Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] News, Discussions and Updates
Correct.
I'd add that the JSF dev article sitting in aust doesn't have a probe fitting either.
the above is a sleight of hand response, but I guess most of you will work out what I'm on about.
Well the hose and drogue method behind a KC-30A allows one KC-30A to refuel two fighter aircraft simultaneously whereas a boom can only accomodate one aircraft at a time, so there is a benefit there.
Whether that benefit is worth the cost of paying for the probe to be added to the -A model is one of the reasons why the NACC project office people get paid to do what they do I expect...
GF, I don't believe the integration of the probe has actually been undertaken on the -A model yet, which is of course another reason why there wouldn't be one on any development articles...
I was being cheeky and referring to the metal JSF test article sitting in Melbourne...GF, I don't believe the integration of the probe has actually been undertaken on the -A model yet, which is of course another reason why there wouldn't be one on any development articles...
John Newman
The Bunker Group
If a refulling aircraft has one boom and two hose drouge units, for example like the KC-30A, the difference is a bit like "six of one and half a dozen of the other", it works out to be pretty much the same in the end.Well the hose and drogue method behind a KC-30A allows one KC-30A to refuel two fighter aircraft simultaneously whereas a boom can only accomodate one aircraft at a time, so there is a benefit there.
Whether that benefit is worth the cost of paying for the probe to be added to the -A model is one of the reasons why the NACC project office people get paid to do what they do I expect...
GF, I don't believe the integration of the probe has actually been undertaken on the -A model yet, which is of course another reason why there wouldn't be one on any development articles...
According to what I have read, a Boom can offload up to 6,500 lbs per min and a Hose/drouge offload is 1500-2000 lbs per min.
So at the end of the day, an aircraft fitted with a boom will only do one aircraft at a time, but at much faster rate.
And an an aircraft with two house drouge units can do two receiver aircraft at a time, but at a rate which is around a quater to a third of the rate of the boom.
Sounds to me like it all evens out at the end of the day!!
OpinionNoted
Banned Member
yep and replaced them with super hornets.
Depends on the aircraft being refuelled.
A boom is undoubtedly superior for refuelling large aircraft such as transports. You can only refuel one at a time whatever method you use, and the higher fuel transfer rate is useful and usable.
For smaller aircraft, such as fighters, most of the advantages of the boom disappear, & the advantages of hoses become important, because fuel transfer rates are limited at both ends. Each aircraft has a maximum receiving rate, & for smaller aircraft, that is less than the maximum transfer rate of a boom. High rate hoses (not all hoses are the same - & nor are all booms) can refuel tactical aircraft as fast as they can take it in.
Helicopters can only use hoses, so if you want to refuel them, you need hose-equipped aircraft able to fly slow enough.
Swerve addressed it better, but tactical aircraft can only receive fuel at a flow rate much lower than a boom can handle. The maximum rate of fuel flow that fighters can receive is easily covered by hose and drogue refuellers.
USAF uses all booms because they have so many large aircraft that require higher fuel flow rates than fighters do.
However even a boom refueller can attach a hose and drag style refuelling attachment as the below photo shows. Not sure whether the KC-30A could actually refuel 3 fighters simultaneously but I suspect not due to turbulent "dirty" air and flight safety issues behind the refueller, but if they could however a KC-30A could potentially refuel 3x probe equipped F-35A's at the same time...
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/fighter/f18/f18_47.jpg
A bit of RAAF news around today.
2 more Super Hornets have safely arrived at RAAF Base Amberley bringing our number of in-service Rhinos to 20. The remaining 4 are to be delivered by December:
Defence Ministers » Minister for Defence Materiel – Two more Super Hornets arrive in Australia
And it seems the AGM-158 JASSM project is coming along nicely. Seems the Hornets have now conducted two operational live fire testings of JASSM's and no major problems have been discovered. IOC is intended for some time in December 2011.
RAAF Hornet fighters to be armed with Joint Air to Surface Stand-off Missile | The Australian
RAAF's combat capability seems to be coming along quite nicely now and should be awesome for next year's series of exercises...
2 more Super Hornets have safely arrived at RAAF Base Amberley bringing our number of in-service Rhinos to 20. The remaining 4 are to be delivered by December:
Defence Ministers » Minister for Defence Materiel – Two more Super Hornets arrive in Australia
And it seems the AGM-158 JASSM project is coming along nicely. Seems the Hornets have now conducted two operational live fire testings of JASSM's and no major problems have been discovered. IOC is intended for some time in December 2011.
RAAF Hornet fighters to be armed with Joint Air to Surface Stand-off Missile | The Australian
RAAF's combat capability seems to be coming along quite nicely now and should be awesome for next year's series of exercises...
Regarding the JASSM was the reason it was picked over the TAURUS (better range) based on interoperability with the US/better integration with JSF?
John Newman
The Bunker Group
Interesting comparison to think about:
A Classic Hornet (shorter range) with a JASSM (approx 400km range) vs a Super Hornet (longer range) with JSOW (100-130km range). Does the strike range end up being about the same?
Be interesting if we eventually move to the JASSM-ER (approx 1000km range) and have F35A's, and if the Super Hornets are kept, equipped.
If those aircraft were supported by tankers that would be a reasonably long range deterrent until the Navy eventually gets its new AWD's, Frigates and Subs equipped with cruise missiles.
Has anyone seen the max life estimate we can get out of a core group of hornets ?
I know the last one upgraded was done in 2009 and its said we need 42 in service
I know its premature, but worse case, the us report this year and our risk assessment next year shows that a gap may develop and the SH needs to be considered
using the US ~2018 IOC and adding 5 years to it for risk is ~2023 before all the Hornets can be retired and an extra 5 years life for them
so worst case and we cant get enough life out of an all hornet fleet
given that the USN can run 1 SH with 4-5 Hornets working off the SH sensors
what would be a sensible gap plan for aus if our core group of 42 Hornets wont last
my thought is to supplement with 12 SH with 8 on high tempo to work with 30-35 active Hornets, if a possibility and probably an increase in over all capability
I know the last one upgraded was done in 2009 and its said we need 42 in service
I know its premature, but worse case, the us report this year and our risk assessment next year shows that a gap may develop and the SH needs to be considered
using the US ~2018 IOC and adding 5 years to it for risk is ~2023 before all the Hornets can be retired and an extra 5 years life for them
so worst case and we cant get enough life out of an all hornet fleet
given that the USN can run 1 SH with 4-5 Hornets working off the SH sensors
what would be a sensible gap plan for aus if our core group of 42 Hornets wont last
my thought is to supplement with 12 SH with 8 on high tempo to work with 30-35 active Hornets, if a possibility and probably an increase in over all capability
I would say that the Hornet / JASSM combo has the longer striking range off hand. JASSM's got at least a 200k maximum range advantage over the JSOW but unlike an aircraft the missile only has to fly one way, the Super Hornet would have to fly each way to makeup that difference, so in pure strike as far as you can scenarios I suspect the Hornet and the longer ranging missile has it won.
Of course there are a heap of other factors that go into such an equation so this is all speculative at best.
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Will the JASSM be fitted on the Super Hornet?
I haven't heard anything to that effect, although surely the potential is there if it's considered necessary. Another possible candidate for a standoff weapon on the Supers would be the JSOW-ER (Raytheon's website states a range of 300 nautical miles), although I don't know what's been happening with that in terms of development or funding.
Does anyone know which block/variant of the Harpoon missile is currently in use with the RAAF? I saw a Harpoon hanging off one of the RAAF Super Hornets at Avalon earlier this year, and from what I understand such a weapon (depending on the type used) could provide some standoff capability, though of course not to the same extent as something like JASSM...
It's just speculation but I'm of the view that the chances of JASSM being integrated onto the Supers will probably be pretty low unless something drastic happens to the classic Hornet fleet in the meantime. I don't know if Australia will need much more strike capability prior to the F-35 coming online...
The JSOW-ER is still in dvelopment, it isn't a proper missile either, more like a boosted glide weapon if that makes sense? It would take forever to fly it's stated range by missile standards and would seem to have very little ability to maneuvre in the face of potential threats.
ADF updated it's Harpoon missile stocks to the Block II version a couple of years back and since then has only bought Block II variants. Whilst it has some la d attack capability I doubt it would be a preferred option.
I'm pretty sure the Supers are intended to get SDB in a few years and these have significant standoff range and will improve our strike capability, plus they are intended to get our new anti-ship missile system in a few years which may have significant land attack depending on the chosen system, but otherwise I doubt things will change much.
It's not as if the 130k ranged JSOW is bad. It remains the longest ranged air launched weapon we've ever had in-service IIRC (until JASSM anyway)...
weegee
Active Member
Indonesia's KF-X
Hi guys, when i have been looking around the net I found this:
Indonesia To Get 50 KF-X South Korea's Fighter Jets ~ ASIAN DEFENCE NEWS
Do you think this is starting to worry the RAAF top brass? if countries like Indo are starting to get supposed 5th gen aircraft, and with the delays on the F35 and our Fa/18 starting to reach their age limit. Are we going to loose our "air superiority" in our region?
Or are we still despite what everyone has been saying in the press, still going to get our 100 f35's eventually we just might have to supplement them with super hornets for a while?
For an Military idiot like myself it is so hard to really understand what's going on with the F35, on one hand you see that the project is flying along (excuse the pun) with test flights all way ahead of schedule with no major problems, but then you see that the project seems to be way over budget and its should be scraped and possibly that the US could reduce their numbers even bla bla bla all this seems to come from the neigh sayers that never seemed to really want the plane anyway. Its hard to see the truth so basically I just want to know will we see the mythical 100 aircraft that was spoke about early on? Or even a number that will replace our Hornets 1 for 1?
Also why did we not commit more money to the project? we are supposedly committing to buy or place one of the larger orders for the plane yet we are only a tier 3 partner with one of the lower contributions it seems?
Hi guys, when i have been looking around the net I found this:
Indonesia To Get 50 KF-X South Korea's Fighter Jets ~ ASIAN DEFENCE NEWS
Do you think this is starting to worry the RAAF top brass? if countries like Indo are starting to get supposed 5th gen aircraft, and with the delays on the F35 and our Fa/18 starting to reach their age limit. Are we going to loose our "air superiority" in our region?
Or are we still despite what everyone has been saying in the press, still going to get our 100 f35's eventually we just might have to supplement them with super hornets for a while?
For an Military idiot like myself it is so hard to really understand what's going on with the F35, on one hand you see that the project is flying along (excuse the pun) with test flights all way ahead of schedule with no major problems, but then you see that the project seems to be way over budget and its should be scraped and possibly that the US could reduce their numbers even bla bla bla all this seems to come from the neigh sayers that never seemed to really want the plane anyway. Its hard to see the truth so basically I just want to know will we see the mythical 100 aircraft that was spoke about early on? Or even a number that will replace our Hornets 1 for 1?
Also why did we not commit more money to the project? we are supposedly committing to buy or place one of the larger orders for the plane yet we are only a tier 3 partner with one of the lower contributions it seems?
Korea's original plan called fro the KF-X to be a 5Gen aircraft. They appear to have realized that this is a tad bit ambitious for an indigenous design so they have scaled back the requirements to that of an advanced 4Gen jet. Assuming it even gets built and assuming some future conflict vs. F-35, just on a 1vs.1 basis it would be no contest in favor of the Lightning-II. Now factor in all the other Oz qualitative advantages in manpower and systems, joint assets, etc. and it gets even more lopsided. I think you can sleep peacefully tonite.
Lmao.I think you can sleep peacefully tonite.
...
I got two unrelated questions, and both extremely different from each other.
1. To deploy a full fighter squadron, do you need three in total (for the whole concept with one deployed for every three total)? Or is it just two?
and
2. My friend is currently looking at becoming a fighter pilot (more than looking) he has joined the cadets and everything. And I have been explaining to him the benefits of going to the ADFA and then RMC together, instead of just a uni in our area (he is talking about going to Griffith Uni for a Bachelor of Aviation) and then RMC.
What is the benefits of going to a regular uni/ADFA (his main reason is to get more time with his friends and family)? As I hear the time spent at the RMC can be cut down if you've been to the ADFA. Is this true?