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My name is Flight Lieutenant Dave Murphy, nickname Murph.
I'm a ACO on the F80 and F Super Hornet.
I guess when I joined, I had no flying experience.
I had barely even been on an airline.
You know, I hadn't travelled a heap or anything like that.
And obviously, they taught me everything I needed to know,
so it wasn't a requirement to have any flying experience.
And I joined as a direct entry officer, which meant I didn't
go through the Defence Force Academy.
Or I didn't have to have a degree.
I just joined directly out of civilian life and then I went
to Officer Training School, so OTS, which is at
RAAF Base East Sale.
And then, after that, as an ACO, you stay at RAAF Base
East Sale, down in Victoria, and you do your ACO training.
As an ACO, we all do common ACO training.
We all do the same kind of baseline training, and then we
get streamed.
I got streamed to fly the Super Hornet and was lucky
enough to come and fly this aircraft.
Big picture is the ACO.
And the Super Hornet is my job to just use all the sensors,
and capabilities, and weapons on the aircraft to insure our
mission's success.
For example, on a maritime strike mission, I would be
using the RADAR on the front of the aircraft
to locate the ship.
And then from there, I can transition to using the
infrared targeting pod so I can get a visual ID on that
ship to make sure it is, in fact, the ship that we're
trying to target.
And from there, once I confirmed that, then it's a
matter of, basically, releasing the weapon and using
that same infrared targeting pod, guiding that weapon in
using the laser.
So I was lucky enough to go over to the United States and
train with the United States Navy on the Super Hornet.
So I spent a bit over a year there training with the Navy
and also instructing their Navy students as well and
basically just gaining more experience and time on the jet
before we brought our first batch of our own jets back
here to Australia.
So that was an awesome opportunity for myself and my
family and something I'll never forget.
I love the opportunity to fly a modern jet
fighter like this.
I love the opportunity that I get to travel the world.
I get to serve my country.
And along the way, I make great mates that are
my mates for life.
So that's an awesome benefit as well.
Quite a long process, but the whole time, you're learning,
you're improving, and you're learning the
skills that you need.
No two days, or no two missions are the same.
Everything changes.
You learn something new every time you go flying.
And that improves you professionally.
It makes you better ACO and gives you the ability to
handle those situations.
Make no mistake, though--
people see the glamorous side of what we do.
And when you're doing a fly pass or something like that.
But in reality, what we train to do every single day is to
be able to go to war and do our job if the government
needs us to do it.