Wasn’t the main selling point for SH that it was more of a lease, with USN guaranteed to buy them back as soon as F-35 hit the road ?

They’re not on lease or buy back, and will probably be in RAAF service for a long time: either following conversion to EF-18G spec (http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2012/03/29/minister-for-defence-and-minister-for-defence-materiel-joint-media-release-growler-electronic-warfare-aircraft-–-long-lead-item-equipment-purchase/ ) or to allow the purchase of later block F-35s compared to those in the initial tranche.

Doesn’t change the fact that the F/A-18F was selected as a stop gap without any thorough evaluation in contrast to what you alledge.

Since its creation in 1927 the RAAF has seen operations in WWII, the Korean war, the Malaysian insurgency, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. They were also ready for action in Timor in the late 1990s. I suspect they know more about this topic than the majority of posters to this forum.:p

@Tribes
The selection of the F/A-18F by the RAAF was largely based on the commonality factor with the existing F/A-18s. It was the logical choice as much of the infrastructure, weapons etc. could be re-used for the Supers. There was no serious competition at all and the evaluation was a paper exercise at best. Concluding anything here is a little bit far stretched.

You are also quite optimistic when you believe that the signature reduction measures applied to the F/A-18E/F provide it with an edge over the European fighters. There’s no doubt that the SH has advantages in that field over legacy Hornets, Eagles, Vipers, Fulcrums or Flankers, though its supporters will certainly argue that later iterations of these types incorporate some signature reduction measures as well. The European fighters are yet a different matter, however, as all of them have been from the outset designed with a reduced frontal RCS in mind. You are right that some features like panel gap sealing, serrated edges or outwards canted fins can not be found on most of these aircraft. However there isn’t much edge alignment on the SH as well and wings and fin on the Typhoon f.e. are aligned. The SH’s modest wing sweep angle isn’t well suited to reduced signature requirements, 45+ deg swept deltas are fairly better suited and all the ECDs are considerably smaller and have smaller control surfaces as well, they incorporate RAM and possibly RAS, treated canopies and other features. The intakes of Rafale and Typhoon are s-shaped and RAM layer treated, which is a different, and in my opinion better solution then a radar blocker. The latter is a measure to reduce the returns of an intake solution which is less than ideal and sacrifices engine performance in return. There’s a good reason why real stealthy designs like the F-22 or F-35 aren’t using blockers in the intakes, but hide the compressor via curved ducts, as is the case for the European fighters. Rumour from Brazil in fact suggest that at least the Rafale offers lower signatures and the discrepancy between the signatures of the F/A-18E/F, Gripen and Typhoon is certainly not big enough to consider it as a plus.

The Super Hornet is an affordable, mature and flexible platform. Its range of weapon options is unmatched and the aircraft likely features the most capable radar at this point in time. However other than that the SH doesn’t shine, especially not in AA. That doesn’t mean that the SH is per se a bad fighter, just that it doesn’t offer too many compelling advantages in that area.

It’s also not true that the F/A-18F is the only aircraft capable of performing AA and AG at the same time, the Rafale was able to do this at a time before the block II was actually introduced and the ACS and AN/APG-79 being fitted.

There is in fact very little commonality between the Fs and legacy Hornets, as aircraft or in their support infrastructure. Also the weapons package purchased by the RAAF for the Fs includes unique (in RAAF service) to that platform items like AIM – 9X, targeting pods and stand off munitions.

There was a thorough evaluation of a number of aircraft, including E/F, Rafale, F-18E/F and others as part of the DoD’s project Air 6000. That analysis concluded that F-35 was the best aircraft for the RAAF, and resulted in F-18F being identified as a stand by option. In short, it was concluded that neither EF or Rafale offered the technological and capability advances required given emerging threats. F-18F was seen a an effective means of acquiring earlier access to a number of technologies, and gaining experience in their application, that would be pivotal to F-35. There was a very considered and detailed process that lead to the selection of both the F-35 and F-18F for the RAAF. No “competition” was held, simply because the DoD did not see this exercise as a capability/price/industry offsets trade off. Rather it focussed on singularly on determining the best platforms for the stated requirements. Unless you worked in DoD – RAAF, DSTO or CDG on the project at the time I don’t see how write off this exercise as “not serious”, or simply “a paper exercise”.

Tribes, if you want to go on comparisons: rafale made it (almost) every time to the final selection in any market it for which it competed, that is, for as long as there was technical evaluation going on and before the politics kicked in. the SH not once. its only export I know of is australia and there was no competition whatsoever (decision made by politicians as a stop gap measure because of F-35 delays)

So saying “it is the best” is somewhat streching it a bit, to say the least

If I’d said it was “the worst”, or that EF was “the best” few on this forum would be arguing. My words were prefaced by “probably”……

In the case of SH’s selection by the RAAF, that was made following a lengthy and detailed evaluation of other contenders that was made prior to the decision to select the F-35. To say the decision was a “politician’s” is to ignore the work undertaken by the RAAF in the lead up to the decision to retire the F-111s. Why run a Brazilian style competition wasting a lot of peoples time and effort, when your evaluation has already provided you with an understudying of the pros and cons of each contender. OK, it might help you to leverage a good price, but that’s about all.

Have you read some of the admittedly unattributed comments that were reported following the Indian decision: ie F-16 and F-18 were rated highest in terms of technical evaluation of systems and munitions, but that they lost out badly on “other” criteria. Sure those statements don’t “prove” anything, but to say that ToT and local industry participation don’t sway many decisions is not a sustainable argument.

Really?

“lot of +s lacking in EF, Rafale”

Last time i´ve checked (with public sources of information) the only thing that the SH has that is lacking in “ATA” to a “Phoon” is the ability to track a lot more targets through the AN/APG-79.

AN/APG-79 also gives you lower probability of intercept.

At an airframe level the Super incorporates greater use LO features; things like edge alignment, serrated edges on major panels, along with the energy absorbent structures in the inlet tract and canted vertical surfaces. Yes, external stores degrade that somewhat, but you are still starting from a lower base. With only AMRAAMs on the fuselage stations and AIM-9X on the wingtips, it will still be better than a non LO platform similarly armed. And remember, for some strike missions it will carry JASSM; itself designed to be stealthy.

As for F-15SG. Yes its capable, but it LO?

I don’t think anyone deny it’s a very good striker, easily among the top.
But as far as fighter goes, don’t ever drop below corner speed if there is even a remote form of danger, and that is precisely where F-18 start fall behind,
not to mention you should also have a good speed margin above that in case maneuver is called for.

Yes, but on the + side the Block IIs do have a radar with capabilities that are only talked about, and planned for the Eurocanards. Add to that much more extensive use of LO technologies, and the ability to simultaneously deal with air and ground/ship threats/tasking.

It’s not the best at everything, but what aircraft is?

and F-18 ain’t much of a performer, so why not something more up to snuff from US ?

:confused: It’s probably the most capable air to ground aircraft currently in production, and in pure air to air still has a lot of +s lacking in EF, Rafale.

The point was the Ka-50 and German Tigers were bought for recon and tank hunting. The Russians have plenty other turreted choppers to escort their transport helos into hot areas… why use your Ka-50 for CAS when you can use it for its intended role?

The (West)Germans had to worry about digging in and defending against thousands of tanks, not sending helicopter raids through flak in something like Vietnam or South Ossetia.

Isn’t that the issue? The scenario that the German army Tigers were designed for hasn’t been a likely one for 20 years, and most probably won’t be a likely one during the entire lifespan of the UHTs. Meanwhile for the same cost, the ARH and HAD variants combine both battlefield support and anti tank/hard target capabilities..