There is nothing so radically new about the F-15SE that could not have been proposed & developed in time for Australia’s needs.

BACC is about risk management.

The developmental risk Australia is prepared to accept is already inherent in F-35A (NACC) which IS the future air combat solution for Australia.

Nothing that required any development work would ever have been chosen for the bridging capability.

Period.

F-15E derivatives are in production & in service with many more operators than the F/A-18E/F.

The only “in production” F-15 examples are the F-15K and F-15SG which are both significantly different platforms. F-15E’s haven’t been in production for years and would not have met Australia’s requirements. Only evolved variants.

Both F-15K and F-15SG are significantly different platforms, different from the USAF’s F-15E’s and Australia would have been forced through necessity to choose one way or the other, ie K or SG models, or self-fund an entirely new and orphan variant.

None of these would have seen FOC before 2013/14, just like RSAF’s F-15’s and 6-7 years of service would be a very poor return on investment. They would have been of differing specification to USAF models (both Singapore and Korea both use GE engines whilst USAF uses P&W) and the likelyhood of re-selling them in 2020, would seem to be minimal.

RAAF’s F/A-18F’s OTOH, are the exact same specification as the USN, except for some metric gauges and ILS changes. Because of this, and also the issues with end-user certificates, it seems far more likely that we could sell these back to the USN when we’ve finished with them.

The F/A-18E/F with currently just two operators (the USN & soon the RAAF) is much more an ‘orphan/unique’ aircraft then the F-15E & its derivatives which while all different in detail could all potentially be brought up to a much more common standard in the future.

Nonsense. As already pointed out, only Korea and Singapore utilise an F-15 variant that Australia could reasonably accept as a briding aircraft between F-111 and F-35 and these use different engines and radars to USAF models and are significantly different to each other in sensor and avionics capability.

RAAF’s Rhinos will be of identical specification in airframes, engines, radar, EW, weapons integration (and hence software loads) etc to the USN’s Rhinos.

So, 24 F-15E derivatives would have more than just one potential buyer…

As does the Block II Super. It is in the running with a very good chance of winning in India and Brazil. How many competitions is the F-15 currently entered into?

The F/A-18F is unique! It does not have anywhere near the commonality with the F/A-18A-D as people are made to believe. If it were a mear 24 would not cost Australia $6 billion.

The acquisition cost to Australia of F/A-18F Supers is USD$3.1b. The rest is in infrastructure, weapons, sensors and support costs for operation of the 24x aircraft for at least 10 years.

Furthermore, the Supers are funded to operate at a far higher flying rate than either the existing Hornets or F-111’s ever were, seeking to maximise the return on our investment.

The point is that if the mission range/endurance is so great that you need aerial refueling (which would be much less so for a F-15E derivative than F/A-18E/F), Australia will have proper aerial tankers to do so with.

Buddy tanking takes combat aircraft & turns them into poor excuses for tankers. Great for CAWs but a waist of combat aircraft for land-based forces.

It would be lovely for Government to fund more than 5x KC-30A’s so that RAAF didn’t have to rely on such methods or others, but unfortunately they won’t under present circumstance.

I prefer to think that ANY capability enhancement is a bonus and the tanking capability, whilst not adding much overall is a more positive step than negative and the capability MIGHT just have other uses, than tanking other F/A-18’s…

Super Hornets should be able to fly slower than KC-30A’s, right? 🙂

There is nothing so radically new about the F-15SE that could not have been proposed & developed in time for Australia’s needs.

As shown with Singapore’s acquisition, even the SG standard Eagle couldn’t be built in time to suit our needs, unless you think Singapore is deliberately dragging it’s feet with it’s acquisition timeline???

By the time Australia actually converts any of its F/A-18F to “Growlers” there could very well be an ‘off the shelf’ EF-15…

This seems a ludicrous proposition. USAF can’t even get a standoff jammer funded for inclusion onto a B-52. There is no WAY they’ll get an EF-15 funded and no way Australia would ever attempt to fund something like this, themselves.

Sorry, there is no guarantee the USN will be interrested (or would be allowed the money for) 24 used F/A-18Fs ~2020. And there is no guarantee that there will be any other F/A-18E/F customers.

Indeed and any other platform faces exactly the same issue. End-User certificates are a ****** of a thing, as NZ has found out with her Skyhawks…

I hardly think the USA would be all that inclined to allow Australia to sell 24x 5-6 year old advanced F-15 examples to anyone on the “open market” either. Boeing would be rather upset by this action, I should think…

With an F-15E derivative there are many more potential buyers…

Who? Follow-on sales to existing users is about as likely as it’s going to get, I’m afraid. SH seems to have more possibility of sales, because at least it’s being offered to Japan, Malaysia, Norway, Netherlands, Canada, India and Brazil. Apart from Japan, F-15 hasn’t even been offered let alone entered a formal competition for these Countries.

No matter how you try & spin it the reason for the ‘stop gap’ is to fulfill the F-111’s roles for ~10 years.

No it isn’t. It’s to provide an air combat bridging capability for 10 years, to see us through until our future solution of choice, F-35 is chosen.

You would hardly being seeing additional AMRAAM acquisitions (soon…) if the BACC aircraft were only for strike operations. 😉

I am over the F-111, so is Australia.

Indeed. $150m a year for 17x platforms that give us very little in return…

No reason why F-15E derivatives would not be available in time…

Except the actual production and delivery rate of current orders…

And increasing the production rate of F-15E derivatives (such as simultaneous production/deliveries for/to both Australia & Singapore) would reduce the procurement cost (to both).

If Boeing were generous enough to wear the cost of ramping up production themselves, sure…

They should have checked with other F-15E derivative customers…

Not Boeing?

Yeah significant savings…so much so their 24 F/A-18Fs are costing them more than any F-15E derivative is costing others.

Come back to me with the total sum of these figures after these Countries have operated their F-15’s for 10 years…

Government took the unusual step of including the support costs for 10 years, in their original publicly released costings. Very few else do that.

If you sell it to Japan, then US will get under substantial pressure from Israel,S.Korea and Australia … two of those are very unhappy participants of JSF programme…

How many times do RAAF and Government have to confirm in writing and orally that they are NOT interested in F-22, even if we were allowed to purchase it?

They’ve been doing for nearly 10 years now, have confirmed it in multiple Defence White Papers, Defence Capability Plans, strategic updates and multiple questions during Senate Estimates Hearings and media interviews on the topic.

And still people think we desperately want it…

Norway is a state oriented to the sea and so are its interests in aerial warfare. Even the latest trial flights were flown over the sea and Norway even has it’s own Penguin ASM.

Now, I saw a lot of critics of Gripen and praises of F35’s stealth…Ok…

In F35’s weapons clearance list there isn’t a single anti-ship missile (unlike Gripen).
Moreover, the only missile capable of attacking ships is StormShadow (variants) and this one CAN NOT be carried internally (according to official LM ordnance chart).
So, in order for an F35 to make attack runs against ships, it needs to carry external payload, thus giving up the stealth and that doesn’t put it in front of Gripen anymore.

Cheers, Cola

There are plenty of ways to attack ships. Here is one way that most definitely IS to be carried internally on the F-35.

http://www.defence.gov.au/media/download/2006/mar/20060323c/Pong_Su_sinking.mpg

Other options have already been mentioned.

Area Rule and the use of shock bodys. More can in the transonic and super sonic area some times better and the Typhoon use it’s extern store as shock bodys.
After droping a drop tank decrase the CwA value but a F-35 stay always boxy and fat and have alway it’s drag penalty even when carry nothing.

Why not only one high speed run with the F-35 as yet after 2 years flight test?

Then should we not forget! To much mass concentration in the centere line make many headaches –>Inertia coupling!!!!

Actually the F-35 has flown supersonic on multiple occasions already. That one “run” you describe actually saw the F-35 fly 4 supersonic runs within the one flight.

Testing maximum speed of the airframe is hardly a pressing test requirement at this point in the flight test program I shouldn’t think. Getting the current round of airframe and air system modifications completed and getting the current platforms conducting regular flight testing operations would be the priority, I should think…

Funny but in other threads you advocate that today’s simulations are able to predict exact flight performance, ergo that one does not need to fly an aircraft in order to know how it performs. Now, out of the sudden, there is no one else who knows how the F-35 perroms, only the handful of pilots that have flown it.

Er, no I haven’t. I do believe that modellig and simulation is much better today and

You should finally make up your mind on this before continuing. 😎 I personally think that an experienced designed/engineer can pretty accurately judge flying performance of an unknown design even without having flown it.

IF they have access to the classified data, yeah. I don’t accept for one second that this experienced designer or engineer has a solid idea of the performance parameters without that.

Who cares about F-16 vs F-35? The question is what does it take to attack target X in distance Y through threat environment Z. And how fast can it be done again afterwards.
An F-16 might need fighter escort, might need jammer escort and stand-off jammer, might need DEAD escorts, might need loitering tankers.
The F-35 will be a success if it can take out the same stuff in the same environment with less support.

But if making these theoretic one-on-one a/a combat comparisons, one should take the longish range of a clean F-35A on int fuel and at the same time its rather limited int weapons carriage capacity of 2 JDAM or 8 SDB plus 2 AIM-120 as a basis, and think about a dogfight shortly before a/g weapons release.
[And for the moment not think about the weight influence of a potential last AAR, or the fact that a F-35 with two AIM-120 and 180 rounds of 25mm is not really well equipped for a dogfight and will certainly try to avoid and run].
Meaning a F-16 with two JDAM or two SDB 4racks, two AIM-120, and with the two 600gal ext tanks just dropped (not entirely sure 370 gal tanks would work to achieve the 600nm paper combat radius of the F-35).
The F-35A at that point would still better have 60% of its fuel, or 5000kg, which would put her somewhere around 20.5 metric tonnes.
The F-16 would be around 13.5 metric tonnes, maybe a few hundred kilos more.
Surprise, surprise – identical wing load, and t/w ratio dry and wet. Hm. What was LMCO thinking here?
And who wins the dogfight? No idea. But the F-35 should be good enough not be a an easy victim. One must admit though, that a F-16 with SRAAM and a HMS would have a good chance against it.
A F-35 in LO config must avoid dogfights at all costs – AMRAAM is just the wrong weapon here. If a F-35 can’t achieve a stand-off kill once detected it better use its fuel and run, I say.

If dogfighting is important to a nation, then the option exists to integrate AIM-132 ASRAAM internally, piggybacking off the UK’s integration on the “B” model, or wait for the AIM-9X II with it’s reported LOAL capability to be integrated. Alternatively, external carriage of weapons provides significantly greater weapons flexibility than internal carriage alone.

F-35’s can carry more than 2x AAM’s into a fight. Mission requirements, not the baseline loadout (2x 2000lbs and 2x AMRAAM) used for performance testing purposes, will determine what weapons are carried.

The point is simple – Beesley is a strongly biased source. Whatever he talks, you can be 100% sure that it is shifted in favor of the LM – how far, we don’t know.

For that matter, if Beesley came out today and criticized some F-35’s feature, I would take him very seriously because if someone in his position dares to criticize something about the premier product of a company feeding him, then it must be really bad. But that won’t happen so it’s pointless to think about it.

To sum it up, all those journos Sprey, Wheeler, even Kopp are far more credible than the premier fanboy’s source Beesley because they at least tell us what they really think, not what LM’s PR dept has dictated them to.

That is utter ****e. He has at least flown the aircraft, not one of the vocal critics, you included, can say anywhere near as much.

All this talk of clean and loaded.

Has Lockheed Martin done ANY work with any weapons/ weapons loads yet?

You be the judge. 🙂

http://www.jsf.mil/images/gallery/sdd/f35_test/a/sdd_f35testa_070.jpg