‘Five-Eyes’
Air and Space Interoperability
By WGCDR Rory Paddock
Have you ever wondered how a Royal New Zealand Air Force Hercules lands at Kandahar Airbase in Afghanistan, which is run by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)?
ASIC National Directors Meeting participants
How it is re-fuelled by a British re-fuel truck delivering the right quality of fuel, using nozzles that fit the C-130? How, simultaneously, an American CDS Airdrop load is being winched onto the RNZAF aircraft by an Australian winch that has recently been borrowed and then rigged on the aircraft by No. 40 Squadron Air Loadmasters working alongside USAF Air Dispatchers, and using the same procedures? How the drop is then delivered on time, in a hostile environment, where the aircrew understand all about the procedures that have been put in place by NATO?
Well, the Air and Space Interoperability Council (ASIC) is an instrumental organisation in achieving this sort of real-life example of making coalition operations work successfully. Spread across the RNZAF, a range of individuals contribute directly to ASIC outcomes (usually in a supernumerary capacity), and thereby the RNZAF and its interoperability as a whole.
ASIC is a ‘Five-Eyes’ organisation with a mandate to enhance coalition and combined military capability through air and space interoperability. ASIC was formed by Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States of America in 1948 as the Air Standardisation Coordinating Committee (ASCC), with Australia joining in 1964 and New Zealand in 1965.
The main ASIC products are:
- Standards (similar in concept to NATO and the Standardisation Agreement), to which member nations formally agree to comply with (so, we all need to know the relevant ones for our respective work areas!)
- Advisory and information publications (for mutual understanding to aid interoperability)
- Information exchanges (complete with a ‘ready made’ network of international contacts in given areas), and
- Test Project Agreements (TPAs). TPAs provide tri-Service loan equipment (at no or minimal cost) and are a great way to trial new ‘kit’. Try them, they’re well worth exploring!
Deputy Chief of Air Force, Air Commodore Gavin Howse is the ASIC NZ National Director. AIRCDRE Howse recently chaired the annual ASIC National Directors Meeting, which was held in May at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand at Wigram in Christchurch. Also in attendance from the NZ Army was Major John Liddell, who gave a presentation on ABCA, the Army equivalent of ASIC. Indicative of close working relations between the various interoperability organisations is the fact that an ABCA standard currently undergoing ratification by the Five-Eyes nations (2081 ‘Coalition Airspace Control’) involved a collaborative review by both Army and Air personnel.
The RNZAF is committed to ASIC, so everyone is encouraged to make the most of it.
For more information about ASIC, please contact staff at the Air Power Development Centre.