http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/joint/commttee/j9433.pdf
for those that dont want to read the whole PDF
ACTING CHAIR—...the core issue of what we have been looking at in the public hearings is the antagonistic position that has been put by Dr Kopp and Mr Goon...
Group Capt. Davies—In my view, it goes back to what has been a fairly common thread of
the F111’s development. I would disagree with the analysis that it would be relatively simple and
that it is just an extension of what currently exists. That extension would get us perhaps to 2015.
But beyond that, to having another generation of combat aircraft that would not need
replacement or significant work, I would disagree with, having been around the F111 for some
time and seen that level of development. The idea that the F111 would perform a particular role
is, I think, a little narrow in view of what the F111’s performance expectation is in a number of
roles; therefore, we are expecting a networked Air Force to be able to provide that set of roles.
From an operator’s perspective, I think an F111-F22 mix does not meet all of those.
The F111—two-place cockpit, strike role, little self-defence, not selfescorting—
involves those kinds of concepts. There is a better transition through Hornet to the
next aircraft.
the majority of a modern battlefield scenario will involve a
composite package of aircraft to get the best outcome. So I would suggest that the scope for a
lone-aircraft role has diminished since we first purchased the F111.
Group Capt. Morrison—From a supportability perspective, I would agree with Group
Captain Davies. To take the aircraft out as far as some of those proposals seem to want to go
would require, in my view, a substantial upgrade to not only basic aircraft systems but also
avionics and so on, just to give it both maintainability and supportability, as well as providing
the operational capability that 82 Wing needs to operate the jet. For example, I would tend to
think that you would want to do a complete upgrade of the avionics systems. To head way out
into a new life for the aeroplane, we would probably need to remanufacture wings on the
aircraft. We can still get wings out of the desert, but I do not think we would want to carry the
maintainability, the inspections and all those other things into the future. If we were going to do
that for the next 30 or 40 years, I think would we want to try and redesign it. That is a fairly
major effort, and I cannot even begin to dream up a cost for such a thing. I am not aware of
anybody having done it to the scale that I would envisage. However, you can re-skin wings and
things like that. So it is not impossible, but I am beginning to wonder why.
We are a unique operator of this engine now. I understand some of those proposals suggest
that other engines might be used. It might indeed be possible, but in a tactical fighter aircraft
changing the engines is not a simple thing. A couple of different engines were proposed in some
of those options. The one out of the F22, to my understanding, is not directly compatible with
the F111 because of the way it mounts things like generators and hydraulic units and so on. That
would essentially require a substantial redesign of the air frame-engine combination, and I think
that is a very big deal. There are other engines, such as the GEF101, which probably offer some
greater compatibility. For example, the GEF101 is the current engine being delivered in the F15
and F16. It was designed as a replacement for the TF30, so it is possible to use it. It was
integrated into the American navy’s F14, but not without its problems. When you start
introducing that sort of technology, particularly with such a small fleet, you end up with all of
the integration costs but you are not able to amortise it over a buy of 700, 1,000 or 5,000
aeroplanes, such as you might see with the JSF. So we have to wear all of the qualification
testing, the integration and design and so on. It is a very big program we are talking about.
As well as that, the scale of the program is such that I think, as we went through it, we would
suffer significant aircraft availability problems, because we would be taking aircraft off line for
quite extended periods to do really major modifications. So even if you decided to do this today,
it would probably be a decade before you actually came out of it again. You would have spent
billions of dollars and you would have managed to increase the capability and sustainability
across a range of aircraft systems, but issues such as Group Captain Davies raised about radar
observability and things like that would still be out there. You would still have old components
in there that you would need to sort. So I would tend to think that the comment of diminishing
returns but rather increased cost comes to mind.
