Posted on 06/22/2006 9:37:11 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
RAAF's new fighters 'already obsolete'
June 16, 2006 - 5:29PM
AdvertisementThe RAAF's next generation of air fighters could be as outclassed as propeller-driven aircraft in the days of jets, the Parliamentary Library has found.
In a recent report into the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the library said it was likely the project would become more expensive and that other aircraft would do the same job more cheaply.
And it warned that developments in unmanned aircraft could make the JSF effectively obsolete.
Australia is one of eight countries to have signed up with the United States to develop and buy Lockheed Martin's $US276 billion ($A374.92 billion) F-35 JSF.
Australia is hopeful of buying about 100 of the aircraft at about $100 million each, to replace the ageing F/A-18 and F-111.
But the library, which canvassed the JSF, the alternative F-22 Raptor and also the F-15 (being purchased by South Korea), found Australia's decision may have been a poor one.
It found the cost of the F-22 was likely to come down to that of the JSF, while the JSF is likely to become more expensive.
The F-15 was found to have almost all the same features of the JSF, except some of the aircraft's stealth capabilities.
But even those stealth capabilities were played down, as Australia would only get aircraft which much lower stealth abilities than those flown by the United States Air Force.
And by the time Australia plans to take control of its JSFs, in around 2015, unmanned strike fighters could only be a few years away.
"Like the last of the propeller-driven fighter planes, the JSF's day may pass before the aircraft even soars into the sky in RAAF livery," it said.
The library said there had to be questions over whether the number of JSFs expected to be built would be.
It said America's use of the F-22, and the development of an unmanned fighter, would cancel out the need for some of the planned 2,400 US JSFs.
Already Australia is budgeting around $15.5 billion for the JSF project - a $3.5 billion increase in recent years.
The library said this cost would continue to blow out.
"It is clear that the JSF will most likely become much more costly by the time it is delivered and fully effective," it said.
The report comes as the US and its JSF partners, including Australia, have made an in principle agreement on the project's plans.
Included in a draft pact were statements of intent by the non-US countries to buy a combined total of 710 F-35s, said Kathy Crawford, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon program office involved.
"It's one step closer to finalising partnerships that will last 40 years or more," she said.
An agreement on the draft memorandum of understanding was reached last week in Williamsburg, Virginia, Crawford said. The pact also covers how the aircraft would be maintained and upgraded over their projected 40 year lifespan.
The Pentagon hopes a formal pact will be signed by all the partners in mid-December.
The first of the JSFs are supposed to be delivered to the US in 2009.
Other partner countries, and their expected number of aircraft, include Italy (131), the Netherlands (85), Turkey (100), Norway (48), Denmark (48) and Canada (60).
© 2006 AAP
Really?
That caught mey eye too!
Any idea what this 'Parliamentary Library' is all about??
Uh-huh... How far is Australia going to kick this can down the road? Those F-111's have got to be difficult to keep in the air.
While I think that the armed UCAV may show promise in the strike role who can say when that technology will mature? A2A is likely the last thing that a UCAV will be able to do, so anything that they buy in this area will not be "multi-role".
Is there a reason that the raptor can't be navalized? I mean aside from p-oing the jsf folks and scaring the world. As an aside imagine the world reaction if we decided off-hand instead of 180 f-22's we were going maximize prodution efficiency and make 1000-2000 including navalized versions. I almost think that may be the reason we aren't doing it...we are powerful enough without scaring the bejebuss out of everybody. Just a silly theory of course.
Short answer. F-22 is too heavy.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/natf.htm
Thanks. That makes sense. In 1991 they decided that they didn't want to study changing the internal weopons bay to hold less weapons and junking the thrust vectoring, and other stuff I don't understand fully to save weight (my own uniformed interpretation, of course).
"Stealth"
They keep downingrading the expectations of how stealthy it will be.
Sounds like big time boondoggle.
I remember reading that the "Have Blue" prototype for the F-117 was very stealthy, but that was before the finish-design for the F-117. There was an entire program to make the actual production model as stealthy as the prototype. When you think about the real-deal has a lot more stuff projecting from it, more access/service panels, etc. and so forth.
Unmanned craft can make all manned fighter craft obsolete, assuming C&C is secure (a large assumption).
"It found the cost of the F-22 was likely to come down to that of the JSF, while the JSF is likely to become more expensive."
Somehow I don't believe It.
It's a section of the administration of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia that, among other things, carries out research for Members of that Parliament.
I don't know the details in this case, but some Member of Parliament probably asked the Library to gather together all the information they could about the F35 and they would have done that - and they're good. They would, under normal circumstances, track down every single article ever published on the F35 and compile them into a dossier. Naturally this would include any article written that's critical of the F35 - it would also include any article that's positive, neutral, talks about the F35 being 'kewl', or anything.
And then a newspaper gets the dossier and only mentions the negative aspects.
I don't remember who pointed this out, but the proper response for the MSM to any military buy is
1) Malign the need for the program.
2) Malign the particular item being bought as inferior to others.
3) Malign the purchasing process as corrupt.
4) Malign the final award as improper.
5) Malign the particular item as obsolete before it's bought.
"I remember as a little kid watching 60 minutes run a piece on the new A-10 Warthog. Some years ago to say the least. They ripped it as a total waste of time and money and even had a few military men interviewed who agreed. They claimed it would be the most ineffective weapon on the battlefield.
Imagine that."
Good thing the U.S. didn't waste any money on THAT stinker. /sarc
Just thought I'd add that in the late 1970s the Carter Administration was considering the F-14/15 and F-16s obsolete. THey halted the B-1 program altogether.
This is just one reason why Jiminy Carter and his administration are jokes and by-words for incompetence.
Remember their ripping the M1 Abrams also?
They never found a weapon they didn't dislike.
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