// Exercise Steel Talon
The skies above Tekapo were buzzing with the sound of Iroquois helicopters from the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s No 3 Squadron recently as Exercise Steel Talon got underway.
The Exercise, which ran from 8–22 October, saw up to six Iroquois and over 100 Air Force personnel based out of Tekapo Military Camp.
Detachment commander for the Exercise, Flight Lieutenant Ben Stephens said, “Steel Talon is the Squadron’s major tactical flying exercise of the year. For aircrew this means the opportunity to train in tactical operations, using a number of aircraft and flying as low as 50 feet; while ground crews practice maintenance support from a remote location.
“This training maintains our capability to deploy overseas if requested by the Government. Exercises such as Steel Talon have given us the ability to contribute to Operations in Timor-Leste, the Solomon Islands and Bougainville over the past decade.”
The first three days of the Exercise saw an initial deployment of three Iroquois from No 3 Squadron working alongside soldiers from the New Zealand Army’s 2/1 Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment. The remaining three helicopters arrived in Tekapo on 11 October.
Flying operations were conducted mainly over the Mackenzie Basin, around Omarama airfield, Otematata and Tekapo areas, and Lake Pukaki, and included some limited night flying.
The helicopters were fitted with Mag 58 door mounted machine guns and firing blanks but there was no live firing at any time during the exercise.
Maintenance Viewpoint
By AC Jesse Halkett
Steel Talon 09 provided good insight into what it would be like to maintain aircraft in an operational environment. The challenges that arose from the exercise proved very beneficial, not only from a maintenance perspective but also from the ground defence point of view.
AHSO Tiff Kalin
It was good to put into practice work such as field dispatches, receipts, working around aircraft with weapons, and dailies. One of the big things with the dailies was the use of the daily kits instead of the regular tool board in our hangar. This proved challenging as tool control was harder with the limited number of daily kits. We wanted tool control to be as solid as it could, but as you could only use one kit per aircraft until each daily was finished, it did slow our work down slightly.
All of these experiences were good, especially for the younger members of the Squadron who, after learning from their own mistakes (or the mistakes of others) and the experience of the more senior members of the Squadron, became more efficient in their work by the end of the Exercise.
From the scenario point of view it was good for everyone to get exposure to the defence side of the operation. Patrolling—having to stand to and being confined to the camp—were quite foreign ideas to a lot of the maintainers there and gave a good overview and refresher to the whole maintenance crew.
In general, many lessons were learned and everyone who went was better off for the experience of being in an operational environment.