Air Force

In the light of September 11 and the Bali bombing, Australia is reassessing its strategic and security focus. Our defence forces must rethink their approaches, with the new concerns of the threat of terrorism and the RAAF’s aging aircraft. At the same time, science offers a new world of unmanned aircraft, space defence systems and new radar that will change the air forces of tomorrow. The series explores technological and scientific issues, and the difficulties of selecting and developing highly trained personnel and retaining them (staff costing up to $9 million each to train). It investigates how psychology is used to select pilots and how aviation medicine shapes their training.