Lack of planes to fly brings RAAF top guns down to earth

BY PHILIP DORLING

Their motto is ''Seek the Heights'', but the latest crop of graduates from the Royal Australian Air Force's elite flying training school are earthbound because the RAAF doesn't have enough planes for them.

The Department of Defence yesterday confirmed that 36 RAAF graduates of No2 Flying Training School at Pearce Air Force base in Western Australia would be sitting behind desks because the RAAF lacks aircraft for them to undertake conversion to operational flying.

The earthbound pilots constitute nearly one in four of recent graduates from the expensive advanced flying training program.

RAAF sources said some of the pilots could wait more than a year and as long as two years before they would be able to undertake their allocated conversion to operational flying.

Opposition Defence spokesman David Johnston expressed concern about the RAAF's management of the pilot training program

Posted in: Australia,Training aircraft