slipperysam“”Iran completes design phase of stealth aircraft “”
Will some threads will stray a little from the topic, this one takes the cake!
slipperysamThe Government hasnt decided to keep the Super Hornet yet as a direct replacement for the F-111, though as was stated earlier, having ONE type of aircraft as its major assest is a dangerous idea.
The 75 or less JSF would sit well if we keep the Super Hornet as a perminent replacement (though of course hardly a worthey replacement i know) for the venerable pig.
If they decide to replace both types with less then a one for one replacement, then we would really be doing less, with less!
slipperysamWAS being the operative word. The incorrect part of your statement is that F-111 is to be replaced by F-35. It isn’t.
The F-111 has ALREADY been replaced, with the Super Hornets.
This discussion will go on for a long time…. re-read whats been written.
The Super Hornet was bought to BRIDGE THE GAP WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE JSF. IS this NOT CLEAR Enough???
I dont fathom why you dont understand this?
The Super Hornet is only there until the JSF arrives…. IT is NOT the F-111s PERMINENT replacement.
The government has not announced any changes to its proposal yet to run with ONE aircraft for Australias defence. (yes anyone with half a brain will see how stupid it is to have one aircraft type as their front line of defence, but that isnt the discussion here)
You yourself even quoted
“Dr Nelson at the Super Hornet announcement:
“As it is intended to be a “bridging” capability, Minister Nelson said that a future government would make the decision in 2014 whether or not to acquire a fourth operational squadron of JSFs to replace the Super Hornets at the end of the next decade, and that it was his view that that should happen.”
BRIDGING CAPABILITY……REPLACE THE SUPER HORNETS…. Is this not clear enough?
slipperysamOriginally Posted by ante_climax
The same intelligence sources which said Saddam Had WMD
Please don’t let the fact escape you that almost every county in the world, and certainly all of those that mattered thought the Saddam regime had WMD.
Oh please…. sorry thats right .. only the countries that mattered. Like the USA and Britton?
You forget that the USA was the only country pushing the “WMD” issue and was the only country to present “evidence ” to the UN, whih was later proven to be false….
But whats the deaths of a few hundred thousand people to you?.. so long as they dont belong to a “county that matters”
slipperysamPhase 2A/2B of the AIR-6000 New Aerospace Combat Capability (NACC) project is the F/A-18 Hornet replacement project and will be acquiring 75x aircraft. It was intended originally to provide the F-111 replacement as well.
So which part of my statement was incorrect? You just stated it was intended to replace both aircraft.
However with the F-111 retirement brought forward, Bridging Air Combat Capability (BACC) project established, Super Hornets ordered and the CBR upgrade cancelled on the legacy Hornets, NACC Phases 2A/B are now soley the Hornet replacement part of AIR-6000.
SO again…. I have stated this in my earlier post. However your now saying the government has cancelled the F-111 replacement? The Super Hornet are a stop gap measure until the arrival of the JSF…
There are no guarantees on HOW MANY aircraft will be bought, beyond 75. The Chief of RAAF and ADF have mentioned “up to 100” aircraft. They’ve never given a precise figure for good reasons…
Where did you get your figure of 75? For 8 yrs now it has been stated many times in the media by defence and defence ministers who have come and gone that we were going to buy “around 100”.
So again please tell us where you got 75 from?
No, but you weren’t correct in your earlier remark, so why continue to belabor the point?
I wanst correct about peoples memory? SO because you know im wrong, then my whole thread was “belaboring a point?”
From the RAAF website…
Australia is assured of maintaining its air combat capability edge with the Government’s decision to acquire 24 F/A-18F Block II Super Hornet multi role aircraft. At a cost of approximately $6 billion over 10 years, the acquisition of the Super Hornet will ensure the transition to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter over the next decade.
The acquisition will include 24 aircraft, initial support and upfront training for aircrew and maintenance personnel.
From the Defence Dept website….
Phase 2A/2B is intended to acquire the first tranche of new multi-role combat aircraft to replace F/A-18 Hornets and the F-111 aircraft fleet as they are withdrawn from service. Phase 2C intends to investigate acquisition of complementary systems and possibly acquire the final tranche of new multi-role combat platforms.
Background The Government has identified that this capability could be provided by the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and has as a result joined with other partner nations in the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) Phase.
slipperysam2. The initial acquisitions was ALWAYS going to be 75 aircraft.
Yeah, when I read the original post I was thinking “yeah, and?” because I thought the current buy was for only 75 as well.
Oh well, trading 71 Hornets for 75 F-35s is still a plus-plus.
How peoples memory fail so quickly…. :rolleyes:
The JSF was going to be around the 100 mark.
It was to replace BOTH Hornet and F-111.
Or have we already forgotten why we have ordered Super Hornets as a “stop gap” measure because the F-111 is being retired soon and the JSF wasnt going to be ready in time?????
Also with the remarks about… You cant just not promote people when they clearly deserve to be promoted.. but you cant fire them because they are “overqualified” …
An ordinaly soldier isnt “eventually ” promoted to become an officer after serving for decades, so that comment doest make sence. (under certain circumstance if you study and gain a degree etc you can apply to become one etc etc etc)
Officers enter the Military as…. Officers. Promoting them doesnt make “new” officers ! The ADF is top heavy because the positions are there for them already! Its run like any other public service and dont try to say it isn’t.
Ask someone who is there…. its not like the “good old days”.
slipperysamPowder coating which parts to be exact? Skins or frames?
Either way you probably shouldnt do it.
I remember many years ago here in Australia, CASA declared powder coating of engine mounts as illegal. Not because the heat treatment caused damage (it wont cause damage), but because powder coating wont allow of proper inspection of welding joints for any cracks which may occur.
Many inspections require the paint to rubbed back… and powder coated paint is extremly difficult to rub back!
Also powder coating, while looking really nice, once it has a chip which exposes metal, it will allow moisture to enter under the coating and therefore cause rust/ corrorsion which wont be visible until its too late.
Your best checking with whoever your governing body is… CAA/ FAA/ CASA etc for whats legal etc.
Also powder coating adds tremendous weight as opposed to normal painting…
slipperysamAnd congratulations you just proved a point… well done.
And now back to the thread.. “Not HMAS Collins…”
Really? How did HMAS Collins get here then? By magic?
Please be specific… came by: sea? rail? airship?
slipperysamOh please come on, if the new government knows it was all a scam by Bush and his cronies, which lets be honest about it is what you make it out to be do you not think the latest government, ear wax eater Rudd is it would have stopped this little scam of Bush and co?
Of course he would but it was no scam, hence no enquiry or investigation into the purchase, someones tin foil hat was a little to tightly fitted I think its fair to say. Oh btw just out of interest, what made Howard into Bush’s number one pal? The fact the he, like Bush thought a vicious, brutal and disgusting dictatorship (whose leader was a pedophile) that had bought misery to the middle east in many many ways was not a good thing and should be removed?
If you have nothing of substance to post, then dont post this verbal dribble or the mods can remove you from here.
Stick to the point of the thread and stop displaying your ignorance.
slipperysamAgreed.
HMAS Collins wasn’t built in Australia and the work was SO bad the entire boat was nearly scrapped.
A boat with the capability of the Collins could not be bought at the time we were buying submarines. Hence we had to modify an existing design. There was no conventional sub that met our requirements at that time and nuclear powered subs were out of the question, politically.
…
Umm.. I dunno where you got that from, but all the collins class subs WERE Built in Australia.
1987
The $5 billion contract between the Australian Government and ASC for the design and manufacture of six Collins Class submarines was signed on 3 June 1987. It was the largest defence contract signed in Australia to that date.
slipperysamHow incredibly disgusting and incredibly ignorant!
If he was in a foreign country and so afraid of the locals.. what on earth was he doing there? Or are those “scarey” people not allowed to fly anymore?
Stupidity it seems has reached a new level in society…..
slipperysamno, i believe the deal did come with the necessary support equipment. yes we paid a bit extra, and there was a delay with the flat bed trucks and railway cars. but also if we did have to use them in anger around australia, once our tanks were disembarked, we can use them to move the american M-1s around. and it frees up the smaller ones to transport other armoured vehicles. win win!
on abit of a side note- with the need to retire the caribous, what will be better- C-27J, or just more C-130J?
and i’ve been told that another two C-17s will be purchased next year, and on the return flight each will carry a CH-47!
The Army received MAN twin steer trucks and trailers …. we bought the tanks from the yanks…. there was no “package deal” with regards to transporting them. That why they sat in Darwin for so long gathering dust!
slipperysamOriginally Posted by Aurel
That is not correct. The Australian M1’s come at a very low price, and including some transport vehicles.
Additionally, the Abrams offers better crew survivability, since the Leo still has pretty much umprotected ammo in the crew compartment
Including transport vehicles?!?? Who told you this garbage!?
They sat in Darwin for what, 6 months before we could move them. We had no transport vehicles! The current fleet of trucks the army had were of no use and a who new fleet of trucks and low loaders had to be bought.
They were also too big to transport via rail.
Again we have a poor road network in Australia and these things need to be trucked everywhere!
The RAAF did a demonstration in the middle of last year (during an exercise i believe it was), where they airlifted 4 of them using the 4 C-17s. At the time we were the first airforce to airlift the M1 in the C-17. Though using 4 aircraft to shift some 50 odd tanks one at a time is time consuming and very expensive!
slipperysamI am assuming you are reffering to Bushmasters?? Yes it would be perfect option for yanks, and cheaper to buys them from AU.. (just ask dutch) but you have to understand that US very very very rarely will purchase external product. They will rather spend 3x as much and redisign copy or what ever , their own. Just look at the hell Marines went trough to get Harriers, and even then compromises were made.. Add to that incredibly powerful defense industry lobby and any foreign product (apart from few small arms) will get torpedoed even if it is better suited and cheaper.
As for Australia, i think we are the global masters when it comes to procuring defense products at incredibly inflated prices.. sometimes we inflate them our self due to stupidity… as in Colin’s class example. By the time we got them up and running as intended they were 3-4x the price of the comparable subs avaliabe for purchase.
As far as im aware the Bushmaster will be built in the USA under “licence” as they werent interesting in buying it off the shelf from us poor backward aussies… (this is despite the fact they have praised it over and over saying how much they want it!)
I feel this thread though is kinda too broad for the “aircraft” section fellas!
But dont forget those wonderous tanks sat in Darwin for what? 6months? as they were too big to transport via rail…. and TOO heavy for the current flat-bed trailers the army used. So again more was spent buying all new trucks and trailers! (I saw two of these new M.A.N primer movers here a while ago… twin steer front end).
slipperysamIt´s very narrow by the way. A railed catapult?!!
A catapult running off a runway? Something tells me those aircraft wheel wouldnt like those.
Perhaps we need to start at the other end of the trail?
Both trails start out in the sandy part of the desert and end taking the pilot to both runways.
(Also its normal to fly a left handed circuit too)
The longer runway has a continuous turning onto finals (good for tail draggers!! lol)
Also note that the threshold for the longer runway is just below where the path comes onto the runway.
The rest of the runway is an over-run area.
While the other path leads to the shorter runway, to what looks like a 3mile final.
Notice that the “path” onto the shorter runways also crosses two “dirt” runways…. but doesnt actually cross over them. The path stops on one side and continues on the other.
To me it just seems to be a path laid out in the sand for the crew to follow visually? Or… if the aircraft are UAVs… It could be a visual cue for the operator to follow in order to manually fly an aircraft back to the runway?
Sign In
