New F/A-18F Super Hornet jets put us on war footing

The Australian ^ | March 27, 2010 | Jared Owens

[myknowledge]

AUSTRALIAN air power has taken "a quantum leap forward" with the delivery of five F/A-18F Super Hornets yesterday.

The five jets - the first of 24 - will tide the air force over until the arrival of the stealthy, fifth-generation F-35 joint strike fighter.

They are the first new Royal Australian Air Force jets since 1985 and will be based at the Amberley air base, west of Brisbane.

Speaking at the Super Hornets' official arrival yesterday, US Navy Rear Admiral Mark Skinner said the jets delivered new levels of "range, payload, lethality and survivability".

[myknowledge]

The RAAF takes delivery of its first Super Hornets. The Superbugs will equip the 1st fighter squadron at RAAF Amberley, QLD.

Wg. Cdr. Glen Braz is the squadron CO.

But federal MP and former defence scientist Dennis Jensen said the Super Hornet was actually a backward step in Australia's capability, lacking the manoeuvrability of the F-111.

"You can be tens of kilometres apart," Dr Jensen said yesterday.

"(In an F-111) you still have the option to engage if the conditions are favourable or disengage if the conditions aren't favourable."

He said the Super Hornet also failed to match comparable aircraft - such as the Russian-built Sukhoi Flanker - for speed, since it could not cruise at supersonic speed without using its afterburn.

Dennis Jensen is right, and so is Dr. Carlo Kopp about the Superbug.

It is no match for a Flanker in A2A combat. The Super Hornet lacks the raw power, T2W ratio and speed, along with heavier wing loading, of the Russian-designed air superiority fighter.

Australia should have instead acquired the F-22 Raptor, had the Obey Amendment be repealed in order to facilitate their export.

Along with some Silent Eagles.

[Yo-Yo]

The RAAF should have purchased F-15Es as their gap fillers to replace the F-111. The F-15E comes much closer to the F-111 in terms of payload, range, and endurance, than the F/A-18F does.

[exnavy]

5 Fighters is a “quantim leap”?

[exnavy]

Sorry, quantum

[Doc Savage]

I wired the Australian RAAF asking if it might be possible to use Washington, D.C. as a bombing training site. No reply yet.

[buccaneer81]

5 Fighters is a “quantim leap”?

Total order is 24. Australia only has 25 million people; only so many tax dollars to spend.

[myknowledge]

Unfortunately, Australia did not purchase any F-15A/B/C/D Eagles, unlike Japan, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

[buccaneer81]

I wired the Australian RAAF asking if it might be possible to use Washington, D.C. as a bombing training site. No reply yet.

I suggest Searchlight, NV, San Francisco, and the south side of Chicago.

[sionnsar]

I guess “war footing” means something different in Aussie than it does in ‘Murican’.

[buccaneer81]

Sarah’s Air Force there in the top photo.

[Yo-Yo]

I wired the Australian RAAF asking if it might be possible to use Washington, D.C. as a bombing training site. No reply yet.

Better yet, those five RAAF F/A-18s were supposed to make the ferry flight over to Australia by escorting Zero and Air Force One, before Dear Leader canceled his trip.

Too bad they didn't get to try out the AEAS radar's air-to-air mode.

[historyrepeatz]

That’s why he canceled it. LOL

[Vroomfondel]

ping

[Jack Hydrazine]

And the F-15 can go quite a bit faster than the F-18. Anywhere from Mach 1.2 to 2.5+ depending and altitude and loadout.

Maybe one of these days some bureaucrats will get their heads out of the sand and create the next gen F-14 Tomcat for the Navy.

[naturalman1975]

Yes, but the point is Australia has never needed to use the capability of the F-111. When we purchased it, it was purchased on the basis we needed a theoretical ability to drop an atomic bomb on Jakarta. We’ve never needed to, and that’s no longer a strategic consideration.

Describing the F-35 and the Super Hornets as a ‘replacement’ for the F-111 really gives a misleading impression. It just happens that the latest upgrade is coinciding with decommissioning of the F-111. Now it’s been decided what we need is primarily fighters (albeit with some ground attack capability) rather than needing any bombers.

[Yo-Yo]

Naturalman, I respect you and your opinions. However, I must disagree that your Air Force never used the capability of the F-111. You have no nuclear weapons, and never have. What you do have are a few widely scattered airbases to protect more coastline than the mainland United States.

The F-111C's long range, speed, and endurance were vital to your ability to intercept maritime targets in a timely manner. Air Power Australia has written many white papers (that I'm sure you've read) on the importance of the F-111 to the RAAF, and how inadequate either the F/A-18F or F-35A is at replacing that capability.

[naturalman1975]

Naturalman, I respect you and your opinions. However, I must disagree that your Air Force never used the capability of the F-111. You have no nuclear weapons, and never have. What you do have are a few widely scattered airbases to protect more coastline than the mainland United States.

Believe me I know we've never had nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, part of the reason the F-111 was order for the RAAF in 1963 was because it was considered essential Australia have the ability to deploy such weapons if needed. At the time British Commonwealth forces were fighting a war against Indonesia - a war that the United States was not involved in - and so Australia had to make plans around a theoretical possibility that at some point we might have to be capable of deterring a nation just off our northwest coast with over five times our population from attacking us, without necessarily being able to rely on American support.

In 1963, the British government was still carrying out nuclear weapons tests on Australian soil with the cooperation of the Australian government (major tests had ceased in 1957, but there were still minor, lesser known tests, taking place after that date). While we didn't have nuclear weapons of our own, if we'd decided we'd needed them, we could have potentially acquired them from the UK.

This was a contingency that was being planned for. It was pretty secret at the time, but like most such things it became public under the thirty years rule and so has been in the public domain since the early 1990s.

I am aware of what Air Power Australia and others have written and to an extent I agree with them. I didn't say I supported the Australian governments decision on this. I think it is short sighted just as it was in the 1980s to abandon our fixed wing Naval capacity. What I said was "it’s been decided what we need is primarily fighters". I did not say I agreed with that decision, but that is the decision that was taken. And that's the reason why the Super Hornets and the F-35 are what Australia is acquiring.

I should have said we never used the combat capability of the F-111, rather than say we never used its capabilities, but in referring to it as a bomber, I thought that was implied.

[naturalman1975]

Can only find accounts referring to this second hand, but I am pretty sure it was in Cabinet papers from the 1960s declassified in the 1990s, and that's where these articles are drawing their information from.

Australia gets tooled up with cruise

Jakarta tooks years to forgive Australia after the Menzies government "ordered the F-111 in 1963, with the specific instruction that it be capable of reaching Jakarta carrying nuclear weapons".

The China syndrome

In 2000, the previous white paper identified Indonesia as a potential point of concern and as far back as the 1960s the decision was made to buy the RAAF its F-111 bombers because they could carry nuclear weapons and had the range to bomb Jakarta.

In retrospect, that all seems bizarre, to say the least.

[AFreeBird]

I ran across an F-14 website a while back. Apparently Gruman had so e ideas for contituing the Tomcat. Essentially, technology was just starting to catch up with the capabilities of the airframe when they killed it.

[Yo-Yo]

All I was saying, and apparently you do agree, is that Australia didn't keep the F-111 around for 40 years just because it had the potential to nuke Jakarta. It kept it around that long for it's other capabilities, mainly maritime interdiction and long range strike.

It is those other capabilities that neither the F-35 nor the F/A-18F can fully replace, but the F-15E could come close. The F-15E replaced the F-111 in the US strike role for that reason, and South Korea and Singapore purchased the F-15K and -SG respectively for those roles.

I understand the decision not to introduce another airframe into the RAAF inventory, and the long term strategy that the F/A-18Fs will eventually replace your current F/A-18As, and as the F-35s come online.

I thought it would have been better in the long run if you purchased F-15Es to replace the F-111s, and retire F/A-18As as F-35s became available.

With the recent cost increases, you may find you're going to be purchasing more F/A-18Fs and fewer (if any?) F-35s.