Heron operations in RAAF Base Amberley

[dimsum]

From their FB page:

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has made history by flying the Heron Remotely Piloted Unmanned Aircraft System out of RAAF Base Amberley. This was the first time RAAF has flown the Heron from a major Australian Air Force base.

From April 13-22, the Heron will be taking off from RAAF Base Amberley and transiting through military airspace alongside C-17A Globemaster III, F/A-18F Super Hornets and KC-30A Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft. The Heron is flown by Air Force with fully qualified military pilots who have extensive experience on both manned and remotely piloted aircraft.

The "so what" is that RAAF Base Amberley is about an hour west of Brisbane and very close to the civilian airliner transit corridors, as well as being the base with the most varied types of aircraft.  Integrating RPAs into that doesn't sound like much on paper, but in Canada (and Australia until last year) RPAs were flown from remote areas as the airspace agencies didn't understand enough about their redundancies and were afraid they would "go rogue" and wander into those civilian airways.

https://www.facebook.com/RoyalAustralianAirForce/?fref=ts

 

[OTR1]

The motion picture........

http://video.airforce.gov.au/play/4622

 

[OTR1]

Pic attached of Heron 5 Flt. being awarded a Meritorious Unit Citation from Gov-Gen. Sir Peter Cosgrove for Afghanistan ops, 2010-2014.

Libations and celebrations at Amberley the other day.