“It’s like saying you are going to buy a Ford Falcon without seeing what General Motors or Toyota has to offer,” Mr Thomson said.

LOL. Get the analagy right matey. When talking about F-18E/F compared to F-22A its more like buying a Falcon without checking out the Ferrari showroom first. I wonder if I can get one of those Adam Sandler remote controls and just jump forward to 2015. I’m getting sick of this crap.

Daniel

Seasprite program may be scrapped

Seasprite program headed for the scrap heap

* Patrick Walters, National security editor
* February 10, 2007

THE navy’s ill-fated Seasprite helicopter program is almost certain to be scrapped after a decade of problems, leaving taxpayers with losses of more than $1 billion.

The Defence Department has recommended that the contract with US manufacturer Kaman Aerospace Corporation be terminated.

And senior government sources say the axe could fall on the project to refurbish the Vietnam-era helicopters as soon as next Wednesday’s meeting of federal cabinet’s National Security Committee.

The Seasprite helicopters have been dogged by software engineering glitches and airworthiness issues, with the project running more than six years behind schedule.

The twin-engine SG-2G(A) Super Seasprites, equipped with Penguin anti-ship missiles, are designed to operate from the navy’s Anzac-class frigates, providing a maritime strike and surveillance capability for the surface fleet.

If the Seasprites are dumped, Defence will buy a new helicopter for the Anzacs, choosing between the US Seahawk, which is already in service with the navy, and the European NH-90, in an investment likely to cost at least $1.5 billion.

The failure of the project will be an embarrassment for the Howard Government, which is extolling its virtues as a superior economic manager against new Labor leader Kevin Rudd.

The Government is expected to counter that it was burdened with the project by the previous Labor government of Paul Keating.

Kaman executives have been in Canberra this week lobbying hard for the retention of the project, arguing that the Seasprites are safe to fly, with only Australian airworthiness certification procedures yet to be met.

But the latest estimate from Defence is that the navy will now not have a fully operational Seasprite squadron until 2010, at the earliest.

The original $667 million contract with Kaman, signed in 1997, called for the supply of 11 helicopters. The one-off project involved fitting a wholly new avionics package designed for the Royal Australian Navy into a 1960s airframe.

Ten of the Seasprites have been delivered to the navy but were grounded last year after concerns about their airworthiness and problems with their flight control systems.

If the project is scrapped, it is likely Defence will attempt to sell the remaining Seasprites.

More than a decade in development and now running six years late, the Seasprite has been one of Defence’s most troublesome “legacy projects” – those that originated before the election of the Howard Government in 1996 and before major reforms of the Defence Materiel Organisation, the organisation that manages new equipment purchases.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has made no secret of his unhappiness at the state of the Seasprite program and his readiness to consider an alternative solution for the navy.

Dr Nelson met senior Kaman executives in Washington in December to express his concerns at the continuing delays in achieving an operational capability for the navy’s Fleet Air Arm.

“The company has failed to understand that they have lost the confidence of the customer,” one senior government source told The Weekend Australian.

A decision to scrap the Seasprite would come as a bitter blow to the helicopter’s manufacturer, which maintains that all the major hurdles to achieve a fully operational capability have been met.

Kaman estimates that meeting Australia’s current airworthiness certification regulations, which fall outside the original contract specification for the Seasprites, will take a further 29 months and cost $US35 million ($45million).

Kaman is confident that it has solved all technical problems associated with the Seasprites’ flight control system. This includes the handling glitches in the Seasprite’s air data computer before last year’s grounding of the machines.

“We have really done all of the testing to this point to convince us that the aircraft meets all of its specified requirements,” Kaman Aviation’s vice-president of engineering Mike Bowes told The Weekend Australian.

This included bench and flight testing of it and its sensors and weapons systems, including the Penguin anti-ship missile.

“We have just completed an enhancement of the flight control system which the commonwealth asked us to do to allow us to get an interim airworthiness certificate,” he said.

Mr Bowes said Kaman had agreed a statement of work with the commonwealth to achieve full air certification by mid-2009.

The additional $US35 million cost will cover further software engineering and installation of additional redundancy in the Seasprites’ flight control system as well as new software to comply with regulations.

Kaman is confident it has satisfactorily resolved a list of outstanding concerns presented by Defence last year relating to the performance of the Seasprites. These included the helicopter’s performance when it was equipped with the Penguin missile and its stability when the missile was fired.

Dr Nelson has compared the ambition of the program, in which the latest avionics have been incorporated into an older airframe, to trying to put a “2010 motor vehicle into an EH Holden”. “If this were a domestic purchase and you had the project in your garage, you would be sitting around your kitchen table with your wife saying, ‘Look, do you think we should be continuing with it?”‘ he told The Weekend Australian last year.

“If it was my money, my project, and it involved my domestic arrangements, I know what I would be doing.”

SAMs are generally considered defensive weapons, in my opinion Russia is probably within its rights to sell Iran the SAM’s. However just because SAMs are not generally considered offensive weapons does not mean they cannot and are not intended for malicious war. Iran’s behavior is already provocative and threatening; agenda of destruction of Israel and America.

For those who don’t believe that defensive weapons purchased legally, cannot be used illegally offensively, may I point out an example from Iraq’s history. (Yes I know there is a difference between Iran and Iraq, however their behavior is similar) Iraq legally purchased anthrax (not a weapon), allegedly for the peaceful use of manufacturing vaccines to prevent disease in people and animals; however Iraq used the anthrax to make weapons and was engineering it to make it more effective weapons.

SAMs can be used offensively. Particularly SAMs that can fire on the run. So the SAM units can advance and give cover to an offensive attack.

Iran has a history of developing weapons that are generally considered defensive, and developing them into a weapon that is both offenses and defenses. For example Iran has modified SAM missiles to be used as ATA missiles. Iran has modified a number of MIM-23 HAWK (SAM) missiles for carriage on F-14 Tomcat fighters in the air-to-air role.
http://www.patricksaviation.com/aviation_videos/1390

At its simplest a SAM can assist an offensive by freeing up defending fighters for offensive tasks. This is the same argument that opponents of the NMD use. The fact a defence exists makes it more possible to use ones own offensive weapons.

Analogy. If Captain Kirk traded knives for crystal dilithium with a Stone Age civilization on an alien planet, then Captain Kirk would be violating Starfleet’s prime directive not to interfere the advancement of primitive societies; on the grounds that the trade would be technology transfer that would likely interfere with the natural development of the society.

Well under this analogy Kirk would also have to transfer all the knowledge and equipment that goes along with utilising di-lithium otherwise it would be nothing more than another pretty bead to wear on a necklace around the chief’s neck. It might slightly advance the resulting society’s development but only after they had already advanced to a point where they had developed the means to exploit the energy themselves.

For most customer nations there is realistically a difference between transferring a finished product and transferring all the tech involved in developing said product. However in Iran’s case the difference may be lessened given a history of reverse engineering and a reasonably well developed indigenous industry.

Daniel

If the Rhino purchase does go ahead these aircraft will presumably be used by 1sqn & 6sqn. If this is indeed the case then as I see it this does not in any way alleviate the growing problem of the RAAF’s existing F-18’s burning out their airframes. If anything it will merely compound the issue. If the Rhino replaces the Pig at roughly a one for one ratio then the RAAF will immediately lose approx 50% of its strike capability. In order to plug the gap more of the existing Hornets would be required in the strike role, compounded with their already existing roles then the Hornets will be burning out airframes at an even faster rate. Its already acknowledged that in order to fly the Hornets post 2010 then they will require centre barrel replacements. The Government and the RAAF have been very coy on precisely just how many Hornets will have to undergo centre barrel replacements. In short I just can’t understand the maths the Government is using in order to make this decision, if indeed it actually goes ahead.

Well about 57 IIRC of the Bugs well get a centre barrel replacement so the operational Hornet force will be maintained.

Re the Super Bug v Pig capability issues.

1) the Super Bug will have a much higher availability rate than the Pigs. Same thing happened for the USN when the Super Bugs replaced the Turkeys.

2) Equipped with JASSM the Super Bugs will have ample strike potential.

3) The Super Bugs will require less protection from the Hornet force therefore they will ease that forces usage not increase it.

Daniel

IRIAF 747 tankers use the boom system, whereas Su-24 has the probe-drogue system:rolleyes:

The former Imperial Air Force had under wind HD units for its 707 fleet. Its possible they’ve adapted them for their 747s.

because in Defence no one shares or publish top of the line expertize. USSR/USA had much smaller economy than current China but at that time they could build Aircraft carreirs and Supersonic bombers.
u can take simple example of J-10. China can hardly make 30 to 40 a year but more than 2 decades ago US could make 200 F-16 a year with older production line.

Well the Chinese economy has to service more a population more than three times the size of the US, across a nation of comparable size to the CONUS and with the overwhelming majority of that population having started with a base standard of living much lower than that of the US in the 1950s. The fact that the Chinese military buildup has been relatively slow is good for world at large and the Chinese people.

Besides military is best used when you are confident of winning and that is not an easy state to reach given the current opposition. China has seemed to follow a very well considered development path.

Daniel

With only short legged Hornets and SH, are you kidding? You won’t even reach the shoreline.

And it would be impossible to push a few JDAM/JSOW out of an airliner flying in to a Chinese city. Or then there is the possible assistance that might be obtained from Taiwan for instance in return for recognising the ROC over the PRC. Hell given that a rocket factory is probably going to have some of those nasty “storable liquids” around you could possibly just try and engineer an industrial accident. I never said any such scenario was likely or to be encourage just that the idea that China is some huge vault, locked away from the world is laughable.

Anyway its obvious I was the only one who interpreted Mr ragingwire’s original statement

and as far as trying to obliterate China well Just give it a try man!

As not so much a “I think this is an unlikely event” but rather more of “no way, no how, not ever”. My apologies for making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill.

Daniel

But still… :p 😀 :diablo:

You did read the rest of what I wrote right?

Daniel