A very quick Google finds that that may not be a universal opinion in Oz?

Seems a lot of issues about far too many unarmed youngsters, and mostly belonging to the countries original owners’, being executed on the streets?

Moggy

“Execute”: that’s quite a call you’ve made there. Do you have any evidence of that a member of an Aus police force had any premeditated intent to summarily “execute” anyone? Seriously, do you?

I’m pretty sure my views are very close to mainstream Australia. There will always be those who see things differently to most, but that doesn’t make the vast majority wrong.

What spelling has been changed?

“Program” has been changed to the British spelling of “Programme”; it really stood out and made me word check the reaminder of the quotes. The ANAO report can be found here:

http://www.anao.gov.au/~/media/Files/Audit%20Reports/2012%202013/Audit%20Report%205/201213%20Audit%20Report%20No%205%20OCRed.pdf

The erroneous copying of US practice by semi-literate people who’ve not worked out how to change the variety of English used by spell checkers was regrettably common, as it is here.

LOL, but I do feel obliged to remind you that Aus is neither the UK or the US, which is why some here stand in a “queue” but a lot more seem to “stand in line”, and that our houses have front and back “yards”. 😉

This thread seems to have gone down a UK vs US track, so for the sake of discussion I’ll add a non-UK and non-US perspective.

In Aus police are armed. The officer pulling you over for a random breath test will be armed, as will any officer turning up to your house if the neighbors have complained about the noise level from your party, as will an officer walking through a shopping mall or night club to take a shoplifter or drunk and violent member of the public into custody. That officer will invariably be carrying a firearm and pepper spray, and in some states/jurisdictions a Taser. In addition, each force has response groups that are equipped with assault rifles, full body armor and more.

Do police ever “go Rambo”? No. They are well trained, and know that all instances where a weapon is drawn or used will be subject to an internal professional standards review.

Are the public concerned? No. In fact the reverse is the case. The average Joe Anonymous wants the police to have the widest range of options available to them so they can effectively deal with whatever situation confronts them. And they want those officers to respond effectively when they arrive on the scene; not 15 or 30 minutes later when back up arrives after things have spiraled further out of control, or members of the public have been subject to further, avoidable trauma.

Other country’s are envious of our policing.

Absolutely not. In fact, its quit the contrary.

1. Stronger (and thus heavier) airframe & landing gear required for carrier landings.

2. Corrosion-resistant materials required, thus no light-weight magnesium parts, etc.

3. Access must be provided to more areas of the airframe/skin to allow more frequent & in-depth corrosion inspection & treatment.

Any idea of how the designed lifespans compare; flight cycles or flight hours?

I thought this was supposed to be “professional” forum?

LOL – it’s pure infotainment. (public domain) Facts do have a place here, but only to support debate between armchair generals and fanboys…:diablo:

Tribes – If you read the SAR you’ll find that the 80 per cent unit cost increase is in base year dollars and inflation has been factored out, so your entire comment is off target.

Lets look at the latest (Dec 2011) SAR.

Using APUC (average procurement unit cost) the “cost” of the F-35 did indeed peak at 80% above the original 2001 estimate ($109m vs $60m), but has subsequently declined over the space of 1 year to be 50% above the original estimate ($91m vs $60m).

Given that decline over 1 year, the question then is what will the increase be once F-35 enters large volume multiyear buys, and LM have also leaned the production lessons of the LRIP years.

Tribes – If the Australian budget in 2002 contained enough fudge factor to cover an 80 per cent overrun in average, not LRIP, costs (whether flyaway or procurement) plus the acquisition of 24 SHs because JSF is late, then good on them.

Thanks for illustrating the very point I was making.

You are familiar with the concept of nominal compared to real price increases? Assuming an average 5% annual increase in the cost base for aerospace engineering over that time span referred to by RAAF CAF in that article (a reasonable assumption for a western economy – consumer price indexes tend to understate the overall “real”, underlying rate of inflation within an economy and are pretty meaningless from a government or macroeconomic perspective), the current day cost of a F-35 would have increased by close on 71% in nominal terms. Using the 80% quoted by yourself, that means the real increase in the cost of an F-35 over that time is a whopping 8.9%. That’s hardly end of the world stuff, or indicative of program mismanagement.

Sure countries like the UK, Netherlands and Italy have been hit by significant currency devaluations over the last few years, but that’s hardly F-35 related.

That the ADF budget it still able to accommodate 100 F-35s is simply a reflection of the fact that all Aus government agencies maintain their budgets in current day dollars to reflect the economic reality of changes in the real value of $1.00 over time. Its not rocket science; any financially competent national/state/local government, company or individual does the same. Sure they would also have included margins for real some degree of real cost increase, and currency fluctuations. That’s dealing with normal, reasonably expected reality, not “fudging it”.

By the way, the F-18F purchase was made from a separate appropriation, and was largely linked to the decision to withdraw the F-111 from service earlier than once planned, and the then minister’s determination not to accept the resultant impact on the RAAFs capability.

SRAM entered service in 1972, & was nuclear only, like AGM-86A/B. They were not accurate enough to deliver any other kind of warhead – like the British Blue Steel air-launched nuclear missile, which entered service ca 1963, or the French ASMP (mid-1980s). It isn’t logical to take any of them into account when evaluating Aurcov’s statement.

But wasn’t SRAM a generational step from the likes of Blue Steel: a more complex navigation system providing for terrain following flight paths along with in flight maneuvering, not to mention an early application of radar absorbent materials?