Overview
What is air mobility? What Defence capabilities contribute to air mobility?
The ability to move personnel, materiel or forces using airborne platforms.
The core air power role of air mobility aligns with the ADF’s warfighting function of force projection. Force projection is the timely deployment or movement of joint forces within the operational environment by any means to achieve objectives. The ability to project force is critical to exploiting the operational environment while denying it to an adversary. Air mobility is the ability to move personnel, materiel or forces using airborne platforms. It provides the capability to rapidly deploy, sustain and redeploy personnel, materiel or forces to, from or within a theatre by air. This air power role enables the conduct of other ADF operations and has utility across the full spectrum of conflict. Notably, air mobility is often the transportation of choice when speed, reach, and obstacle and surface threat avoidance are required. In some cases, air mobility can be the only means to create the desired effect. The recent introduction of faster long-range aircraft for the air mobility role has provided Air Force with a significant global airlift capability. These aircraft afford Air Force a credible inter-theatre air mobility capability that is vital to enabling the ADF to conduct expeditionary operations in support of Australian national security objectives in the broader geo-strategic environment. Meanwhile, intratheatre air mobility is vital to facilitating rapid air movement of forces and supplies within a theatre, which enables a numerically small force to dominate a large geographical area. Where integral military assets are insufficient or unsuitable to meet the airlift requirements of the ADF, civil charter aircraft may be employed to meet some operational requirements