Australian Aviation’s November 2006 article on the Hornet Centre Barrel program raises a few red flags.
Firstly, there’s no doubt the F/A-18 Hornet has served Australia well in the two decades it’s been in service. It is the first true multirole jet aircraft to be operated by the RAAF, being equally adept in the strike or fighter roles. Pilots pretty much universally like and respect the aircraft for its manoeuvrability, robust construction and redundancy of systems, while its maintenance and engineering staff appreciate its ability to self-diagnose and enjoy the ease of access to critical systems.
However, the Hornet is not a dogfighter in the class of, say, the F-15. And, it will never, no matter how many tankers or support aircraft you back it up with, be a strike aircraft in the class of the F-111C. It’s 70 or 80 per cent of both – a true blue collar toiler, but not what you’d put in the ‘top tier’ of any one discipline.
Some industry commentators (and more than a few current aircrews) say Australia is selling itself short by upgrading the Hornet now before “settling” for the JSF next decade, when there are arguably better alternatives available now. They question why we should continue to accept the label of “blue collar air force” while the government racks up budget surplus after surplus, year after year.
“We need the best, because our guys are the best, and they deserve the best,” one former pilot commented recently, hinting that the JSF, although perhaps the 21st century equivalent of the F/A-18, certainly isn’t what he would call “the best.”
Although the program is well down the road and has been, apart from the decision to acquire the ALR-2002 EW kit, on the whole quite successful, many observers openly question the value for money of the Hornet Upgrade Program (HUG).
They say all it is doing is reconstituting an ageing aircraft rather than restoring the RAAF as the regional capability benchmark. The ADF counters by saying HUG will restore the F/A-18’s capability to a more relevant regional level until the F-35 comes online, due from 2014.
These debates are never simple, and there are some very informed minds inside and outside Defence working the issue. But in simple terms the costs in heading down the present track are hard to see past, or around for that matter: $16 billion for the JSF, plus another $3.5 billion for HUG, leaving very little change out of $20 billion (and that’s in present day dollars). That sort of money certainly buys a lot of alternatives, from the $80 million F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to the $200+ million F-22A Raptor.
The Super Hornet is everything the RAAF’s current Hornet is striving to, and yet, will never be. It will always carry more, carry it further, will have better networking and sensors, and will last another 20 or more years. However, can we honestly say it will be a ‘day one’ relevant fighter in the year 2025? Probably not is the likely answer.
But the more information that comes out about the F-22 Raptor, the more impressive its capabilities seem, and perhaps more importantly, the greater its future potential.
It’s probably unbeatable in the air-to-air arena, but it’s not what you would call a multirole fighter ... yet. But regardless of how many the USAF ends up getting, (although more than the meagre 183 currently on order is not out of the question), you can bet the true capabilities of the jet will be exploited fully through continuous upgrades in the years and decades to come.
The F-22 is not the sole solution to the F/A-18 and F-111 replacement conundrum, but it deserves more consideration than it is currently receiving, at least as far as the public debate goes anyway – one suspects there are people in senior positions in the RAAF and DMO keeping their ears very close to the ground on progress with the F-22.
The F-111 has only ever been used ‘operationally’ once by the RAAF, and then ostensibly in a reconnaissance capacity during the dark days of the Timor crisis in
1999. But they have provided Australia with arguably the most potent conventional deterrent we could ever have wished for during a period of political instability in our region. Now, the F-22, also with a controversial gestation behind it, has the potential to have the same effect, whereas few would argue the F-35 ever will. Following the F-35-only path means we forego such a ‘big stick’ insurance policy like that provided by the F-111, regardless of the likelihood of its potential future use.
The US Congress’s decision in October to not make the F-22 available to foreign operators can only be taken at face value, but one suspects the result would be a different one if a formal government to government or Prime Minister to President approach was to be made.
And funny that we have multiple transport aircraft types (C-17 to Hercules to Caribou) and multiple helicopter types to suit different missions, but that the one-size-fits-all model is being adopted for the fast jet force – arguably the ADF’s most vital capability.
But for now the politics of the fighter debate means little official deviation from the F-35 line.
