Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Australia Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Air force eyes 18 more Super Hornets as delays dog our new fighter
Aussiegunneragain    4/11/2011 4:26:42 AM
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/defence/air-force-eyes-18-more-super-hornets-as-delays-dog-our-new-fighter/story-e6frg8yo-1226036923907 DEVELOPMENT of the revolutionary Joint Strike Fighter, intended to provide Australia's air defence through this century, is running well behind schedule and the RAAF may need to buy 18 more Super Hornets for $1.5 billion to fill the gap. Australian defence officials head for the US this week for an update from Lockheed Martin Corporation, which is developing the stealthy, multi-role JSF, now named the F-35 Lightning II. The Australian understands they will raise serious concerns about delays in the project and the possibility of an alarming gap in Australia's air defences from 2020 onwards. A recent report by the US Government Accountability Office indicates the program, already behind schedule and over budget, is likely to experience additional production and cost pressures. Australia plans to buy up to 100 F-35s for an estimated $16bn and has so far ordered 14, with the RAAF's first squadron supposed to be operating by 2018. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. Related CoverageSERVICE: Rats of Tobruk united in mateship GALLIPOLI: Rum go for Anzacs: Turks got the beer VIDEO: Defence looking at $1.5b blowout Defence looking at $1.5m blow-out The Australian, 8 hours ago Air force jets will be on time The Australian, 17 Feb 2011 US fast tracks $16b order for jet fighters The Daily Telegraph, 7 Jan 2011 F/A-18 Hornet spend cut by up to $500m The Australian, 17 Dec 2010 RAAF puts F-111 out to pasture The Australian, 3 Dec 2010 .End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. However, the US air force is buying the same variant of the JSF as the RAAF and has pushed back the dates by which it expects to have its first squadrons operational from mid-2016 to 2017 -- and possibly now to mid-2018. Officials from Lockheed Martin have insisted the problems in the US will not mean any delays in delivering Australia's first 14 aircraft. But there is growing concern in Canberra that the US delays will mean the RAAF's first squadron may not be ready until about 2020 and possibly later. Alarm bells are ringing because it's likely that by 2020 the last 30 or so of the RAAF's older "classic" Hornets will have reached the end of their useful lives, even with extensive refurbishment. The Howard government bought 24 Super Hornets for $6bn in 2007 to fill an earlier strategic gap left when the RAAF's F-111 bombers were withdrawn ahead of time because of concerns about fatigue. Defence officials are preparing for the government a range of options to fill this looming gap in air defences with the most likely being the purchase of a further 18 Super Hornets for about $800 million each. That would make economic sense, because the $6bn purchase price for the first 24 Super Hornets included the infrastructure to support them and that can be used for the additional aircraft. Another option might be further refurbishments of the classic Hornets. Officials from the Defence Materiel Organisation will join delegations from all of the nations involved in the JSF project for a comprehensive briefing on progress this week. There have been three key issues with the JSF as its development progressed -- whether the F-35 will do all that's promised of it, whether it will be delivered on time and whether it will cost more than anticipated. The Australian has been told development of the aircraft, which is packed with sophisticated radars and other electronic equipment, is progressing well and is likely to meet or exceed the expectations of the nine nations involved in its development. But there is a growing acceptance in the RAAF that the aircraft will be late and a steady increase in costs is eating up the considerable margin built into the contract by Australia's Defence Department. The original plan was for Lockheed to build 2443 JSFs for various arms of the American forces with about 500 others going to allies including Australia, Israel and Canada. A long-time strong supporter of Australia's role in the JSF project, former RAAF air marshal Errol McCormack has warned that the likely delays mean the Gillard government must get a plan in place to ensure Australia's air defences are effective once the classic Hornets are retired. Air Marshal McCormack, who now runs a normally strongly pro-JSF group of experienced military flyers known as the Williams Foundation, said in its latest bulletin the government should remember the RAAF's experience with the F-111. The first Australian F-111s were to be delivered in 1968. "Even though development and production slipped because of technical issues, Australia adhered to the delivery date rather than the production slot," Air Marshal McCormack said. As a result, in 1968 Australia took notional delivery of underdeveloped aircraft with technical difficulties. "Consequently, there
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
hairy man       4/11/2011 10:16:49 PM
If Australia were to order additional Super Hornets to replace F18-A's for the RAAF, would we order two seater F18-F.s or single seater F18'E's?
 
Quote    Reply

YelliChink       4/11/2011 11:34:55 PM
 
Quote    Reply

YelliChink       4/11/2011 11:35:31 PM

link



<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lE3h8yImm4U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
>>
 
try again.
 
Quote    Reply

Aussie Diggermark 2       4/12/2011 11:27:24 PM
This idea is SO advanced that ADF hasn't even approached USN on potential pricing or availability slots for these aircraft. 

It's just a back-up plan at this stage, if not pure speculation driven by Boeing... 

Entirely unapproved and entirely undeveloped...

h*tp://tinyurl.com/3l2x9tz  
 
Quote    Reply

Aussiegunneragain       4/15/2011 10:44:22 AM


Entirely unapproved and entirely undeveloped...

h*tp://tinyurl.com/3l2x9tz  

So was the original Super Hornet purchase before Boeing showed Brendan Nelson the powerpoint ...
Personally I think it is likely to happen. Why? Cause if the F-35's are delayed like they look set to be, it makes sense.
 
Quote    Reply

Aussie Diggermark 2       4/16/2011 1:31:02 AM





Entirely unapproved and entirely undeveloped...



h*tp://tinyurl.com/3l2x9tz  




So was the original Super Hornet purchase before Boeing showed Brendan Nelson the powerpoint ...


Personally I think it is likely to happen. Why? Cause if the F-35's are delayed like they look set to be, it makes sense.



You don't consider 18 aircraft to be a rather odd number? A total of 42 aircraft is not enough to fill 2 full squadrons and provide training, attrition and maintenance aircraft.
 
Sounds like a Boeing marketing exercise to me...
 
If Super Hornet is to replace some or all of the legacy Hornets, I would suggest a few more than 18 would have to be bought...
 
Quote    Reply

DropBear       4/16/2011 9:18:09 AM
You don't consider 18 aircraft to be a rather odd number? A total of 42 aircraft is not enough to fill 2 full squadrons and provide training, attrition and maintenance aircraft.
 
Why wouldn't it be enough? Aren't they suggesting replacing 18 or so of the most shagged legacy Bugs, yet continuing on with CBR program and other LOTEs?
 
Were we not getting training provided by initially flying our folk over to the USN to get checked-out on the SH. Between those instructors and the cadre of legacy Bug crews already in Oz, can't imagine a big issue.
 
Looking at the legacy Bug fleet, of a total of seventy-five @18x4 for 2OCU, 3, 75 and 77 plus a pattern test aircraft and another one (IIRC two) for ARDU. Ok, so the active sqns ended up with 16 jets each, instead of the 18, however, that only left about half a dozen for attrition/spares. Having lost only 4 Bugs in approx 25 years, can one assume we would be likely to see the same operational accident rate with the SH?
 
Would these 18 not be merely a short term stop gap until the 2017ish timeframe if this does arise? Anyone got any goss on whether our current F-18F fleet will be mothballed once F-35 achieves full IOC?
 
Curious.

 
Quote    Reply

gf0012-aust       4/16/2011 4:55:50 PM


if this does arise?

Anyone got any goss on whether our current F-18F fleet will be mothballed once F-35 achieves full IOC? 
 
Curious.



there's no goss on retention of the original set beyond the fact that they are going back by the time of full delivery - there could be a case to retain Growlers if the Govt elects to exercise its final fitout option and if the AF suddenly decides that it wants a separate sustainment stream on a capability which they regard as being adressed by an overall force capability in 2020 etc....

sustaining 6 Growlers makes minimal sense.  sustaining 24 SHornets overall seems rather unlikely unless RAAF suck it up and take a hit elsewhere - and they're pretty committed to JSF based on how excited they're getting on what their embeds say from the US.  Getting more SHornets would mean killing off other progs or planes.  Considering that the entire e-warfare, aviation sig warfare construct is based around high end capability such as wedgetail, jsf, the new CSS, and intergation with RAN or other prurple elements with common layers such as Link 22 - then the cost of bringing the Shornets to the same level would be another cost burden which RAAF would need to redress against their other spends - and bringing Shornets up to spec to rry and keep them combat and capability relevant against the JSF seems to be a loooooong way off the reality of their current force development.

could it happen? sure.  Is it likely?  Not IMHO


Shornets were an interim, and were always going back under the usual FMS provisions.


 
Quote    Reply

Aussiegunneragain       4/17/2011 1:00:27 AM




 

sustaining 6 Growlers makes minimal sense.  sustaining 24 SHornets overall seems rather unlikely unless RAAF suck it up and take a hit elsewhere - and they're pretty committed to JSF based on how excited they're getting on what their embeds say from the US.  Getting more SHornets would mean killing off other progs or planes.  Considering that the entire e-warfare, aviation sig warfare construct is based around high end capability such as wedgetail, jsf, the new CSS, and intergation with RAN or other prurple elements with common layers such as Link 22 - then the cost of bringing the Shornets to the same level would be another cost burden which RAAF would need to redress against their other spends - and bringing Shornets up to spec to rry and keep them combat and capability relevant against the JSF seems to be a loooooong way off the reality of their current force development.

could it happen? sure.  Is it likely?  Not IMHO


Shornets were an interim, and were always going back under the usual FMS provisions.



What the RAAF wants and what they might eventually get are two different things really. The original Super Hornet purchase proved that, Boeing went to Nelson and showed him a powerpoint about how the SH would mitigate the risk of failure of the F-111, and the next thing the RAAF knew they were doing operational conversions to the Super Bug.
 
I reckon Smith, especially on the advice of Dr Watt who is a MOTS enthusiest, would be the sort who would repeat the exercise if Boeing raises the prospect of legacy bug failure. He certainly hasn't had any problems in letting the ADF know what he is unhappy with lately, be it about amphibs that can't be deployed or about the handling of sexual misconduct at ADFA. If he thinks it is a reasonable strategy to mitigate F-35 risk by purchasing more Super Bugs, even at the expense of some F-35's in the interim, then I think there are good odds of it happening.
 
Quote    Reply



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics