunteer

at the MAAF, but he has, on occasion, taken

to the sky with instructors, all of who have

reported that his innate piloting skills are

seemingly undiminished. Barry might not

recall quickly what the HSI stands for, but

he can recognise a level 30 degrees angle

of bank from the aircraft attitude and hold

it without any problems. During the recent

MAAF Fly In at the beginning of October,

Matt Dunning took Barry up in a CT4, an

aircraft he helped introduce into service

nearly 40 years ago. The weather was not

ideal, with the strong winds that the Fly

In seemingly has attracted recently, but

Barry handled the aircraft as if he was still

current. Four and a half thousand hours has

implanted skills that even an acquired brain

injury hasn’t been able to shift!

Similarly undiminished are his skills with

the camera. If you google “Barry Bawden

steam” up will come footage shot by Barry

of a steam train in action. If you move in

railway historical circles you will find more

than a few steam aficionados have copies of

Barry’s videos and photography. Nowadays it

is all aircraft. Barry won the inaugural Fourays

Photos Competition in 2009 with an image

shot at the museum. His photography is

represented in the inaugural Fourays

Calendar for 2012.

Barry has now been volunteering at

the museum for more than 22 years. It has

been, in effect, a second career that has now

lasted longer than his time in uniform. His

contribution to the museum before the

advent of the Army History Unit involvement

in managing museums has been vital, if

not fundamental to the existence of the

MAAF. Through the understanding and

accommodation of friends, colleagues

and family, and his own perseverance and,

at times, bloody mindedness, Barry has

demonstrated that there is always hope after

a devastating injury and that the presence

of an acquired brain injury is not a bar to a

fruitful and productive, even ‘normal’ life.

Barry In Clay Pan Simpson Desert 21

November 1977

OTU Graduation Skill at Arms Prize 10 October

1968Pilot At Last 24th April 1970

INSTRUCTOR TRAINING CONTINUED


15 April 1957 and some days later we went by RAF staff car (a grey Standard) to RAF Little Rissington) and were interviewed by Air Commodore Hyde, Commandant Central Flying School.

My total hours, all Provost, at CFS were: day 33:45 dual, 29:55 solo; night 4:10 dual, 1:25 solo. I did not do up the straps of a Provost again. (Seven years later, when I was serving in 3 RAR in Malaya, I saw Provosts at the holding point and airborne when passing Alor Star airfield. It was a painfully nostalgic few minutes.)

From South Cerney we went to the RAF Light Aircraft School, Middle Wallop, in Hamptonshire (always abbreviated to Hants), on the road Andover-Salisbury, only 37 nm to the SSW. To see and experience what the British Army was doing about light aircraft support were the primary reasons for our training in the UK. The RAF was slowly leaving Middle Wallop and the British Army taking over. The OC was still RAF as also was the CFI and the ground staff. The airfield, 297 feet AMSL, was (and is still) large all-over grass with a few gentle folds.

We went first to Standardisation Flight, commanded by a major. 3 The role of the Flight was to ensure instructors taught the same things in the same way, such as vital actions, speeds, power settings and procedures. The aircraft we flew were the Auster T7 with 145 HP Gipsy Major, climb 65 kt at 2 400 rpm, cruise 2 150 that gave 80 kt IAS, approach speeds with flaps 55 degrees were: glide 45 kt, powered 40 kt, short 35 kt. There were experienced NCO instructors in the Flight. Most had been glider pilots and had landed troops on D Day, at Arnhem and the Rhine Crossing. Some wore the red berets of Airborne forces, others the blue beret of the Glider Regiment

3 Years later, in 1968, I met him in Cyprus. He was again commanding a Flight. Night flying was also interesting but it being summer in high latitudes in addition to double daylight saving the first sortie would be about 2230 hours. It was basically a matter of flying to the correct cluster of lights, not always the easiest of tasks. The oil refineries of Southampton certainly stood out.

After completing our stint in Standardisation Flight, we moved to Intermediate Flight, also commanded by a gunner major. Here were our first real live students of 123 Air OP/Light Liaison Course. The aircraft flown were the reliable Auster T7. Most of the students were National Service second lieutenants who had completed their elementary flying training at Middle Wallop on the Chipmunk. The exercises I liked best were field landings where we landed, over hedges usually, on to property owned by generous farmers, after the usual low level clearing runs. Each of these fields had a number that we pencilled on to our 1:63 360 maps and also wrote into the Authorisation Book. There was also a low-level route back to Middle Wallop from these fields.

My Log Book shows that most months I averaged 60 hours.

I was then converted on to the Auster Mark 9, with the intention that I would be an instructor in Exercise Flight. This aircraft totally differed from all other Austers. To begin with, it was relatively comfortable and there was no adverse aileron yaw. The air-cooled, inverted four-cylinder in-line Cirrus Bombardier developed 173 HP and had a Plessey cartridge starter. The slotted ailerons automatically drooped when the split flaps were lowered. Electrics were 24V. The Mark 9 cruised 85 IAS at 2 150 rpm and had a wide track of 6 feet 8 inches that lessened ground loops and the low pressure tyres (12 psi) allowed the aircraft to taxi in muddy conditions. Its main drawback was the small fuel capacity - only 15 Imp gallons (68 l) in the starboard wing root. Fuel consumption was 8-9 gallons per hour, following the trusty rule: “HP divided by 20 equals Imperial gallons per hour”.

An infantry officer commanded exercise Flight. In addition to converting students to the Mark 9, we taught selection of advanced landing grounds, concealed approaches and take-offs (CATOs), low level navigation, field landings including landing over obstacles such as high pines, supply and message drops, air photography (the 35mm camera was pod-mounted just

inboard of the left wing strut), shoots on the Larkhill Range for the gunners and night cross countries. I also recall cable laying and the smell and smoke arising from friction as the wire rapidly unreeled due to the heavy plummet.

300 feet circuits were flown from 100 yard sealed strips set in the grass at one side of Middle Wallop. Approach IAS was 45 kt, full flap 50 degrees. For the air photography exercises I had the students take shots of the Australian Army badge and an outline of the Australian continent, amongst other badges, on the chalk hillsides of the Fovant Valley, about 25 nm west of Middle Wallop. These were carved during the Great War. Occasionally students would say they had difficulty in identifying the briefed objects but a gentle reminder from me about night flying and getting “volunteers” to lay the flare path and take it up again at the end of the session soon improved recognition skills. To get to Fovant Valley and Salisbury Plain one had to pass RAF Boscombe Down, 7 nm west of Wallop. This called for authorized low flying as the corridor, just north of the field, was below 500 feet AGL

On 27 July 1957, the Glider Pilot Regiment, raised in 1941, was disbanded and the ceremony was held at Middle Wallop. Next day blue berets were replaced by a variegated array of bonnets, caps, berets and badges. However, the blue beret soon came back again for, on 1 September, the Army Air Corps was raised and the RAF Light Aircraft School became the Army Air Corps Centre.

On 27 August 1957 I left Exercise Flight to join 1906 Independent Light Liaison Flight and next day the Flight of two Auster 9s, two Skeeters and two Sycamores departed Wallop in loose formation for Detmold, Germany, a flight distance of 455 nm. But that, as they say, is another story.

Email [email protected] with your contribution to Tales from the Dreamtime

We had a fair few foreign students training at Oakey; they certainly seemed to think on a different plane, if you will excuse the pun.... One was concentrating on a short take-off in a Nomad; he selected wheels up before commencing the roll, as that would be one less check when things got very busy on lift-off. No doubt he felt that the limit switch would prevent retraction until he was airborne. He was speedily disabused by his QFI, who also knew that even a small bump on the surface would reduce the weight on the wheels and the Nomad would be sliding along on its wheel pods.

Another complained of a ‘hot spot’ in his helmet after a lengthy sortie. When the offending bone dome was removed, he was seen to have a pen stuck through his rather bushy hair....

Several of the students had pooled their resources and purchased a Vauxhall Viva. They were shown how to do an oil change on it, by draining the sump with the plug, and refilling with new oil. This they did, but then found the engine would not turn over. They had enthusiastically filled it so full it was overflowing out of the rocker cover through the filler cap opening.

n

The Nomad was an interesting aeroplane, which could bite you hard when you least expected it. One experienced pilot was doing a test flight after major maintenance, and was checking stall behaviour. Flapless and take-off-flap stalls were fine; with full flap the Nomad flicked inverted and went into an incipient spin. With nothing but brown fields filling the windscreen, the pilot rapidly hearkened back to his Point Cook training, and stopped the yaw with rudder. Mindful that rolling g could rip his wings off – to say nothing of the very fragile tail, he managed to stop the roll before heaving back on the control column. The airspeed was some 20 knots over VNE and increasing the last time he looked, and he pulled quite a few g to get out of the dive. He returned to Oakey, did a flapless approach, u/s’d the bird for an overspeed and overstress, and told the groundcrew in no uncertain terms what he thought of them and their flap adjustment procedures.

On another occasion, with fortunately two experienced pilots on board, there was a runaway on both props. Pulling the power levers to idle enabled the right prop to run out of oil and feather; the left engine continued until they were sure it was about to come through the window at them. In desperation the senior pilot punched the overspeed governor test switch, which somehow brought the prop out of overspeed and no doubt saved their lives.

n

The Base Safety Officer (BSO) at Oakey had fun staging crash rescue exercises at awkward times. He decided to check the fire sergeant’s progress in setting up a staged accident, and noted said sergeant was splashing petrol from a can around a pit full of jet fuel, to be lit by a firestick thrown from a safe distance.

Alarmed at what he saw, the BSO suggested the sergeant swallow the cigarette in his mouth.... which he did, with a very pained expression. Very shaken, he walked away, sat down and spat out the now mangled and extinguished cigarette. After some time he looked at the BSO and uttered a truly heartfelt ‘Thanks!’

n

One rainy morning the blacksoil was extremely slippery. An airfield crash rescue exercise was staged and the firies hurtled across the grass in their brand new yellow vehicle. The young driver braked hard, the wheels locked and the heavy vehicle slid towards the site, obviously destined to end up in the blazing pit.

Observers saw a flurry of hands working controls inside the truck, and the large spray system shot from the roof into the fire as the truck slid the last few metres into the edge of the pit. To everyone’s amazement, the spray blocked the flames until the driver could back away.

n

dreamtimePeter Rogers

Tales from the

n Confidential advice on Pensions/Compensation/Rehabilitation/Welfare

n Establishment of eligibity n Preparation of initial claims n Monitoring of progress through official channels n Preparation of submissions for review

Contact: Mr Kevin Moss Phone: 07 5463 2471 or email

AUSTRALIAN ARMY AVIATION

Free Advocacy Service to Association

members, their dependents

and current and former members of the Australian

Defence Force

[email protected]


During the construction of Oakey base in the 70s, the BSO (recently back from the USA) walked into the Mess for lunch with the senior government engineer supervising the project. Pushing his way through the glass doors, the BSO remarked that in the USA, doors to public areas opened outwards to enable easy egress in an emergency, and Australian standards must be different. The miffed engineer declared that our standards were just the same; he then looked down at the doorhandle in his hand and realised that all the mess doors were fitted incorrectly.... they were subsequently modified to open outwards.

The BSO also pointed out that in several buildings used to store POL the fire alarms and extinguishers were installed on the rear walls (due to a draughtsman’s error), at the furthest point from the exits. It would take a true hero to fight his way through a burning fuel store to get to the fire-fighting stuff....

At a Friday happy hour the BSO tried to mend fences by complimenting the engineer on the magnificent new School of Army Aviation – truly a pleasant place to work with its polished floors, windows with blinds, and uncluttered ceilings in the corridors. The engineer told him that he needed glasses, because the corridor ceilings had a comprehensive sprinkler system.... ‘No, they haven’t!’ The engineer nearly choked on his beer. The system was installed, after the building was completed.

n

In the late seventies Oakey was devastated by a massive weekend thunderstorm, which took out a lot of our aircraft parked on the

tarmac. They were so parked because the Minister for Defence had decreed it, following the destruction of most of the Navy’s fixed wing a year before in a hangar fire started by an arsonist. Such is the interference of politicians...... The president of the court of enquiry asked how wind gusts were measured. He was shown the Met Office wind recorder, which indicated a pleasant 15 knots. It suddenly shot up to 40 knots as a lone thunderstorm appeared overhead. The emergency phones then sprang to life, the first call from a lady in Oakey who had lost her roof and her chooks. The president turned to the BSO and said, ‘ You organised this for our benefit, didn’t you?’

n

An Army driver drove the BSO down to Brisbane; to pass the time, the BSO asked if he had his next posting. The driver said he was reluctantly leaving the Army at the end of his second tour, even though he enjoyed the work. He said sadly that he had joined the Army to take up the offer to complete his Intermediate Certificate. However, his application was rejected twice in two years by his unit commander, who said that he would not recommend him as he considered him too dumb. The BSO, feeling awkward, asked him what he would do in civie life. He was stunned when the driver told him that five years previously he and some mates had bought a share in an old house in Toowoomba. He eventually bought out their shares, and using the old house as security, he carefully bought and sold other rentals. To that date he had acquired 32 rental properties in Toowoomba. With a wry

smile, the driver said, ‘Sir, it is really so silly. My unit commander says I am too dumb to complete my Intermediate – and yet he does not realise that he is living in one of my houses which is rented through an agency!’ The driver left the Army and later married into a family of like-minded people. By the early eighties, they owned 84 quality rentals in the Toowoomba district.

n

In the late sixties, RAAF Point Cook closed down for a re-organisation. As this meant that a bunch of Army Aviation hopefuls would not be able to train there, it was decided to send them to the USA for primary training. They would become the first all-through helicopter course. There was one small hitch, they would all have to pass a test in English, well, American as she is spoke. The penalty for failure was to do a three week American language course at Lackland AFB – the USAF equivalent of the Point Cook School of Languages.... the test was about a Grade 4 level in Australia – and, for whatever reason, the whole Australian contingent failed. They did resit the test a few days later and passed with flying colours, but still had to complete the three-week course.

Even the USAF had not the heart to make them sit through the drudgery of the classroom, so en masse they accompanied an escort officer with a vehicle and a chequebook (sorry, checkbook) who gave them guided tours of bases and institutions until they had to report to Fort Wolters TX for ab initio training on the TH-13. This helicopter was like our Sioux, only different: wooden blades, a saddle fuel tank, a Franklin engine which was flat out lifting instructor and student on a hot day in Texas, and hard thin cushions for seats. (Avid watchers of M.A.S.H. can see this type in the opening titles).

All this was followed by a 3-day instrument course at Fort Rucker, Alabama, so they all got to see a fair bit of the States before returning home to the speed, power and luxury of the Bell 47G3-B1 Sioux.....

Email [email protected] with your contribution to Tales from the Dreamtime

MUSEUM HAPPENINGS


Landowners lunch

30 September saw the start of a very busy three days for the Museum Staff and Volunteers. Around 1200 people attended the annual Land Owners Lunch at the MAAF, hosted by the Army Aviation Centre and their staff. All current aircraft were on display on the tarmac and a couple of the Fly-In stall holders set up early for the day so as the visitors had plenty to entertain them. WO2 Scott Downs was kept busy during the day doing guided tours for the many people who were eager to know more about the aircraft displays we have in the Museum.

The weather was perfect and the crowd enjoyed the aircraft participating in flying training exercises.

Fly-In

We all felt that 2011 would be “third time lucky” and we would have perfect weather like we experienced the day before. This was not to be. There was no rain; but the wind was bitterly cold both days and the sky very overcast. In spite of this a successful Fly-In was once again held and I would like to personally thank the Army Aviation Centre and Training Centre for their support with preparations for the event.

To the Staff, Board members and Volunteers who assisted and gave up time to help where it was needed, I also say thank you. Without us working as a team, events like this cannot eventuate.

The RAAF Roulettes were, as predicted, a huge crowd attraction and also Tony Blair doing aerobatics in his Rebel 300.

The 161 Recce Association’s magnificent display of plaques and medals depicting the progression from the beginnings of Army Aviation to present day, proved to be very popular and thanks must go to Len Avery for spending many months researching and obtaining these plaques and medals. This display travels through the years of our Aviation history and it is a valuable asset of our memorabilia.

This year for the first time a DVA Men’s Health Peer Education stand was in situ, where Kevin Moss was kept very busy imparting information to the many visitors who were interested to know about the services of DVA and the help available for men.

Phyllis Kopcsandy visits the Fly-In

Phyllis, the sister of George Constable visited the museum during the Fly-In with a number of her friends and close relatives. George Constable was Officer Commanding 161 (Independent) Reconnaissance Flight in Vietnam when on 23 May 1968 he was killed when the aircraft he was flying (a US Army Cessna Bird Dog) crashed after being hit by enemy ground fire.

Whilst at the museum, Len Avery took the opportunity to show Phyllis and her friends the framed display of George Constable’s medals as well as two of the aircraft in the museum which George Constable flew, Cessna A98-045 and the Mk III Auster, A11-41. Prior to leaving the Base, Len organised for Phyllis and her friends to visit the outdoor chapel where they held a small memorial service in memory of George Constable and the other Army pilots who have been killed whilst on operational service.

Phyllis and those who accompanied her were delighted with the visit to ‘our’ museum. We also thank Phyllis for the generous donation she gave the museum.

Membership of the Museum

I urge all serving members and past members to join the Museum. With our dedicated team of office staff and volunteers striving to make the Museum of Australian Army Flying the best presented Army Museum, we need your help to do this.

Anyone who would like to become a member can contact Board Secretary, Helen Bawden OAM [email protected] and I will email you a Membership Application Form. A form can be printed from our Webpage: http://www.161recceflt.org.au/MAAF/homepage.htm or obtained from the front office desk at the Museum.

Admittance to the Museum is $5.00 adults, $12.00 family (2 adults and up to 3 children) and $2.00 children. Concessions are available for Pension Card Holders and Group Bookings.

Images by Barry Bawden

Top left Landowners Lunch at the Museum

Below left Kevin Moss with his DVA Stall

Top middle Tiger display

Below middle Roulette display

Left Len Avery and Skeeta Ryan with Phyllis Kopcsandy

Helen Bawden OAM

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.161recceflt.org.au/MAAF/homepage.htm

http://www.161recceflt.org.au/MAAF/homepage.htm


A GOLDEN OSCARBy Len Avery with Bill Mellor | There aren’t too many helicopters

still flying, let alone working, that have celebrated their 50th

birthday, but recently one that started its life in uniform came to

light. Thanks to an historically minded owner and some detective

work from the 161 Association’s Len Avery, we discovered one of

Army’s very early helicopters still working, almost on our back door.

Oscar today

It all started with a chance

email. Jan Becker, co-owner

with her husband, Mike, of

Becker Helicopters Pty Ltd at

Maroochydore, emailed Len

seeking some information

and background on a Bell 47

G2A that they have owned

and operated for 15 years.

Jan knew it was an ex-army aircraft but wanted to know more about its history and whether there were any

early photos of it in military service. She was

also interested to know if there were any of

the early pilots around.

A quick review of the records showed that

the aircraft, currently registered as VH-ORC,

began its life as A1-660. It was introduced

into service in 16 Army Light Aircraft

Squadron on 12 May 1961, just a touch

shy of six months after the squadron, and

Army aviation as we know it today, came

into being. The first Army pilot to fly 660

was none other than ‘Rotary’ Ross Harding,

the first Army helicopter pilot! He test flew

the aircraft on 15 May 1961 with FLTLT Ray

Meredith, the Engineering Officer, in the

other seat. The aircraft was the first of three

G2A Sioux introduced in to Army, and had

slightly better performance than the G2s

then in service.

It was this performance that cemented 660’s

place in Army aviation history as being the

first Army aircraft to be deployed overseas

since the First World War. A personal request

to the Prime Minister at the time, the right

honourable R.G. Menzies, from Nelson

Rockefeller for assistance in searching for

his son, Michael, lost in the wilds of Dutch

West New Guinea, resulted in A1-660 being

dispatched north. In fact, two aircraft were

loaded in to a RAAF C130A at Amberley,

the first time such transport had been

undertaken, and curiously the second aircraft

was a civil G2A. It belonged to the proprietor

of Bell Helicopter Australia, Mr Frank V.

Sharpe, who had ‘loaned’ it to the Army for

the task, as the other Army G2As had not

yet been delivered. Despite ‘Army’ being

painted on the fuel tanks and kangaroo

roundels on the cockpit side, it remained

on the civil register as VH-FVS and two of

the detachment pilots, Tony Hammond and

Ken McLoughlin were hastily provided with

civilian licences to fly it legally.

LTs Dick Knight and John Ross were the

other pilots and they were restricted to flying

660. Maintenance support for this historic

deployment was provided by SGT Lloyd

Larney, CPL Roy Bowman and LAC Tony

Crosby, all RAAF members of 16 Squadron.

The full story of the deployment has been

told in previous issues of Fourays, Vol 1 No

1 of March 1995 and Vo 1 No 11 of 1999, by

Dick Knight and Lloyd Larney.

It wasn’t long before 660 was again heading

overseas, this time in February 1962 to

Papua New Guinea, and in company with

a Cessna 180. The journey was in the back

of a C130 and the unloading of the aircraft

and the subsequent test flights led one of

the indigenous observers to recount with

sincere authority how a large bird in final

labour had to land at Wewak to give birth

to small but obviously healthy off-spring!

For the rest of its life in uniform, A1-660

was employed on training and support to

exercises and survey operations. With the

36 FOUR AYS SPRING 2011

Basic

Navigation

Instrument

Night Unaided

Night Vision Goggles

Multi-engine

Tactical

Sling

Hoist

Aircrewman

All through helicopter training

Single-engine, single pilot instrument training

Multi-engine conversions

Military Helicopter Aviation Training System (HATS)

~ we are doing it now



~

Taking enrolments...

Becker Helicopters

www.beckerhelicopters.com

[email protected] 608 938

we are doing it now

training on the sunshine coast, qld

pending withdrawal from service of the Bell

47 Sioux from the Australian Army there was

a consolidation of aircraft in 1971 and the

remaining Bell 47 G-2’s and the sole surviving

G-2A (A1-660) were allotted to 171 Air Cavalry

Flight at Holsworthy in Sydney. They were

subsequently withdrawn and placed in

storage pending disposal when the Kiowas

arrived at the in 1972.

The picture becomes a little blurred around

this time and it is believed that 660 was

donated to the Royal Melbourne Institute of

Technology as a training aid. RMIT undertook

artificer training for RAEME senior NCOs so

it was a natural progression for an aircraft

surplus to Army’s requirements. Around 1986,

it is suspected that it was exchanged at RMIT

for an Enstrom F/28A and 660 became a

working aircraft again. It appears on the

Australian civil register for the first time on

26 June 1986 as VH-ORC owned by Aero

Company Pty Ltd. Mike and Jan purchased

the helicopter in 1996 from the owner of

Snowy River Ski Lodges at Jindabyne, Jeff

Straney, who flew the aircraft between the

snowfields and Queensland, but it is unclear

if he had owned it since its RMIT days.

When Beckers first got it, the aircraft had

worn a number of paint schemes, some of

which were still visible around and through

the current covering. It was not pretty and

for some reason it was thought to resemble

the Sesame Street character of Oscar the

Grouch. The company decided that the

aircraft needed a special paint scheme as

it was to be part of a new era and a new

generation of pilots trained through Becker

Helicopters and an all over bright yellow

scheme was adopted, along with the

affectionate nickname, Oscar.

‘Oscar’ has been maintained in pristine

condition for the past 15 years and used

extensively for flight training over a 13 year

period. There are many pilots all around the

world who have learnt to fly a helicopter in

‘Oscar’. Whilst being used in the training role

the aircraft has flown over 1400 hours per

year and received a new engine every year.

‘Oscar’ has become very significant in Jan

and Mike’s life. They often donate flights in

‘Oscar’ for the Cancer Fund during Daffodil

Days. In 2010 their 14 year old daughter was

diagnosed with cancer and ‘Oscar’ became a

symbol of hope in his bright yellow daffodil

colour. Jan’s grandad was also a world expert

grower of daffodils – so ‘Oscar’ has woven

quite a story – all for the love of flying.

‘Oscar’ (VH-ORC) is currently undergoing

a complete overhaul at Tadgel Aviation at

Caloundra Airfield and it is anticipated that

it will be flying again before Christmas.

During the course of contacting the pilots

who flew A1-660 in the Army we have

assembled a significant collection of photos

including some photos from Army Aviation

Association and the Museum of Australian

Flying at Oakey. Jan and Mike Becker have

also kindly allowed us access to some

excellent photos of ‘Oscar’ (VH-ORC).

The expansion of the flying history of A1-

660 is an ongoing task therefore we would

appreciate it if you could check your log

books and let us know if you flew this aircraft

and if you would allow us access to your

flight details in this aircraft, if you haven’t

already done so.

A copy of the flying history of A1-660 will

eventually be given to the library in the

Museum of Australian Army Flying.

It is now over 50 years since A1-660, VH-ORC,

‘OSCAR’ first flew and we greatly appreciate

the efforts of all the pilots and in particular

Jan and Mike Becker for preserving this

unique piece of our Army Aviation history.

Above 660 loaded on to C130 for the trip to Dutch New Guinea Above Dick Knight at RAAF Base Amberley 1961-62

the journal of the australian army aviation

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