Nah, just up the road from me. My comment about desert was a backhand reference to the major flooding in SE Queensland recently.
oldsigg
Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] News, Discussions and Updates
oldsigg
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
Well the town of Beaudesert is only 72ks awayIpswich, so pretty close to a desert…
Rock the kasbah
Active Member
Not 10 mins ago we had a fast mover give us a sonic boom over Surfers
To wet to see
To wet to see
Doubtful it was a "sonic boom" but a couple of Superbugs doing a media flypast were expected, they are promoting the "Pacific Airshow". August 2023 at Surfers beachside, I just need the dates to book a beachside room with a balcony for 3 days. Can't wait.
Redlands18
Well-Known Member
Yea good way to end your flying career in the RAAF, no going supersonic over the Continent, have to go out to sea to do that.
Here is a link to that Airshow from ADM, and to be held between the end of exercises Talisman sabre and Pitch Black so a real chance of US Military involvement and maybe some other Countries as well.
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Redlands18
Well-Known Member
That is meant to be between the end of Talisman Sabre and beginning of Pitch Black, just to be clear.
I recall an airshow at Edinburgh in the late 80s / early 90s with a fly pass by, if memory serves, a Mustang, Sabre, Mirage and Hornet. During one of the turns the Mirical slipped through the barrier and smashed a multitude of glass houses in nearby market garden areas. Rumor has it that the compensation claims were much lower than initially expected when a subset of the "market gardeners" discovered the compensation required an inspection of their glass houses and what was growing in them.
If it was super sonic it would be more like this..
How many windows are there at surfers? About a billion.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Hopefully nobody got any glass in their eyes. Definitely some impressive sonic damage in that flyby!
USAF selects the E-7 Wedgetail to replace its ageing AWACS fleet
I had missed this until recently.
While noting that this has been touched on in the USAF thread:
1. This is awesome news for the RAAF as there is now a much larger fleet to spread ongoing development costs across.
2. A big vote of confidence in the Wedgetail as one of - if not the - best AEW&C platform in the world.
3. Unclear what this means for AIR7002 Phase 1 (Wedgetail replacement), which is scheduled for 2029. Presumably an opportunity to buy the latest and greatest version the USAF will be buying at that point off a hot line?
4. Wedgetail has been a massive success. It is now being picked up by the US, UK, South Korea and Turkey, with Japan and Qatar rumoured to be looking at it as well. Given the amount of Australian taxpayer money that went into the successful development of Wedgetail in the early 2000s, are we getting any value out of this? Does CoA own any of the IP it paid to develop, or is this all owned by Boeing / Northrup Grumman?
I had missed this until recently.
While noting that this has been touched on in the USAF thread:
1. This is awesome news for the RAAF as there is now a much larger fleet to spread ongoing development costs across.
2. A big vote of confidence in the Wedgetail as one of - if not the - best AEW&C platform in the world.
3. Unclear what this means for AIR7002 Phase 1 (Wedgetail replacement), which is scheduled for 2029. Presumably an opportunity to buy the latest and greatest version the USAF will be buying at that point off a hot line?
4. Wedgetail has been a massive success. It is now being picked up by the US, UK, South Korea and Turkey, with Japan and Qatar rumoured to be looking at it as well. Given the amount of Australian taxpayer money that went into the successful development of Wedgetail in the early 2000s, are we getting any value out of this? Does CoA own any of the IP it paid to develop, or is this all owned by Boeing / Northrup Grumman?
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Mark_Evans
Member
Also got a good comment in March from Pacific Air Force Commander advocating for them.
US Air Force picks E-7 Wedgetail as E-3 Sentry replacement
The US Air Force (USAF) has selected the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft as the replacement for the E-3 Sentry.
www.flightglobal.com
Wedgetail impressed when it deployed to the middle east for missions over Syria/Iraq. Both the Americans and the British were very impressed, and pretty much turfed their own existing aged capability and worked towards acquiring it.
There is some money that comes back to Australia, but its not a whole lot, but the prestige is huge.
Eventually all this is meant to go to satellites, but Wedgetail fills the void very well, and typical of a platform in use, it finds more uses to be there. Recent development of anti-sat technology, shows perhaps not ideal to have all your eggs in one basket. Plus there is a shortfall with the 707 based planes literally aging out. Being 737 based its very attractive, with significantly less running costs than a E3 (or comet based UK versions), significantly better availability, its technological edge is just icing.
Very interesting. IIRC the total overrun was around $600m to $700m, hopefully this is earned back and then some.
Joe Black
Active Member
A real boost to RAAF and overall C4I capability....
Reference:
Reference:
We never actually had a Comet-based AEW aircraft in service. Started developing a Nimrod AEW in the late 1970s, but canned it before entering service & bought E-3.
The USAF seem to be be treating the Wedgetail as a stop gap solution as it is only replacing half the Sentry fleet.
My guess is that Australia will now work with the rest of its AUKUS partners to develop an eventual replacement for the Wedgetail.
Wow was 2011 that long ago? I think I am getting the P8 and the E7 mixed up as to their earlier versions. But you are right the UK is getting rid of its E3's which were delivered in the 1990's.
The thing about the 737 is they are very cheap to operate. Maintain modern sat etc will be expensive. While UAV's and similar are unmanned, sometimes having people directly in the space is very helpful. Its quite a large aircraft as well (compared to some rumoured competitors), so can handle a large and powerful modern radar, that can easily be upgraded. It is fairly low crew, so operational flight hour costs are low in all spectrums.
The US doesn't need as many E7 in 2020 as E3's in 1970. Spatial awareness of the average fighter is much better in modern fighters. I can see the E7 role evolving to more about drones and UAV's, but the format IMO makes a lot of sense. There might even be a merging of the P8 role and the E7 role in the future.
RAF E-3 ordered 1987, deliveries began in 1991.
Chile bought two ex-RAF E-3D a few months ago, which I think will need refurbishment, & perhaps a third for spares, the USA bought one for training, & one was parted out for spares several years ago. That leaves two possibly operational aircraft. There've been reports (unconfirmed AFAIK) that they have been operating over eastern Europe in the last few months, but apart from that they seem to have been out of service since last year.
I would imagine recent eastern Europe activities have highlighted why they need ready and high availability capability.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk
E3's and RC-135 looking very coldwar and perhaps of a different era. I can't imagine operating such historic classics is a robust and cheap operation. The RC135 is odd, joining uk service in 2014 using original early 1960's airframes from the USAF. That and the UK can't refuel them.
IMO the war in Ukraine seems to have highlighted that the RAAF is reasonably well prepared for that kind of conflict with their enablers, with E7's, MC-55A, growlers, F-35's etc. The US is upping its EC-37B program to 10 further highlighting the faith the USAF has in that project in the current state of the world.
Turkey recently operated its E7 out of Germany for NATO exercises. Imagine that wasn't easy to arrange. Probably involved more benchmarking of the E7 against the E3. The US buy puts the E3 on notice IMO.
www.blogbeforeflight.net
I wonder if the RAAF is looking at more tankers and that 4th squadron for F-35's again. Now that a lot of its other programs are coming to fruition.
Large-scale aerial surveillance effort underway over Ukraine
There are currently a significant number of British and American surveillance aircraft in the air over and around Ukraine.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk
IMO the war in Ukraine seems to have highlighted that the RAAF is reasonably well prepared for that kind of conflict with their enablers, with E7's, MC-55A, growlers, F-35's etc. The US is upping its EC-37B program to 10 further highlighting the faith the USAF has in that project in the current state of the world.
Turkey recently operated its E7 out of Germany for NATO exercises. Imagine that wasn't easy to arrange. Probably involved more benchmarking of the E7 against the E3. The US buy puts the E3 on notice IMO.
Turkish Boeing E-7 Wedgetail at Geilenkirchen AB, Germany
Turkish Boeing E-7 at Geilenkirchen AB, Germany
I wonder if the RAAF is looking at more tankers and that 4th squadron for F-35's again. Now that a lot of its other programs are coming to fruition.