CANBERRA - AUSTRALIA'S air force hopes to borrow pilots from civilian airlines, including flag carrier Qantas, to contain personnel shortages that have also seen much of the country's navy sent on holidays, the government said.

The military would soon accept new tanker and early warning radar aircraft based on civilian aircraft and wanted a pool of reserve pilots and crew among commercial airlines to help fly them, Defence Personnel Minister Warren Snowdon told wires agencies.

'What we can potentially see happening is civilian pilots working for commercial airlines becoming reservists, although that would be predicated on a whole range of discussions with the airlines,' Mr Snowdon said on Thursday.

The move follows internal audits that show fighter planes and pilots are not meeting basic flight hours.

Staffing problems have also affected the navy, which was ordered on two month Christmas vacation a fortnight ago to help address critical personnel and recruitment shortages.

Mr Snowdon said the airforce, which is looking at purchasing 100 stealth warplanes from the United States in the next few years, was not short of fighter pilots but needed aircrew for new aircraft.

Canberra has ordered six Boeing 737 airborne early warning and control aircraft in a contract worth US$2.2 billion (S$3.33 billion).

Separately, Australia has also ordered five Airbus A330 multi-role tanker and transport aircraft.

Australia's 50,000-strong military has been hard-hit by resignations and recruitment problems as personnel leave for better-paid jobs in the country's booming mining industry.

At the same time the military has already begun a 10-year, US$43 billion modernisation, with new missile destroyers, amphibious assault ships, missiles, tanks and helicopters adding to the airforce shopping list.

The airforce was forced to search overseas and offer large cash bonuses to halt an exodus of fighter pilots to civilian airlines where their level of pay was often doubled.

Mr Snowdon said the airforce was fully staffed for ground and engineering ground crews, but in the future may be short of highly trained aircrew for transport and logistics aircraft.

He said the government and military officials had already begun discussions on a pilot pool with Australia's Qantas and would be talking to other airlines.

'There have been some initial soundings. There are any number of airlines we could be talking to about this,' he said. -- REUTERS