Air power and its efficacy has been debated in military circles ever since pilots first started taking personal weapons into the air with them. Since those early days, air power has arguably overtaken its land and sea-based sister organisations as the primary method for projecting political will, whether forceful, such as Operation Allied Force against the Serbs, or humanitarian, as with the air bridge between Dili, capital of the disputed Indonesian territory of East Timor, and Darwin, Australia.
If politicians the world over are to continue viewing air power as a crucial element of their international activities they must ensure that air forces and the air components of navies and armies are given the right tools and training to do the job.
It is clear, regardless of the level at which you look, that those in the armed forces are keen on training and are consistent in the belief that all facets of it are crucial to the successful outcome of operational missions. The training must, however, cover every mission, every weapon and, where necessary, day and night operations.
The operational environment is complex, with sophisticated weapons and tight political demands - such as no collateral damage, minimal, and preferably zero, casualties - and often in a restricted area. The air campaign against Yugoslavia was in the middle of Europe, and commercial air traffic continued to operate around the periphery of the military action.
As British statesman Sir Winston Churchill said: "Air power is the most difficult of all forms of military force to measure or even to express in precise terms." A Norwegian general added more recently, "and he didn't have [unmanned air vehicles], space based weapons, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, etc, to deal with".
Training must, therefore, be relevant and comprehensive, and high-fidelity simulators should be available so that maximum benefit can be derived from each precious flying hour. Simulators allow crews to practise before they take to the air so that the mundane but crucial elements of the mission, such as selecting the switches in the correct order, are second nature to the crew when airborne. In turn this allows the crew to concentrate on the approach, identification of and attack of the target.
Multinational exercises, such as the various "Flags" organised in the USA, are seen by participants as crucial to coalition operations, as the exercises give exposure to other countries' procedures and equipment. Exercises also allow crews to fly with force multipliers such as tankers, airborne warning and control systems (AWACS)and electronic warfare (EW) assets which may not normally be available because an air force does not own such platforms.
The need for rangeless air combat manoeuvring instrumentation (ACMI) is another oft-heard call. It has numerous training benefits, not least negating the need for expensive range time. ACMI pods provide a useful post-mission debriefing facility and if the right radio frequencies are available it signals kills and other relevant information to the aircrew.
Rangeless ACMI equipment can also be deployed with aircraft on operations. While crews rack up plenty of flying hours the training value is often limited as operational flying is restricted to the same profile in the same area day after day. Deployable ACMI allows crews to practise other missions without the need for large volumes of support equipment to be airlifted into theatre.
The message is clear: if the politicians want to retain and improve air power's efficacy they must ensure crews get the training they want and require. That must apply to the AWACS, EW, tanker and transport crews, not just the air defence and strike pilots. There must be no push to reduce annual training hours, there must be no drive to force extended use of simulators; if training tools are needed for a particular weapon or system, they must be supplied.
Despite "zero casualty conflicts" in the recent past, they will not always be so. Proper comprehensive training means targets are destroyed the first time, which means no-one has to go back and attack it again, promoting the chances of keeping casualties down and minimising collateral damage.
Source: Flight International