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Interview with Air Vice-Marshal Ian Gale MBE, Assistant Chief of the Air Staff, recorded 18 June 2020Andy: [00:00:00] In this interview the Wavell Room interviews Air Vice-Marshal Ian Gale, Air Vice Marshall Gale joined the RAF 1990 and flew the tornado in a variety of frontline and operational test roles.[00:00:11] He commanded 31 Squadron at RAF Marham and then later commanded RAF Lossiemouth. As the senior responsible owner for intelligence, surveillance, targeting and reconnaissance, he brought the P-8A Poseidan maritime patrol aircraft into RAF service and was responsible for the protector uncrewed aerial system and the E-7 Wedgetail.[00:00:35] He was appointed Assistant Chief of the Air Staff in April, 2019. This interview was recorded in June, 2020. [00:00:44] Air Vice Marshal Gale thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed by the Wavell Room and for joining us here, you've commanded at a variety of levels and in a variety of contexts, both, commanding service personnel and civilians, in a career spanning over 30 years, what's the most important thing that you've learned about leadership?[00:01:05] ACAS: [00:01:05] Thanks Andy. Inevitably there's, there's going to be a few answers to that. But if I, if I, if I start with a headline, I would say that what I've learned most about leadership is you can't do it all yourself. So, maybe we all start out in life wanting to be the hero, wanting to lead everything ourselves and be at the front of everything. And that can work up to a point, but, as life goes on and as, the span of your leadership increases the quicker you can transition to understanding that, making an environment where other people can flourish and their leadership can flourish is, is in my view the most important thing, because that requires you to change your entire approach. But if I may, I'll, I'll add to that in a few different ways. And I'll say the first thing is that your own leadership evolves over time. It's probably not surprising that as a leader in my twenties, I think I was probably a very different type of leader to how I am now. And I think you can drive that pace. You really can direct how that goes. You can drive that pace by constantly being, learning, being inquisitive, looking at others, working out what works for you. What doesn't work for you. Doing some research and just reflecting on how you can improve yourself and being a constant self improver is a good way to work out, I think what works for you. I think you've also got to tailor it. Leadership in one circumstance would be very, very different from in another. And I think recognizing that your leadership styles and the situations that you find yourself in call for different types of leadership, again, is a very deliberate act rather than trying to apply your own leadership style to everything.[00:02:49] Sometimes you've got to be in a slightly less comfortable place. And perhaps remain true to yourself. It's taken me many years to accept my own weaknesses. This idea of the incomplete leader. Well, that's definitely me and I think the quicker that we can get to the place where we recognise where we're strong and where we're weak, and then build a team around us to help fill the weaknesses, then the better we all are for it and remaining true to yourself as well.[00:03:20] I think I find myself in a position now that I never could have dreamed as an academic when I joined the air force. But I'd like to think I'm still me. You still get absolutely the Ian Gale that is true. You don't get a false external version of me. And that's really important to me. I think when you start to separate and become a model that you think other people want you to be you're on a dangerous path.[00:03:47]And to that end, you know, I hope I stay genuine to that, but that does mean that you get me faults and all, I think that's a good thing. I get around that by employing people who are brighter than me. That's pretty easy if you are me, but it delights me when I can help people who are cleverer than me move on quicker than I did. [00:04:07]Andy: [00:04:07] So, the Ian Gale that is true is now the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff. You've been in that role for just over a year. Can you explain for our listeners what that means? And what's top of your in tray right now? [00:04:20] ACAS: [00:04:20] Yeah, of course. It's a funny post, the one of Assistant Chief and I'm the Assistant Chief Strategy, but it encompasses a bit more than that.[00:04:28] So I suppose, I'm the Chief of Staff for the Chief of the Royal Air Force. If this was a modern day A-Team, it's altogether less glamorous, but the strap line would be "if nobody else wants to do it, if it's not clear how it's solved and if it's late, give it to ACAS." So that that's one part of the job.[00:04:47] A really big part of what I do is strategy. So, in my department, my strategy team authors the Royal Air Force strategy and authors, I'll talk about it in a minute, our underpinning work for things like the review, but, you know, if we just backpedal on that strategy, it sounds really dull and dry and all the rest of it.[00:05:08]You know, the Royal air force is out there right now. And if we just pick a few areas of, of how it's keeping you safe right now. We have QRA fighters on standby that could be airborne at a moment's notice and are frequently scrambled to incursions into our air space that threaten us be those by hostile states or potentially hostile states by rogue airliners, whatever it might be.[00:05:31] Linked to that as a network of radars that are keeping our air space clear and allowing QRA to get to those things quickly. Our newly introduced maritime patrol aircraft are routinely patrolling the North Atlantic, keeping our deterrents safe and keeping us safe, in conjunction with the Royal Navy from surface and subsurface threats, and Fylindales and other places we're monitoring space.[00:05:53] And we're very, very active in space every single day of the week. None of that happens to keep us all sleeping soundly in our beds at night in the UK and abroad without a strategy that brings together our people, our stuff, and our money. So it's actually a lot more operational than it might sound because it has a daily impact on what we do.[00:06:17] So that's a large part of the job. My role also encompasses the, if you like, the custodian of the reputation of the Royal Air Force. Although really all of us are that, so under me comes the media and comms organisation and all that that entails. So when we do press releases, campaigns, when we react to things that have happened good or bad that falls to me as well.[00:06:42] I have the history and ceremonial areas of the Royal Air Force. I also, I'm involved in the release to service and the initial issue of release to service, to new capabilities. Be those platforms like the P-8 or new, air traffic systems like, Marshall, which is, modernising all of the military air traffic systems that the UK possesses.[00:07:05] A really big part of my job is the international role. So I'm the first point of contact for a number of our relationships with, other air forces. I'm part of the air attache network in London. and I'm routinely, in conversation with my counterparts in other air forces. [00:07:23] Why does that matter? Well, of course there are allies and partners and allies and partners is a, is a massively important part of, who we are as global Britain, but also in terms of prosperity for the United Kingdom, we are joined up with nations. I mean, we have a joint squadron with Qatar, for example, around the typhoon aircraft that is bringing us security. It's bringing us influence and it's bringing us prosperity and jobs into the UK. So that's a real, sort of across government spanning role of the job as well. I'll finish with two. I'm the conceptual champion to the Royal Air Force through the defence studies role. And what that means is I make the brain of the Royal air force convulse and come out with new ideas and imagine the future, conceptual thinking can quite often be thought of as dull and remote, but actually it is the imagineering. It is the, the really bright people thinking of the new concepts for the air force. And finally in the roles, I, and, the others in the senior leadership team are discharging Astra, which is our program for the future of the air force. And I'd come back to that later on.[00:08:29] Top of the in tray, COVID and keeping operating through COVID and being stronger and better , as we transition through the phases of COVID into whatever the permanent new normal is, the integrated review, which is obviously live at the moment, making sure that we do the best for the air force, the best for defence and the best for the nation. And I talked about renewal, prosperity, exports things like making sure that we employ people across the whole United Kingdom, which we do, and bring the strengths of our union together. And then finally Astra would be in my top three as well, because Astra is going to change everything for us.[00:09:12]Andy: [00:09:12] So, a big part of your job is strategy. And you also talked about imagining the future. So how do you see the future of air and space power evolve? And what does that mean for the RAF? [00:09:26] ACAS: [00:09:26] That's a great question. And I'm glad you said air and space power, because there we go that that's the nub of it.[00:09:32]What's new? Way back when people were thinking about a new domain and it was called air and people weren't sure if it would catch on and whether it would be part of somebody else and whether there'd be anything in it. And I suppose we've seen ourselves do that with both space and cyber and space and cyber have become very, very important to how we, how we do our work. I mean, as an air force, and certainly the Navy as well. We, we're so dependent on space that we must protect it. If we lose space, we're in big trouble immediately. And of course, like every other citizen in the world we're cyber dependent as well.[00:10:07] So that's the first thing we are increasing our involvement, our skills and our programs, particularly in space. And I expect there to be some, some big developments in that area. I mean, for the moment we have about 450 people who would, who would identify as a space in their job title, I expect that will increase quite a lot.[00:10:31]Skills are going to change as well. When I joined the air force, a second language was French or German, increasingly it's Python Five or some other computer language or, or a way of being comfortable in big data analysis. And I think we're probably going to move quickly to a place where everyone's multi-skilled and you've got your primary superpower, but your secondary superpower is there as well. The importance of coding of data networks and using that data to really get to intelligence and insight and foresight is going to disproportionately increase that of course has got a few things on the horizon. We've got the singularity and whatever that means to us when computers exponentially increase their power. And quantum computing, which we have been on the cusp of for a while, but we really do seem about to be making big breakthroughs, very soon. And then finally, being a more versatile and better employer so that the demands of ever newer generations of people, coupled with the changing demands of the people that we've got mean, we just have to work harder. I've always said that if you, if you join the air force, you will, you'll never get rich. It's not that kind of job, but you'll have the kinds of adventures and the ability to change the world that you just can't get in other jobs. And we need to make sure that that stays this idea of pride and service remains and how we appeal to people remains as well. So we're already pretty socially mobile. And about 40% of our officer cadre comes from the ranks. About 90% of our non commissioned people are on an apprenticeship, of one kind or another, but we need to do more so flexible service and all of this has been accelerated by COVID flexible service, remote service, zigzag careers, where we absolutely encourage people to do some time in the military, go out into industry spread those skills and knowledge, get some more, come back into the military, probably at a higher rank. All of these things are changing very, very rapidly and long overdue in my view, because these are things that allow us to make the most of the most diverse talents we can possibly get our hands on.[00:12:44] And that's for regular service people, various forms of reservists. And of course, all of our civil servants as well. You know, this, this is for everybody, that the Royal Air Force is all of those people. [00:12:57]Andy: [00:12:57] The next group of questions are from our listeners on Twitter. You've been in the job for 30 years. What's the one thing, which at the time you couldn't influence you regret happening to the service?[00:13:10]ACAS: [00:13:10] Yeah, that's a really interesting question. You probably won't expect this, but the thing that I wish hadn't happened, and I fully understand the reasons for it, but the Royal Air Force used to provide search and rescue services, across the UK. And the sight of a yellow helicopter has been the saviour of many people. The reason they existed was for downed military air crew, but the vast majority of their work was picking up people who got into trouble on the mountains, in the seas typically, and having commanded Lossiemouth for a while and seeing first hand the work that those people did, I thought it was genuinely heroic on a daily basis. I thought it was so valuable to the people of the UK and a great shame that we lost it. I mean, that's not to say the coast guard don't do a great job. I just wish that we had that within the Royal Air Force.[00:13:58]Andy: [00:13:58] The second question, concerns Astra, Astra very much your responsibility as ACAS. And so this listener asks how we avoid it becoming a good ideas club? They say that they've had 25 years of countless RAF change initiatives, failing to deliver the benefits and then just flipping to the next scheme. So how can we make sure that Astra is the one that doesn't do that?[00:14:23]ACAS: [00:14:23] Yeah, and I hear that a lot and it's not unreasonable for people to be cynical. And of course you get this often quoted, 80%, 85% of change initiatives fail, but, but they fail based on the criteria that was set at the start. And when you look back at them, they had great successes. They just didn't achieve everything so they counted as a failure and the constant changes, well, the thing is, the world is changing and, those of us who don't evolve are going to get left behind. So I think, I think we've got to stop looking at change as the enemy and as a hostile thing and embrace it as us getting ahead.[00:15:00] I mean, this isn't all occurring in isolation. You know, there's an enemy out there who gets a vote in this and they are changing. So we need to evolve quicker and be smarter. But, but I get it. There is a cynicism, so, okay. Addressing that. Astra is different because you've got a, you've got a top team in the air force that is absolutely committed to this.[00:15:20] A chief has gone to far as far as to say, I'm so committed here, but for the first time in a hundred years, I'm going to say the words, my replacement doesn't need to be a pilot. It doesn't even need to be aircrew. Now that's been an unwritten rule for a hundred years and that's gone. And the enabling networks to make non pilots or air crew be the chief have been put in place, but that's not going to appeal to everybody because not everybody's interested in that. We've created a, a network, a massive network. We've got about 600 people across the air force at the moment who were bringing Astra out to the stations at every rank level, in every profession that we've got, we've created kickstarter funding and pilot projects to put our money where our mouth is. So if you've got one of these good ideas, cause by the way, Astra needs bright ideas. That's part of it. There's a, there's a, a future focus part, which is how we fight and win in the future. Focused out at about 2035, 2040. And there's another part that says, why is today better than yesterday and how will tomorrow be better than that?[00:16:25] And for that, we do need bright ideas and some of them don't cost much. They're about the way we act, the way we empower people, the way we communicate, the way we break through layers of cynicism and layers of hostility. So we've created that kickstarter funding. I have a various number of Microsoft teams.[00:16:43] We're actually, any of those 600 ambassadors can get straight to me and we we've already committed, about half of our initial kickstarter funding. So the investment is now, and I'll stop with this because I'll go on for too long otherwise, you know, Astra is a philosophy, it's not a programme. And it's also a question.[00:17:03] So my question, when you say, what are you going to do for me is, you know what, we're doing it right now, what are you doing? What are you doing to change your air force, to make it better for you, for those around you and those you lead. And I think that's really important. This isn't passive. It requires everybody to be active and suspend the cynicism and ask the question afresh. How am I going to improve the organisation and what help do I need to mobilise the command chain. [00:17:32]Andy: [00:17:32] You tweeted recently you'd taken part in a webinar chat with Matthew Syed and, that prompts the next question, which is, are you confident that the RAF senior leadership team will fully embrace cognitive diversity? And do you think that our leaders are comfortable being uncomfortable? [00:17:51] ACAS: [00:17:51] Yeah, that's really interesting. Well, so Matthew is his book about, rebel ideas and his webinar were excellent, but, but it's interesting that question, because it's placed in the future, the senior leadership team is pretty cognitively diverse.[00:18:06] I mean, everybody thinks it's a room full of white male pilots. Well, it's not, we've got a pretty diverse range of, of people in that room. We also have our non executive directors who we specifically bring in to have skills that we don't have or perspectives that we don't have. But I get it.[00:18:23] We, we, we still need to push and we do need to make ourselves uncomfortable because that, that way we're ingesting perhaps the most challenging opinions that, that have a voice of one. So the short answer is, is yes, we're, we're pushing that very hard because the simple fact is if we, if we're not diverse and, and I mean that in every sense of the word, then we'll have one brain acting many times.[00:18:51] When we are diverse, we bring many brains, many perspectives that can only be gained through life experiences and, and those sorts of things, to bear on a problem. And that brings us better solutions and we're stronger for it. So definitely, are our leaders comfortable being uncomfortable? I, I, I've got to tell you, and the, you can't be in the top team of an organisation, like the Royal Air Force and not exist in an uncomfortable position every single day. So if, if you don't like that, definitely don't apply.[00:19:22]Andy: [00:19:22] For normal daily activity do you think we still have too many levels of hierarchy in the RAF and with greater delegation of budgets, make the RAF more efficient and responsive. [00:19:34] ACAS: [00:19:34] Now, you know what, that's the kind of question I would love to see in my inbox, because those are both direct hits.[00:19:41] So I do think we have too many levels of hierarchy and we are taking steps to examine that right now, to see what we can, reduce. We've already done a lot of it. We reduced our headquarters. I mean, we have one headquarters. You can't get much fewer than that without having nothing we've hit our star count fairly hard. So we're trying to take numbers of people out, but we also need to take some layers out as well. So, yes. And the next thing is, I mean, it's a great second part very much so. And I was just talking this week with our Director Resources about the progress of our plan to decentralise our budget as far as possible.[00:20:23]Primarily that the real, the real power here lives at our station command level. And what we've got to do is we've got to line up the money, the policy awareness and the power to be able to make smarter investment decisions faster, to improve efficiency and the lot of people on the stations. So we're well on the way to that, I mean, we're talking in weeks and months, not years, so a great question. And on it, both.[00:20:51] Andy: [00:20:51] When I asked you what's top of your intray at the moment, but it's COVID this interview is being recorded in June, 2020, where we're, we're all currently, locked down and we've been locked down for three months. Pandemics were a Tier One threat in the UK national security strategy. Do you think that we overly focus on military security?[00:21:13]ACAS: [00:21:13] Yeah. And I can see why at a time like this, that, that question raises its head. But I suppose there's two parts to this. If, we'd just been invaded, I can't help thinking that the question wouldn't be posed to an NHS leader saying, do you think you focused a little bit too much on health there and not enough on defending the Homeland?[00:21:33] So whilst COVID is enormous, an absolutely enormous challenge. Our business in the military, and this is all of the services is to, is to do the basic security that keeps our way of life going. And that, you know, I'm talking about the sea and the air lines of communication. I'm talking about defending us from submarines that probe our shores bring themselves within missile range of our, of our cities, regularly fly fighters into our, into and towards our space in order to disrupt our, our ways of life. So we've got to do that. That is the bottom line. And then we've got to push back terrorism. We've got to make sure that we defend our way of life. And by that, I mean that the rules based order, if you like and make sure that there isn't a creeping incursion that we suddenly find ourselves faced by a massive context change. But if I can just come into COVID, again, all three services, I'll talk for the air force, but all three services have made a massive response to COVID. So, so we might be positioned if you like to fight conflicts, but, but all three services are operating every day of the week in support of United Kingdom outputs.[00:22:46] So for COVID, we all mobilised. and you found us all driving trucks of oxygen, helping to do planning across government, setting up hospitals, setting up helicopter forward operating bases to helicopter patients from remote locations and for us doing international trips to, to bring protective equipment into the UK and putting nurses and doctors right into the front line in hospitals as well. And again, all three services,were doing this. So I think the military is unique in that we're so broad we can be used in so many different ways, but we have to remember that ultimately we're the only one that can be used to physically fight to defend us. So we can't lose sight of that. [00:23:33] Andy: [00:23:34] The next question from, from one of our Wavall Room listeners takes us into a field that I know that you're passionate about, and thats space power. So the question is the US budget for space force in 2021 is 15 billion dollars. But with space an increasingly contested domain how is the UK evolving its strategies and allied partner to defend its space assets and drive integration of air, sea and land assets through space? And what role will industry play in that?[00:24:03]ACAS: [00:24:03] It's a very broad question. So let let's take the US investment let's be careful of that. The US is the, is the biggest investor, so we don't probably need to compare ourselves directly to the US we're looking at playing our part. We're looking at providing security in a contested war-fighting domain. And we're looking at bringing UK niche advantage to bear. So we're not at day zero either. We've been in space for a great deal of time. We've had people involved in, in other space programmes and our own for a great deal of time, particularly with the US but a number of other nations as well.[00:24:39]And we're a core contributor to Olympic Defender so we're already very active in space right now. Where we're going though, we've got Carbonite-2 which is one of our programmes, which is an orbit at the moment. And we're looking at other programmes to launch more satellites that work together with more capabilities. The space directorate who stood up under Air Vice Marshal Harv Smyth, and in due course, I'm quite sure that, space command will be, established at some point to, drive that ever closer to the frontline.[00:25:12] So, those are the sorts of things that are going on now, we've been active with Fylingdales as I mentioned in the UK space operations centre, that's already doing that integration work, you know, space is inherently an integrative place. You know, it can't function if it isn't. So we're very much conscious of our role to drive that, to make sure that we don't, allow any situations to develop where for some reason space is not integrative.[00:25:40]And in the future, where does industry play? Well, the UK is in a great place here. I mean, I can tell you that, up at RAF Leeming, there's a company called Stratobooster who we're working with the RAF innovation or the experimentation hub. And they're looking at launching a Pico Satellite from a small rocket that goes into space on a balloon.[00:25:58]This is real innovative stuff course down in Cornwall, Virgin Orbit are looking at basing their horizontal launch, and we have a test pilot in that programme whilst up in the North of Scotland that will be where vertical launch in the UK comes. So we're in a place where we're accelerating very quickly, more and more people are becoming space qualified, which does take a little bit of time and we've got programmes that are advancing us in, in ways that are at the forefront of what other nations are doing in space, such that we can find ways to defend our space assets and launch into space very, very quickly. So, I'm a bit constrained by obviously what I can say on this podcast, but I get hugely excited when talking about space because so many things are happening simultaneously and the UK has a real influence position here with companies like Airbus, you know, we already have Skynet and it's, it's a world's leading capability , Surrey small satellites who've been leading, world capability in that particular market for a very long time. And the UK is a launch location access is all bits that you don't get from existing launch locations.[00:27:08] So that's, that's going to give us another advantage of geography, which the UK already has.[00:27:14] Andy: [00:27:14] Part of your role as ACAS is that you are the custodian of the RAF's relationships with other air forces. Can we expect an increase in the number and or scope of RAF bilateral and trilateral exercises involving non-NATO partners such as GUARDIAN NORTH with the Japanese or INVINCIBLE SHIELD with the South Koreans, or with the, INDRADHANUSH series with India.[00:27:42] ACAS: [00:27:42] Yeah, I think, let's not forget that the core partnership that we have is with NATO and being a good NATO partner and demonstrating leadership into NATO is very, very important. But the question's about non NATO partners. And I will certainly say that our appetite is increasing because we have very important relationships with all of those countries, and more, particularly with Australia.[00:28:07]It can of course be quite hard to tee up an exercise with Australia because one of us has got a long way to travel, but, you know, if we look at parts of the world the Indo-Pacific is a really important place to us. If you look at the, you know, seven of the ten most populous countries are out there, most biggest armies are there, you know, it's, it's an incredibly important place and it's a fault line at the moment where friction and conflict could happen.[00:28:34] So that part of the world is very important to us and to the other services and a truly global Britain is going to have persistent forward presence in places like that. So we want to do more of these exercises because it blurs the boundaries. We put people in each other's air forces in our case, and we understand more and we gain better interoperability and therefore our network of alliances and partners, which is something that our potential adversaries don't have to the extent that we do, they have clients. So our network of alliances and partners grows greater. And when you look at some of these nations as well, the industrial partnerships, we've got a form on programmes like Tempest, which are going to bring top end capability and investment in jobs to Britain rely on some of these other nations being partnered with us.[00:29:24] I mean, Norway and Sweden, I know we're mainly talking non NATO, but they're very important partners to us. In MPA and potentially looking forward into Tempest as well. So the appetite going up, I think it would be, it would be wrong to say. Yes, we're definitely going to do this, this side of a review because COVID is having an impact on us, which is not yet fully understood.[00:29:50] So how will we, how will we be able to bring that to bear? If it's not exercises, we'll find other ways, but our, our partnerships will be deepening that that's absolutely certain. [00:30:01]Andy: [00:30:01] Do you see the challenge of China as a unifier or a divider between us and our NATO allies in terms of their power?[00:30:07] ACAS: [00:30:07] So China is, is a real conundrum. China is a, a remarkable opportunity for prosperity and for technological progress. But we are not aligned with China in a number of ways; human rights, our view of the world, and it, it represents a military threat, not least because of what's going on in their part of the world at the moment and the way that we will continue to reinforce the rules based order and amongst that would be things like freedom of navigation.[00:30:41] So it's a really challenging area that I think we, it's not as simple as friend or foe. And I think you'll, you'll see that, for example, the issue of 5G has been quite a divisive one between NATO allies. And then there might be some other clearer things that that will unite the whole team in a certain way.[00:31:03] So if China were to act clumsily, that would unite NATO very, very quickly. So I think China is the real conundrum of our time and we, we just need to, to be very careful and exercise that very British diplomacy in dealing with China as both an opportunity and a threat.[00:31:22]Andy: [00:31:22] The next question concerns your role as the custodian of the RAF's reputation. So how will the RAF make coherent use of social media and establish best practice amongst all units?[00:31:34]ACAS: [00:31:34] Yeah, it's an interesting one. And again, it sort of implies that we're not doing that. And for what it's worth, my opinion is we could be quite a lot better. We've got a new head of our media and comms organisation who has a deep professional background in the topic.[00:31:51] And we're just reviewing right now, this week, in fact, a review of all of our official and unofficial social media accounts. I will say it looks like we've got far too many, but on the other hand being a bit of a liberalist, I don't want to have control of the all. I want to be able to give intent and have coherent messaging.[00:32:14] But I want people to be able to go and take that to the world in their own way and express their own opinions. So I think what that means is we've got, we've probably got to trim down. We probably don't need quite as many Twitter accounts as we've got. We've got to get slightly better I think at pushing out a core message but shy of, of the dreaded lines to take that explains where we're going with things, but then be prepared for people to have their own opinions. We do have a network of media comms officers now, and again, it's the same with all the services and they're really important to us because they are both media professionals, although that's not why they joined the service often, they're temporary media professionals and they're onsite with the thing that excites people about the Royal Air Force. So we've got to give them enough latitude to go on and to make their mistakes and not punish them when they do it because they're trying their best.[00:33:05]Andy: [00:33:05] Final question, and this concerns Astra, which we touched on earlier. So, for your final question, what is your 60 second elevator pitch for the next gen RAF? [00:33:15]ACAS: [00:33:15] Wow. Alright. Well, as the elevator starts going up, I'll say that the world is changing, it's changing fast. The fourth industrial revolution, the relatively new domains of cyber and space, the geopolitics of the world and people's expectations, both of those which have been accelerated by COVID. So we need to evolve or die. And I mean that quite literally, because we need to fight and win in the battle space. So the first hundred years was probably per ardua. The growing pains were difficult and the technological leaps were also hard.[00:33:48] The second hundred is ad astra, which is where it comes from. So we are, we are literally and figuratively going to the stars. We've got a bold plan. It's as much a question and a challenge as it is direction. We're looking long term, as we must do to plan for the future, but we're also setting today's steps making each day better than the last, we are focused on people, equipment training, infrastructure, and support where we've got some real today problems, and we're setting up concepts to make it all hang together and aim out towards the future.[00:34:22] It's a massive empowerment and people revolution. And if you're in the air force and you're listening to this, I want you to be part of it.[00:34:30] Andy: [00:34:30] Air Vice Marshal Ian Gale, Assistant Chief of the Air Staff thank you for joining us in the Wavell Room.[00:34:36]ACAS: [00:34:36] Thanks Andy. ................
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