Australia Plans To Review Air Combat Capabilities
By GREGOR FERGUSON
SYDNEY ? Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon will soon commission a sweeping review of the Royal Australian Air Force?s (RAAF) future air combat capability options, including the planned October decision to buy up to 100 F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, a source close to Fitzgibbon said Jan. 2.
Under review will be RAAF plans to spend some 20 billion Australian dollars ($17.6 billion) over 10 years to replace 21 F-111C strike aircraft, 71 F/A-18A/B Hornets and its last Boeing 707 tanker with F-35As, six Boeing Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) aircraft, five Airbus KC-30B tanker/ transports, and a new ground-based, air-defense command-and-control system.
The review also will look at the 2006 decision to spend 6 billion Australian dollars to buy 24 F/A-18F Super Hornet Block 2 fighters from the U.S. Navy to prevent a capability gap when the F-111s retire around 2010.
Neither the scope nor the schedule is final, but the review likely will be done by midyear so that it can inform a defense white paper that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd?s new Labor government plans to publish late this year or in early 2009.
The review also will help the Australian Cabinet assess the costs and risks associated with the F-35A, which is scheduled for so-called 2nd Pass Approval by the Cabinet in October. Under Australia?s two-stage procurement system, 2nd Pass Approval gives the RAAF the green light to order the aircraft.
In November, Fitzgibbon said, ?I can?t envisage a circumstance where we wouldn?t remain ... committed to the JSF. Having said that, we have a responsibility to ensure we?re getting value for money, and that the final product is capable of meeting the government?s and the country?s requirements.?
But Fitzgibbon has criticized the Super Hornet buy for its cost and the lack of a clear process in identifying a capability requirement and then selecting a suitable aircraft.
Some Australian analysts and media commentators, including Melbourne-based think tank Air Power Australia, argue the F-35A and Super Hornet lack payload, range, performance, stealth and agility. Instead, they advocate buying the F-22A Raptor to counter the high-performance, Russian-designed Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-30 fighter-bombers, which are proliferating within the region, and extending the lives of the RAAF?s long-range F-111 to preserve a vital strategic deterrent.
The air power options review must start with the fundamentals, analysts say.
?The first thing you need to do is decide what range of missions we need to carry out successfully,? said Andrew Davies, program director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Canberra. ?Once you?ve done that, you can decide whether you?re in the market for top-end specialized capabilities [like the F-22A] or for a well-performing multirole aircraft [like the F-35A]. We don?t have the resources to be able to do everything, so we need to decide what?s most important.?
Critical enabling capabilities such as the RAAF?s future tankers and AEW&C aircraft must be part of the review as well, Davies said, along with the RAAF?s air power doctrine: For example, will just five tankers and six Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft be enough?
Defense analyst Ross Babbage of the Kokoda Foundation think tank, Canberra, said Fitzgibbon wants to settle the air power debate so his department can get on with preparing the new white paper.
Babbage said he would be surprised if the F-35A decision is overturned, that the Super Hornet purchase could be endangered and that Australia won?t buy Raptors.
?The F-22 is not going to happen,? he said. ?It doesn?t make any sense at all [for Australia] in terms of its capability and affordability ? and it isn?t available for export.?
The F-22A?s technology is in many areas quite old, Babbage said, and it is designed for a narrower set of roles than the F-35A.
?If you had an extra billion dollars to spend [on Project Air 6000] ... I?d rather buy more JSFs and tankers because they provide more flexibility for what we want to do,? he said.
Meanwhile, analysts believe the future of the Super Hornet likely depends on the Australian government?s assessment of the cost of, and possible delays to, the JSF program: the greater the risk that JSF deliveries to the RAAF will be delayed beyond 2013-14, the greater the need for a ?bridging fighter? to seal off a potential capability gap.
The head of the Super Hornet acquisition program, Group Capt. Steve Roberton, said in December, he is ?absolutely confident that the Super Hornet [Block II] will more than match the Su-30 family beyond the middle of the next decade,? while the U.S. Navy and Boeing are working on spiral developments to maintain its combat edge well beyond that time.
Boeing Vice President Bob Gower told reporters in Canberra in December that the current Super Hornet Block II design is based on threat analyses beyond 2024, and that the U.S. Navy is confident it can overcome known threats through about 2020. In terms of pure war-fighting capability, he said, it will be superior to the F-35 family until the latter?s Block III avionics and mission system become available in the next decade. ?
E-mail:
gferguson@defensenews.com.
