Saw a Army Pilatus Porter land and take off from a rugby pitch at Watsonia barracks back in the 80's
Can appreciate the Long Green at Watsonia supporting a Turbo Porter, especially without the later married patch at the end. The take-off run of around 200m was one of its best attributes (just like the STOL of the DHC-4 Caribou).
There is a reason why I included the word, "airlifter," as that is rather significant. As I understand it, the self-defence and countermeasures suites for battlefield airlifter roles are no long really being developed which is why the RAAF C-27J's are now no longer really able to operate outside of "safe" areas, i.e. in & around Australia.
That sometimes happens if the article is short enough.
At an airshow at Kingaroy saw a Caribou do a touch and go pass along the runway on only its nose wheel, followed by a Chinook doing the same but on only its tail wheels.
Leonardo announced on 7th March 2023 that the Italian Air Force had signed a contract for upgrading of the C-27J's avionics, including the self-protection suite. It's also been said that'll be applied to the EW versions, & development of an armed version has received funding.
This is what Canada is doing in this space with their refueller fleets. part new and part second hand airframes. Canada buying four new Airbus A330 MRTT tankers
The five used A330s bought for conversion have low hours (one positive for COVID I guess) so they will be capable of long service, a mandatory requirement for stingy Canadian governments always trying to minimize defence modernization.
I would say the Canadian Government went looking for up to nine 2nd hand late generation A-330s, knowing there are a lot of airliners parked due to the downturn caused by Covid, are able to find five, that fit the requirement of being of the current generation and are topping the numbers up with new build aircraft. The same aircraft being 10-15 years younger than the current RAAF KC-30s would create a sub fleet for the RAAF.
Which isn’t necessarily the end of the world. Pretty much every large acquisition in the ADF will have sub-fleets to a degree. Surely we’d rather have more AAR, than just cross arms and go, “No thanks, it’s a different lot”.
How exactly would it be a subfleet?. Commercial aircraft outside of cabin layouts and some fitted with particular bells and whistles and others bare bones are largely uniform for decades at a time. Same engines, electronics, parts etc built year after year after year. Unless you go for a an A330-neo you aren't actually going to end up with a subfleet unless the AAR fit out it self is changed (Which usually always involves upgrades to older models to bring them up to a uniform standard across various assets in all services)
Given the differing ages over the existing RAAF KC30s, whilst outwardly identical, a younger airframe would generate a separate maintenance programme for a start, also, RAAF KC30s have GE engines whilst the most common is the RR. Given the current post Covid rebound, how many unwanted GE powered A330-200s are there available for conversion? I do not know; however, you certainly would not want 7 aircraft with GE and 2 with something else.
That's not how works, the larger and more complex a platform, the less identical they can possibly be, that's why configuration management exists. There will always be physical differences, if not tracked and understood you can't maintain, let alone operate an asset.
Yeah I don’t see it’s as a major issue. Anything built 10 years after the first is going to have variances. I just hoped was more than an extra 2 to bring the entire fleet to the original requirement which is think was 12.
I know the 2016 DWP identified a requirement for nine (9), I cannot recollect any requirement for 12 though.
Look how much a car of the same make and model changes in 10 years. Aircraft are far more complex.