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Speaker 1: You may have already heard some action in the skies

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Speaker 1: over the top end and Catherine and we know that

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Speaker 1: the Royal Australian Air Force is currently conducting a training

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Speaker 1: exercise out of THEBAF bases in each region, and I'm

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Speaker 1: joined by the director of that exercise group, Captain Matthew Harper,

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Speaker 1: to explain a bit more about it. Good morning to you, Matthew,

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Speaker 1: how are you, hi.

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Speaker 2: Katie, Thanks for having me on the show. It's actually

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Speaker 2: great to be able to talk to you and your

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Speaker 2: listeners about Exercise diamond Storm.

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Speaker 1: Well, we are excited to find out a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about it. Who's involved in Exercise diamond Storm.

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Speaker 2: So Diamond Storm is predominantly a Royal Australian Air Force

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Speaker 2: led exercise, but it's a great opportunity to bring to

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Speaker 2: capabilities across all of the ADF, to include both from

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Speaker 2: our Army and Navy where we have representation, but we

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Speaker 2: also have participants from the United States Air Force, the

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Speaker 2: United States Marine Corps. We have some partners that are

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Speaker 2: fine with us from the Royal Air Force and we

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Speaker 2: also have a few members from the United States Navy

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Speaker 2: also here as well.

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Speaker 1: Now, how long is it going to be running for

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Speaker 1: and how often are resident's going to be hearing the

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Speaker 1: aircraft in the skies.

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Speaker 2: Well, the Diamond Storm officially kicked off yesterday, I'm sure

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Speaker 2: the residents of Darwin and Catherine would have heard the

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Speaker 2: aircraft getting airborn and heading down south into the airspace.

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Speaker 2: We're going to be flying out of here for the

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Speaker 2: next four weeks from the thirtieth of May through to

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Speaker 2: the twenty fourth of June, where actually planning on flying

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Speaker 2: both during days and nights during the exercise. This week

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Speaker 2: is the first week of the exercise and we're just

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Speaker 2: going to be conducting some dayflying, but for the following

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Speaker 2: two weeks commencing next week, we will actually be doing

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Speaker 2: a couple of weeks of night flying as well. We'll

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Speaker 2: we be flying predominantly in the afternoon and then into

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Speaker 2: the early evening. Noting that we're not planning on doing

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Speaker 2: any night flying or anything like that on a Friday,

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Speaker 2: Yeah right.

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Speaker 1: I know that there is always a lot of work

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Speaker 1: done with the community to try and cause the least

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Speaker 1: disruption possible, but it is one of those things that

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Speaker 1: you know, these exercises are incredibly important, not just for

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Speaker 1: the Northern Territory, but also for our defense thoughts, aren't they?

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Speaker 2: They certainly are. And Diamond Storm itself is actually part

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Speaker 2: of a much larger, larger course that we're running at

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Speaker 2: the moment called the Air Warfare Instructor Course, which is

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Speaker 2: a six month course that we put some of our

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Speaker 2: highest performing members across the Royal Australian Air Force through

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Speaker 2: and the whole purpose is to grab them who are

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Speaker 2: you know, they're already really good at operating their platforms

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Speaker 2: and their capabilities, and our whole idea is to grab them,

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Speaker 2: put them all together, take them through a course where

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Speaker 2: they can become experts on their capability, look to then

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Speaker 2: integrate them across a number of large force employment exercises

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Speaker 2: such as what we're doing here at Diamond Storm, with

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Speaker 2: the objective at the end where we graduate them as

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Speaker 2: in Air Warfare Instructors, that we then reinvest back into

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Speaker 2: our Royal Australian Air Force community to help train our

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Speaker 2: next generation of war fighting leaders.

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Speaker 1: So it is certainly pretty critical training by the sounds

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Speaker 1: of it. How much I know that there is a

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Speaker 1: bit of disruption though that it causes. How much disruption

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Speaker 1: is it likely to cause? When you talk about you know,

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Speaker 1: the noisiness. I guess that you hear. I certainly understand that.

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Speaker 1: I think we live in a defense town, so we've

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Speaker 1: got to understand that there are going to be exercises

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Speaker 1: from time to time.

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Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I'll telly is the everyone that

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Speaker 2: I've engaged with across the community here in Darwin, and

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Speaker 2: certainly Dan and Katherine, like everyone is so supportive of

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Speaker 2: when Defense sort of rolls into town with our platforms

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Speaker 2: and capabilities, and they really understand the mission and what

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Speaker 2: it is that we're trying to do. But it's also

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Speaker 2: I think important that everyone understands that we take noise

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Speaker 2: and community disruption really seriously, and as a fighter part myself,

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Speaker 2: I can tell you that it's something that we discuss

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Speaker 2: every day. We design our flight profile so that we

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Speaker 2: can get off the ground as quickly as possible. We

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Speaker 2: try and fly across flight paths that we know are

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Speaker 2: going to provide the minimum amount of disruption to the community.

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Speaker 2: We limit our speed over populated areas, we avoid using

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Speaker 2: afterburners when it's safe to do so, and we try

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Speaker 2: and get as high and away from the community as

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Speaker 2: quickly as possible, while we then transit down into the

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Speaker 2: airspace to conduct our missions, and equally, on return, we

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Speaker 2: try and fly a flight part that will get us

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Speaker 2: onto the ground as quickly as possible to minimize the disruption.

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Speaker 2: I'd also say that we're very careful about when we

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Speaker 2: choose to night fly, and we only choose to night

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Speaker 2: fly when we know that that's something that we really

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Speaker 2: need to do for the training of our men and

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Speaker 2: women that we have participating in the exercise.

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Speaker 1: Now. There are a lot of avid plane spotters or

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Speaker 1: aircraft spotters who listen to the show. When's the best

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Speaker 1: time for them to be able to to really see

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Speaker 1: some of some of these aircraft.

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Speaker 2: So our normal takeoff times from just before nine o'clock

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Speaker 2: for about an hour or so, just depending on what

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Speaker 2: the day is, when we're flying in the morning and all,

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Speaker 2: and also in the afternoon, with afternoon takeoffs commencing around

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Speaker 2: that sort of one thirty timeframe. When we fly from

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Speaker 2: the afternoon and into the evening, it's usually around that

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Speaker 2: sort of one or two o'clock that will take off,

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Speaker 2: and then just after sunset, once all the bats and

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Speaker 2: birds have kind of dispersed around that time of evening

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Speaker 2: is when we'll look to launch from both Darwin and

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Speaker 2: also from down at Katherine.

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Speaker 1: And where can people get some more information if they

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Speaker 1: are listening this morning and thinking I want to know

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Speaker 1: a bit more about what's happening. Can they find it

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Speaker 1: on Facebook or somewhere.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, we've got a great social media presence on

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Speaker 2: all the usual social media platforms, and territories can also

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Speaker 2: find more information about our flying operations by the Air

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Speaker 2: Force dot gov dot au but certainly all the role

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Speaker 2: Australian Air Force social media pages are a great resource

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Speaker 2: for everyone to get involved in the action and also

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Speaker 2: see some hopefully some cool images and some of the

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Speaker 2: data about the exercise here that we're conducting.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now, Matthew, just before I let you go, is

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Speaker 1: there going to be more exercises throughout the way this year?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? There is. So what's fantastic about coming up to

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Speaker 2: the Northern Territory is obviously that the weather up here

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Speaker 2: is sensational at this time of year, and we've also

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Speaker 2: got some fantastic airspace down to the south that allows

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Speaker 2: us to really spread out and get some great training

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Speaker 2: while we're flying around up here. And so whilst Diamond

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Speaker 2: Storm happens to be the first to exercise that the

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Speaker 2: Air Force is going to be conducting. It really does

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Speaker 2: start a period of about three or four months now

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Speaker 2: where I think it's more likely that Territorians will alsoe

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Speaker 2: a bit more of a defense presence. In the top end,

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Speaker 2: we have quite a large activity plant exercise Pitch Pack,

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Speaker 2: which some of your listeners might have heard about in

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Speaker 2: the past, and that's going to be a little bit

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Speaker 2: later in the year as well, and once that's complete

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Speaker 2: we start to wind things back up.

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Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like it's going to be a very

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Speaker 1: busy time for you guys. There is a lot happening

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Speaker 1: throughout the year, but so much happening now throughout the

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Speaker 1: month as well. We really appreciate you taking the time

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Speaker 1: to have a chat with us this morning.

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Speaker 2: Group.

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Speaker 1: Captain Matthew Harper, you are indeed well a diamond Storm,

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Speaker 1: the executive director of that of exercise diamond Storm, So

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Speaker 1: we appreciate you having a chat with us because I

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Speaker 1: know you're a very busy man at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Ah. Well, thanks for having us on the show, Katie,

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Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, and we may talk to you again throughout

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Speaker 1: the exercise or I'm sure later in the.

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Speaker 2: Year fantastic, we'll look forward to it.

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Speaker 1: Thank you,