Jason SimondsYou just shot your own argument down!.. Well its 2010 and where’s the capability which government directed?, its one reason why the Typhoon was rejected for air6000, as it couldn’t make the capability date!!.
2010 is already over? But it’s March isn’t it???
You know full well that the F-111 retirement is December 2010 and the F/A-18F is scheduled to declare IOC in December 2010…
(BTW IMHO the F-111 was useless anyway… I never thought it should have carried on as long as it did..)
I agree, an F/A-18C/D “night attack” variant or F-15E strike Eagle replacement for the F-111 in the mid to late 90’s would have been my preferred option. Alas, if only Government and Defence were as enlightened as us, eh?
I’m not all that fussed about the F-111 range issue. Range can be obtained by other means as evidenced by 19hr long Super Hornet missions during OEF. I’d rather forgoe the specialist role the F-111 has for a multi-role strike fighter any day of the week. Much more useful (and cheaper) for the operational taskings RAAF has actually had.
I don’t care about photo runs over Timor, either. PC-9’s could have done those, if they chose, or better yet, Customs Dash 8 aircraft. At least they could have streamed live video and stills via SATCOM straight to the PM’s office if need be, whilst still flying, rather than waiting for F-111’s to get back to RAAF Darwin, unloaded the wet film, develop it, analyse it and work out what those pesky Indonesians were up to and whether or not the cameras took photos of the right things…
LOL your not serious are you? I have posted several comments previously from the head of the RAAF and the defence minister no less – stating exactly that we are committed..
Cheers
I’m sure it is the aircraft we will end up with and I for one will be very glad when we do.
But it is a FACT that not a single acquisition contract has yet been signed. Second pass approval for an initial 14 airframes has been granted by Government. That is all.
The remainder of the purhase still has to be decided upon. Should resources remain tight and JSF experience significant further delays and cost increases, plans might “change” once again…
Jason SimondsYou are also forgetting the F18E/F will have to be operated too, the additional cost is still $4B plus operating costs.
More or less true enough. The Super Hornet costing, for all infrastructure, support, training assets, weapons, fuel, etc, for 13 years of operation, is AUD$6.6b.
However the Super Hornet provides a modern strike fighter capability, which the F-111 never would no matter how much cash was thrown at upgrading it.
You cannot with any degree of realism state honestly that upgrading the F-111 to cover the multitude of roles that the Super Hornet addresses, would have cost less than the purchase price of the Supers. Nor can you say what effects that attempting to do so, would have on RAAF capability in the meantime, ie: unavailability of aircraft undergoing the upgrade program etc.
Cost is not the only metric by which a Government chooses a capability…
While Australia is still wedded to the JSF the SH purchase will be counted as an extra expense , unless we drop the JSF and just use SH, in which case I will concede that it wasn’t $4B wasted due to being bamboozled by the JSF sales pitch..
It was never anyone’s plan to forgoe an airborne strike capability for Australia. What has been done is to invest money that would have HAD to be spent anyway, on Super Hornets and use the new capability to both cover the emerging capability gap with the delays in the JSF AND cover the strike capability in the meantime.
If they weren’t chosen, then RAAF’s initial plan of migrating the strike capability inherent in the F-111 force onto the legacy Hornet force, would have resulted in further upgrades and weapons integration tasks beyond the existing HUG. It most likely would have also resulted in additional A2A refuelling assets purchased, as evidenced by the Defence 2000 White Paper, which INCLUDED the HUG (and FOSOW), the new Air to Air refueller acquisition AND continued F-111 operation…
And if this was all forseen by procurement then why was it such a surprise?? LOL.
A surprise to whom? Things began to change in 2006. At that time, F-111 had already been canned as of 2010 and RAAF legacy Hornets would take on the burden of providing Australia’s main strike capability as well as it’s air defence capacity.
In 2007, Government decided, after previously requesting RAAF re-assess it’s recommendations, to acquire a bridging air combat capability based around the Super Hornet to provide the main strike capability for ADF, instead of relying on upgraded legacy Hornets to do same.
Things change. RAAF recommended concentrating on the legacy Hornet’s to provide the entire strike and air defence capability, assisted by AAR and FOSOW. However problems developed within the Hornet fleet (primarily in relation to airframe hours, but also in industries ability to perform CB replacements on the Hornet fleet) AND Government decided that it’s air combat capability should be centred on 4x operational squadrons. What is not often mentioned is this occurred at almost the same time that the Royal Australian Army underwent a similar expansion under it’s “Enhanced Land Force” initiative…
Consider that RAAF is required to provide a considerable portion of ADF’s Joint Fires under it’s Joint Force Doctrine and perhaps you can start to reconsider exactly why Government changed it’s mind on RAAF’s recommended force structure planning and actually expanded on it’s earlier plan…
Suffice to say, the Hornet fleet would have been rather stretched in undertaking it’s own HUG (which is not scheduled for completion until 2012/2013 even in it’s known existing format), undertaking it’s own required taskings, replacing the F-111 capability AND covering the new additional RAAF requirements for support of the enhanced land force within ADF…
Nope you could have had F-15, Rafale or Typhoon, in service now, if as you state it was all “hardly unforeseen”.
Not if it had to have an IOC date in 2010, which Government directed…
Add SH and future JSF purchases together and you get a rather large price difference between the previous contenders and all this was foreseen (according to you) by those recommending dropping the air6000 competition in 2002 and going for JSF which existed only on paper.
I never said anything about this issue in 2002. But as to manufacturers promises, perhaps you’d care to assess how EADS, Airbus or NH Industries has delivered on it’s promises, compared to L-M? Australia hasn’t even signed an acquisition contract with L-M yet and you are already blaming them…
The funny thing is, that when Australia buys off the shelf kit (Super Hornet, C-17, C-130J, Abrams tanks etc) it gets criticised by industry for not supporting local Australian industry. Threats of withdrawing from Australian industry primes etc, inevitably ensue.
When they order “off the plan” and the industry stuffs up the promised program, it is also the Australian Government’s fault for being foolish enough for “believing” them. Accept where it is European Industry that has stuffed up, apparently…
Makes you wonder if it was foreseen, how if it was communicated to those decision makers with all the extra $$$ signs.
Again, Government and RAAF believed that 3x fighter squadrons could suffice until JSF was ready. This involved the F-111 retirement already, HUG etc.
It proved not to be the case, for the reasons I outlined above, let alone any increase in external threats (which are debatable). I would like to know what you would do in a similar circumstance…
So far were committed to an aircraft without a firm price or a delivery date, we don’t even know if it matches its promised capability, with a pitiful amount of testing done people are still willing to say its a fantastic piece of kit.
I’m totally gobsmacked by their naivety in defending it.
Cheers
Cookie the token whinging Pom….
Again, committed is an interesting term, given that as of March 2010, not one single acquisition contract has yet been signed for the F-35, by Australia…
Jason Simonds$4 billion unforeseen extra costs for super hornets to bridge the gap says otherwise.
especially when the contenders where benchmarked at 2002 capability and that price.
Er, that $4b would have had to be spent no matter what choice RAAF made. Operating F-111’s doesn’t come for free and that cost was hardly unforseen. If Super Hornet hadn’t been chosen, then either F-111 or the legacy Hornets would have required further airframe – CBR for the entre 49x aircraft and further weaponry/sensor upgrades and the new refuellers would have been operating at a much higher flying rate. Either way, the cost would have been borne by RAAF.
In fact the F-111C fleet alone costs roughly $150m a year to run for 17x airframes and a tad extra for the RF-111C force. So you are looking at $2b in running costs right there, assuming the aging platform doesn’t cost any more to operate over the next 13 years (yeah, right…)
Add up an additional 13 years of operating this fleet, plus a minimum of new upgrades including; new EWSP, Link 16, JDAM/JSOW and probably a new short ranged air to air missile (as AIM-9M is being withdrawn from RAAF) and pretty soon your remaining -$2b will be eaten up as well…
Run the entire Hornet force through CBR and add additional sensors and standoff/SEAD weapons later in the decade and there goes your $2b as well…
All to get a striker that needs a fighter to go with it into ANY contested airspace or an old fighter with new talons soldiering on years past it’s use by date as RAAF’s front line and sole combat aircraft AND RAAF having no choice but to get into JSF as early as possible…
All things considered, RAAF is in a much better position now, even if it would have been better had RAAF pushed for an F-111 replacement aircraft earlier rather than it’s ridiculous (and politically motivated at the time) idea that our exsting F/A-18A/B’s could handle our entire air combat capability requirement unitl JSF was ready…
F-111 cost is eliminated, Super Hornets provide a fully deployable combat capability equal or exceeding anything currently within our region, F/A-18 airframe issues are less of a problem (because the Super Hornets will carry the majority of the burden for major/overseas exercises and operational deployments) and RAAF is not quite so rushed in signing contracts for the F-35…
All in all, a sound solution IMHO.
Jason SimondsThen you are ignorant &/or blind.
Opinion’s are like… Pcefm. Everybody’s got one. Tell you what, come 2020 when USN has barely a handful of F-35C’s in-service but hundreds of retired F/A-18C/D’s and decks on carriers with plenty of parking space and half strength squadrons, how about I be the bigger man and not say I told you so?
However, just so one can be seen to utilise facts rather than simply ad hominem, ten points if you can guess which naval fighter’s planned purchase was doubled for FY11?
Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks more Supers for the USN is such a bad idea…
Just what pray tell makes the F-35C the least important model?
Only one planned customer, limited numbers of airframes, the least overall necessity IMHO, and the sole benefit of an additional 140nm or so in range over F-35B variants that could just as easily be employed to fulfill part of it’s role.
All the while taking development funding and L-M and test resources that could be put to better use getting the -A and -B into service sooner.
The USN UCAV program is not expected to reach IOC until 2025 & even then it is only to equip ONE CAW squadron to SUPPLIMENT/COMPLIMENT the FOUR squadrons (2 each) of F/A-18E/F & F-35C squadrons.
Under current plans. I would suggest they would invest significantly more resources into acquiring and such such a capability with F-35C no longer a concern…
For the first time, UAV purchases will outnumber fighter purchases in FY11, too. Isn’t not judging on the basis of previous programs, what the F-35 is all about?
You have no clue what you are talking about.
Rubbish. The operational benefit the F-35C provides over the F-35B is a fraction more range and a fraction of it’s overall performance. Weapons, sensors, signature management, networking and sensor fusion remain identical.
I simply don’t see that it’s worth it, for a likely production run of less than 400 aircraft.
F-35B still provides a range improvement over F/A-18C/D aircraft, as does the Super Hornet and X-47 and follow-on will dramatically increase strike range, even over the F-35C.
That is the same kind of nonsense that would have had the USN cancelling the F-4 Phantom just as it was entering production & waiting for the F-14 & F-/A18 or cancelling the F-14 & F-/A18 just as it was entering production & waiting for the NATF & JSF.
Unlike those programs, USN didn’t have a current production line with a capable fighter ready to take up the slack and a development aircraft that provides the majority of the capability that the proposed cancelled aircraft would…
As I said earlier, it’s an opinion, feel free to disagree with mine, as I do with many of yours.
Jason SimondsQuite surprisingly, the F414s are not completely smoke-free.
The RAAF Hornet display team (4 ship) injects a mineral oil into their F404 engines during routines to spice them up, a tad. I suspect something similar here, though of course no internal combustion engine is entirely smoke free…
Jason SimondsLack of “stealth” is no issue if you have performance,
the question is if “stealth” will allow for lack of performance,
in the case of F-117, it didn’t.
To be fair, only one single aircraft was “shot down” out of literally thousands of operational sorties in multiple theatres before AND after this incident…
Arguing that it “had run out of tricks”, doesn’t really equate with the other 3x F-117’s that were in formation with the “shot down” F-117 not ending up on the scrap heap that or any other night, until the fleet was retired by a USAF decision…
Jason SimondsLandings are getting slower and slower…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIyZ98EWnOc&feature=player_embedded
Don’t see too much spall in that video, but maybe it’s just me…
Jason Simondsperhaps you should send them an email and tell them they’re wrong
http://www.jsf.mil/contact/con_faqs.htm
FAQ
Does the F-35 supercruise?
No, neither the F135 or F136 engines were designed to supercruise.
Neither were the F100 or the F110 and yet aircraft they power CAN in fact fly supersonically without the use of reheat…
Jason SimondsBack on topic, apparently BF-1 has made it back into the air today and completed flight number 38.
Info from LMaggie at f-16.net.
Jason SimondsNow, F-35 doesn’t supercruise. Therefore it’s not rocket science, it cannot be called 5th gen. But F-35 fanclub and LM don’t want to hear that, so they silently skip this requirement. And that makes Euro-fans fed up, would you blame them?
The Euro-Canards don’t supercruise either, according to L-M’s definition… 😉
However if we define supercruise purely as the ability to fly at supersonic speeds without afterburner then the F-35 may very well supercruise, as reportedly do the Euro-Canards.
What it won’t do is reach L-M’s definition of supercruise which is SUSTAINED M1.5 or greater. It is not designed for that.
The F-16 isn’t designed for supercruise either, yet they have demonstrated the ability to fly at supersonic speeds without afterburner on many occasions, as indeed have F/A-18’s…
Jason Simonds… and yes, the Martians downed it. It wasn’t the Serbs…
More aircraft have gone down with NO combat damage whatsoever, than the Serbs ever managed to shoot down.
If an aircraft crashed in wartime, obviously being shot down is the ONLY possible solution, isn’t it?
Jason SimondsVery nicely put Sens 😉
Not at all Jason. The only thing I want of you is to provide the source for what you’ve said. Or I am asking too much?
You want me to provide a link proving the Serbs were unable to shoot down more than one F-117???
Even if they do have some “special device” that allowed them to shoot down the F-117 (assuming of course it WAS shot down) how do you account for the fact that it could not manage this feat again?
On top of which only one other aircraft was shot down. An F-16. Hardly the pinnacle of LO technology…
So for all the SAM systems employed in Yugoslavia, they managed to destroy precisely 2 NATO aircraft.
Jump for joy boys, what a result…
:rolleyes:
Jason SimondsThats a 2001 report, USN pulled out of the program in 2003.
So, the USN doesn’t use AN/ALQ-214?
Jason SimondsIt’s deep in here…
Jason SimondsThe F-35 is not really operational yet, so instead of writing “F-35 has this” and “has that” perhaps one should write “will have”?
APG-81 is flying on CATBIRD.
Production EOTS/DAS, as opposed to test and development have been delivered by NG.
These systems exist, therefore it’s a fair point to make, I believe. If you can judge what “generation” the F-35 is at all, then it’s fair to state what the F-35 has.
I agree that the “generation thing” is rather diffuse and probably mainly marketing stuff, perhaps one should instead refer to specific attributes, like VLO etc.
I agree, though internal EOTS, DAS and weapons, though not entirely revolutionary (although all within the one aircraft is a first) offers many benefits that cannot be matched by aircraft not designed to encompass these capabilities in such a manner.
IMHO the most important thing that distinguish F-22 and the soon-to-be-finalized F-35 from the current fighters is the emphasis on VLO; to me that seems to be the really important defining feature and well worthy a “new generation” term, this is underlined by the fact that it’s almost impossible to add VLO to an existing fighter, whereas sensors and computers can be replaced and upgraded, in particular in modern fighters like the Eurocanards.
True, the supercruise/super-maneuverability bit seems a bit arbitrary to me. There are plenty of combat aircraft than can and have been able to fly supersonically without afterburner and there are plenty of extremely nimble and agile combat aircraft too. Such capabilities are NOT in of themselves revolutionary. That they are packaged into an aircraft WITH VLO etc, is.
The VLO aspect could also be the one thing that will make the Eurocanards look somewhat old-fashioned some 10 years from now — in a way a pity since they are such beatiful and well-designed birds.
Agreed. They are “nice and shiny” though…
🙂
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