Note the wing fences on the G. Must be part of the result of putting wing fences on a test bird in 2003 to reduce buffet.

The 99s will probably be good enough for most uses and certainly small war stuff although there is some concern if they have some of the extra skillsets needed to go up against up-coming high end threats. Me-thinks the “low risk” (which it is) approach is just to get the G fielded and on the carrier deck. Some years later (money willing) you will probably see testing for different gear to replace the 99 setup.

The G still has to iron out some bugs and it will take some more testing. Here are some comments from this year on the program:

Other Program Issues

Development tests of the EA-18G revealed 28
deficiencies, six of which need to be corrected
before beginning operational testing. Operational
testing is expected to begin in September 2008
and will not be completed until December 2008.

According to the program office, it has fully
addressed two of the six problems–a failure to
detect a threat without operator indicator and the
assignment of jammers to incorrect emitters–and is
working to correct the remaining deficiencies. These
additional deficiencies include airborne electronic
attack system lockups, the lack of adequate threat
warning information about pop-up weapon system
emitters, and addressing the excessively time-
consuming and cumbersome process to build the
mission planning system and database.

In addition, the DOD Director, Operational Test and
Evaluation, identified operator workload of the two-
man EA-18G crew in electronic attack and electronic
support missions–currently performed by the four-
man EA-6B crew–as a program risk.

— Source:
GAO
United States Government Accountability Office
Report to Congressional Committees
March 2008
DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS
Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs
GAO-08-467SP
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08467sp.pdf

Also I have seen the quote more than a few times that USN is drawing a line in the sand. The Gs that are funded for the fleet are for dedicated carrier use and not some joint effort with the USAF to step in where the EA-6s left off. Yes the G is replacing the EA-6, but it isn’t being fielded to help out the USAF.

As for F-22 strike role in the short-to-medium term, if the need arises, you watch how fast they dust down those F117s & rush them to theatre before they even consider bombing-up a Raptor.

There isn’t much “considering” of bombing up a Raptor. It is being done specifically to deal with high threat IADS. Once major Super SAMs and enemy aircraft are reduced, you can bring in the B-2 for anything heavy, and of course really, non-stealth bombers too. The F-22 is survivable in newer gen IADS, the F-117 is not. It is now doubtful if the F-117 can deal with anything but legacy IADS and consider also (funny grey paint or no), F-117 is a night only aircraft.

Since F-117 has no super-cruise combined with high altitude, it will be at severe risk in a high threat IADS. Especially since we have visited a negative stealth event with the F-117 before.

Also there is enough speculation out there that the F-117 never had enough of the right kind of passive detection gear to pick up IADS threats properly. Add the high maintenance hours per flight hour to it between missions an it’s risk if it was naked to a newer build big SU and finally no suitable radar for generating targets a la B-2 and F-22 and no AN/ALR-94 for geo-locating emitters (F-22) unless you want to carve up an F-117 and put new apertures all around it that it currently doesn’t have , and it becomes more of a drag on todays AEF’s ( AEF’s that don’t have that much money btw) than anything else.

F-117 is such a niche aircraft as to be, well, suitable for retirement.

They have updated the buildings a tad. They have a new BX…but it did not open till after I left.

The C-130s have a beautiful new building where all of MX and the two flying squadrons are in there…with the briefing room/theater is in the center and Life Support is in the back under the same roof…makes life a bit easier.

It wasn’t the base that made Dyess a horrible place…it was Abilene…and the absolute lack of anything to do.
We were praying for BRAC to take the C-130s away…and they would have if the dernd city of Abilene and Kay Bailey Hutchison didn’t step in and protest 🙂 we were all pissed off…and the B-1 guys were coming in trying to take our brand new building 🙂

You know the place is bad…when everyone is wishing and hoping to be reassigned to Little Rock!!

Only been through there twice. Yeah they do roll up the streets in Abilene when the sun goes down.

Keep us informed PH.

Dyess sucked monkey balls…had five years of that **** hole…

It it still all a bunch of red brick buildings or did that change?

Good Luck PH.

The Bedford Incident is an all time favorite for me.

Well as others have said regarding Mr Fitzgibbon’s remarks about the F-111 hardly surprising, even still, Pontius Pilate would have been proud. :diablo:

.

Wasn’t he some exercise guru?:diablo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilates

In the case of Australia I don’t think the Super Hornet order for 24 aircraft is going to be cancelled anytime soon. As the F-111’s are just running out of life to fast. That said, I also doubt the RAAF is looking fto purchase anything past the current order of Super Hornets………

Just my opinion and likely wishful thinking on Boeing part!:eek:

That is a common error that some think, that F-111s are running out of life soon and they will be risky to keep in the air. They aren’t. No matter, they will probably go away on the current schedule.

More Supers will be needed because the aircraft that were running low on airframe life are the classic Hornets. The CBR (center barrel replacement ) has run into some trouble re: cost and materials to do the job properly. Some of the classics start getting low on airframe hours past 2012 and then if CBR isn’t able to keep up, they will have to be patched up/flight envelope restricted on a case by case basis (what Canada is doing because they didn’t like paying for CBR after some were done).

So, with the F-111 going away and given the classic situation, getting more Supers is probably the way to go. Tiddles: Any word on variant for those extra 32? 2 seat? Single seat? Wouldn’t they go ahead and get some Block II E single seaters which would be (FMS wise) fairly inexpensive?

As you know, Super Block IIs have already proven their jet to jet transfer of data, so here, a flight of 2 seat attack F’s, passing target data to single seat E bomb droppers would be a pretty good JDAM party.

Do I like the idea of RAAF getting Supers? No. But I don’t count. But that is where the least path of resistance seems to be going, so with the F-35 program losing oxygen on program cost control, I wouldn’t depend on F-35 showing up until a working final product is all sorted out.

The populate-RAAF-with-Super Hornets-idea, was a Boeing plan for years. It has finally proven to be gaining traction.

If this happens, then there are a lot of extra options to hang stuff on the aircraft. The SHAred Reconnaissance Pod (SHARP) may be useful for help kicking out detailed maps of regions of interest for the Army, Navy etc.

If you look into how the new ALE-55 and new integrated ECM suite work together on Block II, it is pretty impressive. A leap ahead compared to the older Super ECM and ALE-50.

I think buddy refueling kits are a good idea, to supplement big tanker activity.

It would be great to have 5 F-18F’s in RAAF colors in Afghanistan with, 2 SHARPs, 6 ATFLIRs, 2 buddy refuel kits. And of course Aussie JTACs on the ground with the troops.

Something to consider as there is noise in the government now that the ADF will be in Afghanistan for 5 years. …. longer even?

Some unfortunately think that the Reconstruction Task Force (RTF) is just there building things. However, they are in a threat environment and getting shot at and engaged. Certainly the artillery deployed there will help them. The SAS though could do some good bug hunts with a JTAC at their side, and dedicated RAAF Supers as not only a killing backup, but excellent mapping and ISR support.

SHAred Reconnaissance Pod (SHARP)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/sharp.htm

http://tinyurl.com/2pxvps (PDF)

RTF some months ago in Afghanistan – (YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiUKkD8rYHQ&feature=related

ATFLIR
http://www.raytheon.com/products/atflir/

Rear cockpit, Block II F

Super Hornet capability brief (sales brief to USN) PDF (3.47 meg)
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2007psa_apr/gaddis.pdf

APG-79 AESA Radar

AV Week video (YouTube) mentioning upgrading some USN Supers to Block II. (for an upgrade the whole front end of the jet is swapped out because of all the Block II specific stuff). Of course new Supers roll off the line as a Block II.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8nc6zJ_rbw

And least we forget through all the system hype efforts… the rather luke-warm airframe performance….:dev2:

http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/comments/c236.htm

USN is robbing USMC Hornets for airframes…. (note the Moonlighters retirement).