Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] News, Discussions and Updates

[oldsoak]

I think we've drifted.
EF is not suited as yet for the strike task that the SH/F15E arguement is about and I'm not even sure you'd get slots in time. Rafale would be closer to it and an unlikely choice. As much as I'd like to see the EF in RAAF colours, its as likely as Families First winning the next election. No point discussing it. The real discussion is around the SH/F15E and its suitability/likelyhood of purchase. IMHO, I'll put money on the SH still coming through for the RAAF. Not a bad plane, good as an interim choice. F15E been better, but thats what we're talking about.
As to whether Oz gets access to all the F35 goodies - I'm skeptical as we dont yet in the UK ( and possibly wont unless the technology is surpassed ). Against that put the fact that we still make aeroplanes in the UK and Oz doesnt, so yes, there exists the possibility that Oz might see more, but then we wont know that for sure.
As to EF being the last European manned fighter, I'll beleive that when Taranis ( or its descendants ) fills the the skies.

 

[AGRA]

As to whether Oz gets access to all the F35 goodies - I'm skeptical as we dont yet in the UK ( and possibly wont unless the technology is surpassed ).

It depends on what you mean by goodies. If you mean full combat capability then the US will give it to JSF partners with bi-lateral or multi-lateral secrutiy agreements. Just like the US being willing to sell JASSMs to Australia, but not Finland. If you mean enough knowledge to replicate every single step of development and production of some highly sensitive technology, then maybe not.

And why should we expect the US to tell the rest of us exactly how to replicate something they spent a lot of cash on and is part of the cornerstone of their sole-super power status? It would be like buying a few megatonnes of Australian iorn ore and expecting us to then let you build your own mine on our territory and operate it as you please with no further payment to our country.

 

[swerve]

It depends on what you mean by goodies. If you mean full combat capability then the US will give it to JSF partners with bi-lateral or multi-lateral secrutiy agreements. Just like the US being willing to sell JASSMs to Australia, but not Finland. If you mean enough knowledge to replicate every single step of development and production of some highly sensitive technology, then maybe not.

And why should we expect the US to tell the rest of us exactly how to replicate something they spent a lot of cash on and is part of the cornerstone of their sole-super power status? It would be like buying a few megatonnes of Australian iorn ore and expecting us to then let you build your own mine on our territory and operate it as you please with no further payment to our country.

The complaints over here aren't about the revealing of secrets so that we can replicate them, but -
1) revealing of enough of the software (mostly interfaces, AFAIK) so we can integrate our own weapons without having to get the USA to do it, thereby revealing our expensively-gained technology while paying commercial rivals for the privilege, & being dependent on US approval & US working timescales.
2) permissions: to maintain the aircraft ourselves, install our own equipment (instead of paying the USA to do it while giving away details of our kit), & perform upgrades.

BTW, I wish you'd stop talking about "giving" things which are sold, at a profit. The USA no more "gives" the UK, Australia etc. any of this stuff than Grace Brothers in Sydney gave me a couple of shirts when I lived there, or Toyota gave me my car. When Americans use the word "give" in this context, as if the USA is doing country X a favour by selling it a weapon after a fiercely-contested competition, I'm offended. When a non-American uses the word I wonder what's going on. The word is sell.

 

[barra]

I think we've drifted.
EF is not suited as yet for the strike task that the SH/F15E arguement is about and I'm not even sure you'd get slots in time. Rafale would be closer to it and an unlikely choice. As much as I'd like to see the EF in RAAF colours, its as likely as Families First winning the next election. No point discussing it. The real discussion is around the SH/F15E and its suitability/likelyhood of purchase. IMHO, I'll put money on the SH still coming through for the RAAF. Not a bad plane, good as an interim choice. F15E been better, but thats what we're talking about.
As to whether Oz gets access to all the F35 goodies - I'm skeptical as we dont yet in the UK ( and possibly wont unless the technology is surpassed ). Against that put the fact that we still make aeroplanes in the UK and Oz doesnt, so yes, there exists the possibility that Oz might see more, but then we wont know that for sure.
As to EF being the last European manned fighter, I'll beleive that when Taranis ( or its descendants ) fills the the skies.

Yes we have drifted.

From my point of view we seem to be getting this mixed up. SH was purchased as an interim solution to allow F-111 retire and plug the gap between classic hornets and JSF. It is a great fit as an interim fighter with the commonality between classic-super hornet allowing for some ease of operation with regards to GSE, maintenance, aircrew, weapons and role. It also allows for ease of transition to JSF with the advanced avionics available in the block II version. The avionics on SH Block II is derived from the Boeing JSF contender.

But as a straight out replacement for the pig it is a bit on the light side. RAAF aircrew have had a hard-on for the Strike Eagle for years. It is the only aircraft that comes close to matching a pig for bomb load and combat radius. However for one reason or another we have not pursued it. It has been offered by the US as an F-111 replacement but we have declined all advances. IMO the pigs should have been replaced by F-15E's in the late 1990's. However you will all remember them as the bad old days when defence was being neglected by all sides of politics. Everyone was too busy talking about "peace dividends" to want to spend billions on new F-15E's.

It is a shame really, Strike Eagles would have suited the RAAF perfectly. Once it became apparent that pigs would never be deployed overseas on OPS ie. when the yanks retired their pigs, we should have been looking to replace them.

(As an aside I read an interesting article on the F-15's recent problems, ie. the nose section departing the rest of the a/c in flight. Seems the longerons around the cockpit area were manufactured undersize. They were roughly half the thickness they should have been according to specs. Talk about stuff ups, all A and D models are affected.)

 

[Mr Ignorant]

Aussie Digger

I AM HERE.

All,

I've been active in the RMAF thread, but the issue of MAINLY the Super Hornet has forced my temporary stay here. Please bear with me, while I catch up reading ALL THE POSTS. Thanks

 

[AGRA]

BTW, I wish you'd stop talking about "giving" things which are sold, at a profit. The USA no more "gives" the UK, Australia etc. any of this stuff than Grace Brothers in Sydney gave me a couple of shirts when I lived there, or Toyota gave me my car. When Americans use the word "give" in this context, as if the USA is doing country X a favour by selling it a weapon after a fiercely-contested competition, I'm offended. When a non-American uses the word I wonder what's going on. The word is sell.

When you buy a shirt the vendor does not sell you the formula for the fabric. When you buy a car the maker does not sell you the process to build the engine.

Sure we buy weapons from the US and others. But I don't see anything in unit procurement that says 'give' me the source codes... If you want to buy their propreitry knowledge you have to cough up more than just the sticker price.

 

[Magoo]

Aussie Digger

I AM HERE.

All,

I've been active in the RMAF thread, but the issue of MAINLY the Super Hornet has forced my temporary stay here. Please bear with me, while I catch up reading ALL THE POSTS. Thanks

Oh, thank god, I was really worried! :shudder

 

[oldsoak]

When you buy a shirt the vendor does not sell you the formula for the fabric. When you buy a car the maker does not sell you the process to build the engine.

Sure we buy weapons from the US and others. But I don't see anything in unit procurement that says 'give' me the source codes... If you want to buy their propreitry knowledge you have to cough up more than just the sticker price.

- fair point - however the UK became tier1 on the understanding that by paying more, we 'd see more. It hasnt worked that way for us. Anyhow this is an aside from what the RAAF needs for the interim period until the F35 turns up.
IMHO, the SH is not a bad choice given the chances of a real enemy turning up before the F35 does. The F15E would have been better, and it wil lbe interesting to see if Rudd & co. think so too.

 

[Magoo]

Oops...

 

[Magoo]

IMHO, the SH is not a bad choice given the chances of a real enemy turning up before the F35 does. The F15E would have been better, and it wil lbe interesting to see if Rudd & co. think so too.

OMG...:lul How many times do we have to say this...the F-15E WOULD NOT have been better.

The whole idea of BACC was to minimise risk during the transition from F-111 & F/A-18 to F-35, not to introduce a whole new supply chain, manufacturer agreement, FMS arrangement etc.

Whilst the Super bears little real physical resemblance to the classic, the RAAF and DMO already have strong working relationships with the US Navy, Boeing, GE, Raytheon etc, all of which would have to be started from scratch with the F-15. Yes, I know Boeing makes the F-15 and GE some of the F-15's engines, but it's a whole different bunch of people.

The beauty of the F/A-18F is ours will be identical to those used by the US Navy - our initial pilots will be trained by their FRS at Lemoore on their jets before ours are delivered, and we can tap straight into theirs and Boeing's FIRST spares and support system. Any F-15 we order now would be vastly different to those operated by USAF (and Korea, and Singapore), so there's no commonality advantage in going down that path. Plus, there's no way we could have got an operational F-15E (AU) unit established by 2011 anyway.

Additionally, the level of integration and systems advancement on the Super is far above that of the F-15, thus giving the RAAF a smoother path to the 5th gen F-35 when it finally arrives.

Regarding the F-35 (which I should remind everyone, HASN'T been selected as the final Air 6000 NACC solution yet), I'd argue that our $300m (not $150m) investment is a small price to pay if it gives us the levels of access required in order to make a truly informed decision on whether to order the aircraft when Second Pass is due.

JWCook - I usually agree with your sentiments, but do you honestly think BAE/Eurofighter would be complaining if the RAAF had chosen the Typhoon back in 2002? They'd be taking exactly the same stand as LockMart and the ADF are taking now. That's what pissed me off about the 4 Corners show when they re-enacted the poor Rafale salesman driving round Canberra wiping the tears out of his eyes because the A6K team had chosen the F-35 before he'd had a chance to deliver his sales pitch. Puhleeese!!!

Why do these conversations go round and round and round all the time? Do people not read back a few pages to read what others have already posted before asking their questions or posting opinons which have already been debunked? :unknown

Anyway, it's my birthday and I'll rant if I want to!

Cheers

Magoo

 

[swerve]

When you buy a shirt the vendor does not sell you the formula for the fabric. When you buy a car the maker does not sell you the process to build the engine.

Sure we buy weapons from the US and others. But I don't see anything in unit procurement that says 'give' me the source codes... If you want to buy their propreitry knowledge you have to cough up more than just the sticker price.

Which is exactly what we've done. That was what being the one & only Tier 1 partner, with its couple of billion dollars entry fee, was supposed to be all about, according to the US government at the time we signed up for it.

Also, a shirt vendor doesn't threaten to sue you if you sew a button back on instead of paying him to do it, or a car manufacturer (which also sells CD players, radios & satnavs) demand that if you want to fit one, you have to pay him to install it, & tell him how it's made.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Aussie Digger

I AM HERE.

All,

I've been active in the RMAF thread, but the issue of MAINLY the Super Hornet has forced my temporary stay here. Please bear with me, while I catch up reading ALL THE POSTS. Thanks

And I can't wait to see what insight you bring to these discussions either...

 

[lobbie111]

was there any way we could have just leased the super hornets or would that have been more expensive

 

[StingrayOZ]

I think people here are just very impatient about what we are getting from the JSF program. Turkey seems to be building whole entire aircraft for other countries and will have complete access to codes etc.

Australia has not had any announcements like that. I think the feeling is Australia will get to make a small insignificant widget like cup holders or the foam the other parts go into. Or the wingtips on the 747... Meanwhile turkey announces the F-35T with all this other technology they have intergrated with unfetted access to codes and source.

One of the problems stems from the fact you don't really buy anything from the US. You own nothing. You lease it on a long term arangement. Once your finished with it, you must dispose of it according to their rules, which are normally, strip and burn, crush to cube and sell it to a nice metal recycler. If Australia wanted to sell our older F-18's to NZ, the US has the right to stop that from happening..

Given the fact the Yanks seem to be stuffing around the brits who are big time players, and far better at making deals than we are makes me nervous.

 

[lobbie111]

I don't think anyonme needs to worry, you say that we are being shut out of everything (well not everything) but has it ever occured to anyone that this might be a good thing, we could probably state with these guidelines that stingray mentioned that well if you own it, you can pay to maintain it, then they would get off our backs and give us a bit more freedom, besides its not like the US can sell them to us and tell us no you can't use it in that war because we don't support you in that war.

Everyone is getting worked up over things that are purely insignificant, we have access to the latest US technology updates and can update them on our own with our own technology if it comes down to it we just can't make them.

Besides in my mind it isn't the contract that gets us continued access its diplomatic relations the more were in bed with the US the more they pay us for some lovin'.

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

OMG...:lul How many times do we have to say this...the F-15E WOULD NOT have been better.

The whole idea of BACC was to minimise risk during the transition from F-111 & F/A-18 to F-35, not to introduce a whole new supply chain, manufacturer agreement, FMS arrangement etc.

Whilst the Super bears little real physical resemblance to the classic, the RAAF and DMO already have strong working relationships with the US Navy, Boeing, GE, Raytheon etc, all of which would have to be started from scratch with the F-15. Yes, I know Boeing makes the F-15 and GE some of the F-15's engines, but it's a whole different bunch of people.

The beauty of the F/A-18F is ours will be identical to those used by the US Navy - our initial pilots will be trained by their FRS at Lemoore on their jets before ours are delivered, and we can tap straight into theirs and Boeing's FIRST spares and support system. Any F-15 we order now would be vastly different to those operated by USAF (and Korea, and Singapore), so there's no commonality advantage in going down that path. Plus, there's no way we could have got an operational F-15E (AU) unit established by 2011 anyway.

Additionally, the level of integration and systems advancement on the Super is far above that of the F-15, thus giving the RAAF a smoother path to the 5th gen F-35 when it finally arrives.

Regarding the F-35 (which I should remind everyone, HASN'T been selected as the final Air 6000 NACC solution yet), I'd argue that our $300m (not $150m) investment is a small price to pay if it gives us the levels of access required in order to make a truly informed decision on whether to order the aircraft when Second Pass is due.

JWCook - I usually agree with your sentiments, but do you honestly think BAE/Eurofighter would be complaining if the RAAF had chosen the Typhoon back in 2002? They'd be taking exactly the same stand as LockMart and the ADF are taking now. That's what pissed me off about the 4 Corners show when they re-enacted the poor Rafale salesman driving round Canberra wiping the tears out of his eyes because the A6K team had chosen the F-35 before he'd had a chance to deliver his sales pitch. Puhleeese!!!

Why do these conversations go round and round and round all the time? Do people not read back a few pages to read what others have already posted before asking their questions or posting opinons which have already been debunked? :unknown

Anyway, it's my birthday and I'll rant if I want to!

Cheers

Magoo

Couldnt agree more mate... some additional points:

Rhino B2 has a superior avionics fit with the inclusion of its fiber optic data bus, 5th gen combat management system and HUI. (all beter than strike eagle)

Rhino B2 has LO charecteristics (not much but again its better than strike eagle).

Rhino has a smaller payload but considering the needs of realistic strike profiles, enough to to the job required (4 PGM's with external fuel, 2x AIM 9x & 2~1 x AIM 120). Higher missile payload though.

Rhino has 200km's less combat radius (which IMO is its only real advantage), however again considering realistic strike profiles both would be heavilly reliant on AAR.

Comperable radar & EW/EWSP suite.

Rhino B2 comes ready to rock with no extra work required at all, strike eagle needs harpoon to be intergrated at the taxpayers expence addidng to risk and cost.

Rhino has better systems intergration with its combat management system.

F18F is 70-80% cheaper than F15E.

Basically we get 95%+ of the capability at 70% of the cost with no extra work, less risk & ~10% existing commonality with our legacy HUG fleet.

Why would you buy Strike Eagle??? (as much as i would love to see one in RAAf colours, what an arctaft!)

 

[t68]

Anyway, it's my birthday and I'll rant if I want to!


Magoo

Happy birthday Magoo

 

[Mr Ignorant]

A question about the Superhornets meant as a "Interim" Fighter.

First, define "Interim" within the RAAF context? What are the timescales for the "Interim period" in view of the fact that a review is now underway with regards to Fighter procurement in the RAAF?

And if the Superhornet is such an advanced piece of kit, why has it been categorised as an "Interim" aircraft?

Feedback please.

 

[lobbie111]

well, interim the timescale i believe is from 08/09 to 2013 by the time the JSF reaches full operational service.

Its an advance piece of kit yes but I'm going to relate it to a keyboard analogy. You have your current keyboard its a standard windows keyboard (the basic FA/18) and you replace it with a mid range logitech (super hornet) it has these neat little buttons that link you to different things instantly and its a big advancement on its predecessor. Then you get the G15 gaming keyboard (JSF) It looks great for one, it has its own screen so you don't even have to look at the screen some if not most of the time (Helmet Mounted Display) It comes with a whole new extra keypad on one side allowing you to use it like a joystick (EOTS) and its made of some cool new materials so it stays clean longer (better maintainable), It is low profile instead of sticking out like a smelly porta-potty it blends in better with the desk (LO) and adds to the look of the computer (multi role make it a force multiplier).

 

[oldsoak]

OMG...:lul How many times do we have to say this...the F-15E WOULD NOT have been better.

The whole idea of BACC was to minimise risk during the transition from F-111 & F/A-18 to F-35, not to introduce a whole new supply chain, manufacturer agreement, FMS arrangement etc.

Whilst the Super bears little real physical resemblance to the classic, the RAAF and DMO already have strong working relationships with the US Navy, Boeing, GE, Raytheon etc, all of which would have to be started from scratch with the F-15. Yes, I know Boeing makes the F-15 and GE some of the F-15's engines, but it's a whole different bunch of people.

The beauty of the F/A-18F is ours will be identical to those used by the US Navy - our initial pilots will be trained by their FRS at Lemoore on their jets before ours are delivered, and we can tap straight into theirs and Boeing's FIRST spares and support system. Any F-15 we order now would be vastly different to those operated by USAF (and Korea, and Singapore), so there's no commonality advantage in going down that path. Plus, there's no way we could have got an operational F-15E (AU) unit established by 2011 anyway.

Additionally, the level of integration and systems advancement on the Super is far above that of the F-15, thus giving the RAAF a smoother path to the 5th gen F-35 when it finally arrives.

Regarding the F-35 (which I should remind everyone, HASN'T been selected as the final Air 6000 NACC solution yet), I'd argue that our $300m (not $150m) investment is a small price to pay if it gives us the levels of access required in order to make a truly informed decision on whether to order the aircraft when Second Pass is due.

JWCook - I usually agree with your sentiments, but do you honestly think BAE/Eurofighter would be complaining if the RAAF had chosen the Typhoon back in 2002? They'd be taking exactly the same stand as LockMart and the ADF are taking now. That's what pissed me off about the 4 Corners show when they re-enacted the poor Rafale salesman driving round Canberra wiping the tears out of his eyes because the A6K team had chosen the F-35 before he'd had a chance to deliver his sales pitch. Puhleeese!!!

Why do these conversations go round and round and round all the time? Do people not read back a few pages to read what others have already posted before asking their questions or posting opinons which have already been debunked? :unknown

Anyway, it's my birthday and I'll rant if I want to!

Cheers

Magoo

OWWWCH...

:lol: - happy birthday !!