Originally Posted by Bushranger 71
Transfer of all Air Force helo assets to Army Aviation (3 utility squadrons and a flying training component plus an MLH squadron) effectively gutted the surge capacity of the RAAF. A downstream consequence was the strike/fighter force suffered serious under-manning of pilots which was only offset because the RNZAF and RAN terminated their fixed-wing offensive air roles thus shedding pilots. The overall capability of the ADF and Australia's military capacity/credibility was substantially diminished by the helicopter transfer decision and 26 years of helicopter operating experience was forfeited including 5.5 years of invaluable combat experience for which there is no substitute.
The ADF is now somewhat an amorphous mass and the strong loyalties that once developed in the individual armed forces and were essential to esprit-de-corps have perhaps faded. Shuffling of aircrew and maintenance personnel among the 3 Services as W/C Sharp suggests is perhaps impracticable; but the question does now arise whether maintaining 3 air arms within a virtually unified small ADF is cost-effective?
Bushranger you may have hit the nail on the head with that last question; is there any reason why aircrew of any service shouldn't be trained to a standard and to a TMP that makes them eligible for any surge as / when needed? That's IF there is a surge capacity requirement.
More re your point about "surge capacity" .... I wonder if AAAvn 'owning' the ADF's RW lift aircrew makes them
exempt from being redeployed according to Ronnie's needs & wants? Sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory
Perhaps accidently Army has found a way of always having those assets at Army's beck and call and not at Ronnie's? And before anyone says anything I'll qualify that - perhaps it should be "having those assets at Army's beck and call apart from mismanagement, cockups, unservicability, inappropriate TTPs, etc".
For what it's worth I believe in a purple future for the roles that would benefit. However I don't advocate the Canadian solution
. So I ask again - are there any reasons why tasking can't now be done in a joint establishment and aircrews allocated across and from all 3 services, not just for this role but for others as well? Isn't there a potential benefit from having aircrew at 4 SQN (for example) who are RAAC ROBC with regimental experience pre-wings and COAC qualified? Having a Ronnie knuck flying ARH? In fact wouldn't it be beneficial for Army to open up slots on COAC for RAAF aircrew (or has that already been done)?
I'm not directly involved in this particular debate but I do feel the cold shoulder of petty inter-service squabbling from time to time. I could blame Ronnie or Pussers but it wouldn't get me very far - so what's the point?