Sydney's Super Sea Sparrow Sunday
22 November 2007
HMAS Sydney (CMDR Guy Holthouse, RAN) recently sailed past the USS Arizona Memorial and into Naval Station Pearl Harbor to commence her alongside preparations for the first-of-class Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) firing. Her Operations and Weapons Crews spent most of their alongside time performing drills, attending safety briefs and conducting pre-firing checks in preparation for a series of ESSM firings to occur over the following days.
With preparations complete, Sydney sailed from Pearl Harbor to the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in early October, where she conducted a combination of ESSM tracking and firing runs against United States Navy (USN) supplied targets.
The firing plan sought to test and evaluate the integration of the new ESSM weapon capability within Sydney's upgraded combat system. This was achieved through a variety of live firing tactical scenarios designed to ensure the new system performed as per specifications.
A number of stand out performances were evident over the firing period. The honed console skills of both LS Julian Bateman (FC2) and AB Wei Choo (FC1), who each successfully engaged and destroyed their targets, was commendable. Sunday's firings concluded with LEUT Antony Pisani directing the final ESSM engagement and with CPO William Edmondston successfully engaging the final targets.
The day's achievements confirmed that Sydney is indeed the punchiest frigate in the Southern Hemisphere and reflected the impressive improvement in capability offered by the upgraded FFG.
While in the region, Sydney was lucky enough to witness the annual Navy/Marine Corps air show, just off US Marine Corps Base, at Kaneohe Bay. The highlight of the show was a magnificent display by the US Navy Aerial Display Team, the Blue Angels, directly over the top of Sydney - a better vantage point could not have been bought.
