SOARING SUCCESS
RAAF goes that extra mile throughout the APEC Summit
THE Royal Australian Air Force successfully provided air security and assistance to the Papua New Guinean Defence Force for the APEC 2018 summit.
The RAAF deployed F/ A- 18F Super Hornets from No. 1 Squadron, E- 7A Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and P- 8A Posei- don aircraft last week.
Commander of the Task Unit Headquarters Group Captain Chris Hake said the operation went as planned.
“We worked very well with the PNG security authorities and PNGDF. We’re very pleased APEC itself was a magnificent success for PNG,” he said.
“I’m really proud that we were able to be a part of that and help PNG showcase what it’s got to offer as well.
“It’s more about working with our Pacific partners and showing we can be the preferred security partner in the Pacific.”
Gp Capt Hake said personnel logged hundreds of hours throughout the operation.
“I’m personally very pleased and proud of what we’ve achieved,” he said.
“Considering the really long hours, it was effectively 24 hours of operations here from Townsville and from Cairns.
“Everyone’s just performed magnificently.
“We had 85 hours of Hornet time overhead Port Moresby and all together flew over 300 hours.
“We had four air refuelling tankers from Cairns who flew over 150 hours and offloaded over 1.7 million pounds of fuel to the fighters and the Wedgetail aeroplanes.”
Gp Capt Hake said he wanted to thank the Townsville community for their continuous support to the RAAF and Australian Defence Force.