i thought they had an interest on Super Hornet also?

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/03/03/221901/uk-nears-saudi-eurofighter-typhoon-local-assembly-deal.html

DATE:03/03/08
SOURCE:Flightglobal.com
UK nears Saudi Eurofighter Typhoon local assembly deal
By Craig Hoyle

Plans for in-country assembly of 48 of the Royal Saudi Air Force’s 72 Eurofighter Typhoons could be finalised within the next two months, with an industry official warning that time is running out to establish a new line and deliver the first locally completed aircraft as planned in 2011.

“We have a two-year window – if we have to build a facility, we can barely make that,” says Mohammed Fallatah, chief executive of Riyadh-headquartered Alsalam Aircraft, which has been selected to conduct the work in partnership with BAE Systems. “We are at the stage of details, but there is no firm contract yet.”

Factors such as local manufacturing content, site location, workforce issues and long-term support have yet to be finalised, says Fallatah. “We want to transfer real technology here. But any deal must make economic sense for me, my partners and the RSAF,” he adds.

BAE says: “We have a commitment to develop in-Kingdom industrialisation and create jobs for Saudi nationals. We are working with the customer to develop plans to establish a production facility with Alsalam Aircraft.”

Late last year, the Saudi and UK governments finalised an initial £4.4 billion ($8.7 billion) contract for the Project Salam deal, with BAE to deliver Riyadh’s first 24 UK-built Typhoons from its Warton site in Lancashire from mid-2009.

DATE:24/02/08
SOURCE:Flight International
Australia to conclude Super Hornet review by April
By Emma Kelly

The fate of Australia’s future air combat capability requirements should be clearer by the end of April, when a review looking out to 2045 ordered by the country’s new Labor government is due for publication. The process follows the controversial A$6.6 billion ($6 billion) order for 24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets placed last year by the former coalition government to replace the Royal Australian Air Force’s ageing General Dynamics F-111 fleet from 2010 and provide a stopgap ahead of the delivery of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The Australian government in mid-February established a steering group led by Neil Orme, first assistant secretary policy development at the Department of Defence, and also comprising RAAF, DoD and government personnel, to conduct a two-stage review.

The first stage will assess the country’s air combat capability requirements from 2010 to 2015 look at the feasibility of retaining the F-111s beyond 2010 include a comparative analysis of aircraft available to fill any gap following their withdrawal and assess the status of Australia’s plans to acquire the Super Hornet.

Stage two, which calls for public submissions, will look at trends in Asia-Pacific air power out to 2045, and the relative capabilities of current, fourth and fifth generation combat aircraft, including the JSF. It will also assess complementary options, including unmanned combat air vehicles consider the case for and against acquiring Lockheed’s F-22 Raptor and look at plans for the transition from the existing F-111/F/A-18 fleets to the future fleet, including weapon systems, personnel, enabling systems and infrastructure.

The group’s findings will be incorporated into a new Defence White Paper, which the government is aiming to publish by the end of this year and which will guide future defence planning.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/02/24/221712/australia-to-conclude-super-hornet-review-by-april.html

just out of curiousity…why not using the F414 engine?

as of operational now

F-22
SU-30MKI/MKM
Typhoon
Gripen
Rafale

DATE:14/01/08
SOURCE:Flight International
Australian firm offers life-extension checks for F-111 strike aircraft
By Emma Kelly

Australian technology company Structural Monitoring Systems believes its comparative vacuum monitoring (CVM) crack-detection technology could help extend the lives of the Royal Australian Air Force’s General Dynamics F-111 strike aircraft if the country’s new Labor government decides to scrap an order for 24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets.

Ordered last year to replace the RAAF’s 25 F-111s from 2010, the two-seat Super Hornets were planned to provide a stop-gap ahead of deliveries of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, following concerns over the structural integrity of the F-111’s wing and airframe. Australia’s new government opposed the F/A-18F purchase at the time, and has launched a review of the country’s air power requirements.

Mark Vellacott, managing director of Perth-based SMS, wrote to new defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon late last month, saying that “Australia’s world-class airframe life-extension capabilities and the potential benefit of new sensor-based structural health-monitoring technologies” were not taken into account during decisions to retire the F-111 and acquire Super Hornets.

Under development for 10 years, CVM detects and monitors structural integrity by using an inert sensor that is adhered to the aircraft or embedded in its fuselage, a vacuum source to apply and control a low vacuum, and a fluid flow-measuring device, which combine to detect sub-1mm cracks in metal surfaces. The technology has been tested on a number of military aircraft types and is being developed for new Airbus civil aircraft. SMS also has a commercial licence agreement with Boeing.

CVM could significantly decrease the burden of structural integrity maintenance inspections and reduce the potential risk of a major structural failure on the F-111, says Vellacott. This could involve the use of continuous in-flight monitoring employing instrumentation systems under development by SMS, he adds.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/01/14/220740/australian-firm-offers-life-extension-checks-for-f-111-strike.html

VIDEO: Recreating the Eagle’s final moments
By Graham Warwick

Using eyewitness reports, HUD camera video, debris analysis and the pilot’s own testimony, Boeing’s Phantom Works research organisation has recreated the break-up of the US Air National Guard F-15C in the skies of Missouri on 2 November.

“This is as close as science can get us to what actually happened,” says Gen John Corley, commander of US Air Force Air Combat Command, commenting on the computer-generated animation. “We are lucky the pilot is still alive.”

The animation, which is slowed to one-fifth the speed of the actual event, shows the in-flight break-up of the F-15 from five different views. Each segment runs from the initial nose shimmy as the longeron fails to the pilot’s ejection from the tumbling cockpit – a sequence of events that lasted mere seconds in the real event.

When the upper right longeron breaks, the other three longerons cannot carry the load and the forward fuselage structure begins to fail. As the cockpit separates from the rest of the aircraft, it “wins the tug of war” and takes the canopy with it.

The pilot is thrown forward as the separated cockpit slows from 450kt with an “eyeballs out” force of 4-10G. At this point, disoriented by the brutal deceleration, he is still unaware his aircraft has broken in two.

As the cockpit tumbles, windblast rips off the canopy, the transparency fragmenting. The departing canopy rail strikes and shatters the pilot’s upper left arm. “There are paint marks on his flight suit,” says Corley.

Unable to initiate a two-handed ejection, but not knowing why his left arm will not respond, the pilot ejects using his right hand. Although almost inverted when he ejects, the Aces II seat “works as advertised”.

Now “headless”, its landing gear deployed by gravity after the departing cockpit pulled the cables releasing the uplocks, the stricken F-15 enters its final moments. The two sections of the aircraft came down a quarter to half a mile apart.

DATE:11/01/08
SOURCE:Flightglobal.com

SPECIAL REPORT: US Air Force returns F-15s to flight, but questions viability of fleet

By Graham Warwick

US Air Force Boeing F-15 Eagles have begun returning to flight, but the service says it is possible a portion of the fleet will never fly again. Some 40% of the fleet remains grounded, and the USAF continues to push for more Lockheed Martin F-22s to replace its air-superiority F-15s.

“I have a fleet that is 100% fatigued, and 40% of that has bad parts. The long-term future of the F-15 is in question,” says Gen John Corley, commander of Air Combat Command. “The problem is systemic and goes beyond the F-15,” he says, citing fatigue issues with A-10s and F-16s.

ACC has cleared 259 of the USAF’s 441 F-15A-Ds to return to flight without restrictions after they passed inspections for manufacturing deficiencies that could potentially cause fatigue cracking of forward fuselage longerons.

The inspections followed the 2 November 2007 crash of a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C when the upper right longeron failed during air-combat training, causing the cockpit to separate from the fuselage.

Cracks were found in nine other F-15s where machining during manufacture had reduced the thickness of the longeron web below blueprint specification or where there is surface roughness that could cause stress concentration.

The 40% of the fleet that remains grounded have longerons that do not meet blueprint specification at one or more points, says Maj Gen Thomas Owen, commander of Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, the F-15 depot.

The affected aircraft were delivered between 1972 and 1985 and range from F-15As to F-15Ds. Corley says one of his reasons for grounding the fleet was that the problems did not appear to be restricted to one group of aircraft.

During the inspections, metal thickness was ultrasonically checked at 84 locations on each upper right and left longeron and if any one of the 168 data points was below specification, the aircraft remained grounded, he says.

Affected aircraft are now being analysed individually to determine if they can be returned to service with recurrent inspections or flight restrictions, or whether they must be repaired or scrapped.

An initial batch of 15 new longerons is being produced, Owen says, but the USAF has not decided which aircraft will undergo the repair. The cost to replace a longeron is around $250,000, he says.

Some of the F-15s are planned to be retired in 2009 as part of a force drawdown, but Corley says fatigue and manufacturing defects “put into huge question” the US Air Force’s plan to keep 177 upgraded “Golden Eagles” in service.

“What are we going to have to do to keep them viable?” he says. “We were going to add combat capability to those aircraft, but instead we may have to spend billion on structural upgrades.” The planned upgrades include active electronically scanned array radars.

Even before the Eagle broke up in flight, the US Air Force was pressing the Department of Defense for funding to buy additional F-22s beyond the 183 currently planned to replace its F-15s. “Can I buy more F-22s, can I buy F-22s at the rate I need, can I buy F-22s until F-35s are available? All options are on the table,” says Corley.

F-15A-Ds are the principal aircraft assigned to the US air sovereignty mission and while they have been grounded the USAF has beeen using F-15Es, F-16s and F-22s. But this is interfering those units’ preparations for deloyments to Afghanistan and Iraq, Corley says, adding: “We can only do it for a period of time.”

DATE:11/01/08
SOURCE:Flight International