An Cosantóir

74 By Lt Joseph Ward AIR CORPS DOWN UNDER 14th of January 2020, a long-anticipated day for Capt. Dave Finnegan and I. In Dublin, we boarded the first of two aircraft bound for the Southern Hemisphere. As we read- ied for the nearly 26 hours of flight time ahead, we had no idea what awaited us on landing in Melbourne or indeed over the next 2 years. We were departing for 32 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, based in East Sale Victoria, a small rural town 3 hours east of Melbourne. We had packed a couple of HEPA filter masks in our baggage as there was a major shortage in Australia. This shortage, not due to COVID 19, but due to the bush fires raging across Victoria, which would eventually consume over 46 million acres. This is a normal seasonal cycle of destruction and regrowth for a lot of Australian bushland, some trees such as the Bank- sia adapted to require fire for seed dispersal. Although this bush fire season was particularly damaging. Upon landing in Melbourne, it seemed as though the entire city was covered in a layer of smoke. The sun was a vaguely obscured orange ball in the sky. Our taxi driver told us that this wasn't normal and that things had been getting better in Victoria. This was welcome news as next on our itinerary was to drive to East Sale, 3 hours closer to the bushfires. On arrival in 32 Squadron, it was a hectic atmosphere. No .35 Sqn operating the C-27J Spartan and No. 37 Sqn's C130J Hercules were temporarily based in the Unit. They were working in support of Operation Bushfire Assist, helping to evacuate people from towns as the fire closed in. Fortunately, Australia's largest bushfire season in 10 years was coming to an end, but not without massive environmental devastation seeing 2,680 homes lost and 1.25 billion wild animals killed. We were warmly welcomed to 32 Squadron, some mem- bers of the Squadron heard rumours that we were coming almost 2 years before we arrived. We were the newest members of 32 Squadron, alongside Sara, a pilot officer straight from her Wings Course, Jacob a helicopter test pilot, as well as mission system operators Ed and James who were being trained in 32 Sqn to operate in the rear of RAAF aircraft. Our new aircraft was the King Air 350. A multi-engine, 9-seater aircraft used for personnel movement, logistics, maritime patrol and had an ISR capability. 32 Squadron operated 12 of them. Dave and I were delighted to get the opportunity to fly such an advanced aircraft, it had an up- graded Pro-Line 21 cockpit, cruised at 300KTs TAS, could climb to 35,000ft, with RNAV and 3D approach capability. Our conversion course had five instructors. All of whom were of SQNLDR rank (Comdt equivalent). The instructors involved with the course also formed the Unit's Executive team. The Executive team consisted of Wing Commander Andrew "Blue" Daley with SQNLDR Gordon Gunn "Gunny" as his second in command. Our instructors SQNLDR Paul Henry, also known as "Bones", SQNLDR Adrian "Boggy" Burge, New Zealander SQNLDR Derek Singer and FLTLT Glenn Canfield. The instructors were all Roulette lead or members of the Roulettes at one stage or another in their careers. All had over 20 years flying experience and thou- sands of hours in the RAAF. The Roulettes are Australia's aerobatics team based in East Sale. They perform all over Australia and across the world. To become "Roulette 1" was a huge career achievement and was never a happy accident. With this experience behind them, their excel- lent instructional ability made our transition to Australian procedures to be an easier one. Although procedurally Australia was quite different, after some evening reading and good instruction, we had all of the ingredients to suc- cessfully complete our conversion course. March 17th 2020, Dave and I organised a small celebra- tion in 32 Squadron for that all important feast day of St. Patrick. A lot of Squadron members had real ties to Ire- land, often having relatives and heritage in Ireland. Group Captain Ward, East Sale's Base Commander was Irish, having grown up in Ireland before joining the RAF and subsequently moving to the RAAF. Wing Commander Da- ley also had heritage in Ireland and even made the effort to write an entire email to us "as gaeilge" which I was very surprised to find in my Aussie Air Force inbox. For St Patricks Day, we opted to make some food in Photo of Uluru "Ayres Rock" during a flight to Alice Springs. Lt Ward photo after his first flight as an aircraft Commander Australia's Scenery AIR CORPS DOWN UNDER

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