Volume 48, No. 14, August 10, 2006
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LOOK TO THE FUTURE: US Air Force Chief of Staff GEN T. Michael Moseley at the unveiling of the F-35 JSF. Moseley officially named the stealth jet Lightning II, after two historic fighters: the Lockheed P-38 of WWII, and the supersonic English Electric Lightning jet developed in the 1950s.
Photo courtesy Lockheed Martin.
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THE ADF has been investigating the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as a replacement for the F-111 and FA-18 aircraft since 2002.
With Australia’s deadline to commit to the JSF program fast approaching, media attention is increasing.
Director General New Air Combat Capability AIRCDRE John Harvey sets the record straight in this extract from a recent media interview.
Q. Are we going to run into a problem because, in terms of air superiority, other nations in the region have access to various aircraft being built by the Russians and others that could out-manoeuvre and out-fly them?
A. For beyond visual range combat, the JSF’s combination of stealth, advanced sensors, data-links and weapons means that it will be superior to any regional threats. For within visual range combat, the main determinants of success are: agility of the missile, the sensor/cueing systems and countermeasures.
The JSF has the best situational awareness of any exisiting or planned fighter aircraft (even better than the F-22) because of an extensive range of sensors and fusion of the data from all its own and other flight members’ sensors (sensors include the JSF-unique distributed aperture system - six electro-optic sensors that provide full spherical sensor coverage).
The aircraft is designed to meet future threats and all the modelling we’ve done supports the assessment that the JSF will allow Australia to maintain regional air superiority, even when significantly outnumbered.
Q. On the stealth side, there was some reporting in the press that the stealth characteristics of the aircraft have been downgraded.
A. There has been no downgrading of JSF stealth characteristics. This issue came up when one letter was changed on one PowerPoint slide on a publicly released document from the JSF Project Office. It read LO instead of VLO as a result of a security classification issue at the time. The slide has been changed back to VLO. The aircraft has been and always will be a very low observable aircraft.
Q. How stealthy is this aircraft when compared to a true stealth fighter?
A. The JSF is a true stealth fighter. There are only two out there, the F-22 and the JSF. Specific capabilities in terms of radar are highly classified.
Q. Issues have been raised about technology and usability. Do you have concerns?
A. The Minister for Defence has made it clear that we won’t enter the next phase of the JSF program until we have assured access to technology and data necessary to operate and support the JSF. We are confident that those assurances will be given and we are working closely with the US to specify what we need.
In terms of the software, we’re confident we’ll get what we need to operate and support the aircraft. The key point is to make sure we don’t diverge from the common US system. It’s critical for interoperability reasons and important for cost reasons.
Q. Do you think the negative publicity over the last 12 months or so has been unjustified or that the points that have been made are reasonable and have been worked through since?
A. I think it’s only fair that the project gets a lot of attention: it’s Australia’s largest-ever defence project and it’s critical to the future security of Australia. But I think people jump on any perceived negative issues too quickly and haven’t really focused on the many positives that are out there.
There are also many issues that have been incorrectly reported, for example, the stealth issue I discussed earlier.
Cost is another area which is often incorrectly reported because of its complexity. There are a range of issues relating to what reference currency is used, what reference year is used, when aircraft are acquired in the program, what the ‘system’ costs are versus aircraft costs, and the different costs of the three variants that are not well understood or reported.
Q. What do you say to people who are vocal in their belief that we should be buying the F-22 and keeping the F-111 indefinitely?
A. There are two parts to this. First is recognition that the F-22 can’t do the whole job — even its supporters say this — so you need the F-22 plus something else. The ‘plus something else’ proposed is the F-111. However, as CAF said, keeping the F-111 going beyond about 2010-2012 just becomes prohibitively expensive, and it’s best for us to decide when the F-111 retires, not to let it decide for us.
On the F-22, it’s incredibly expensive, at least twice the price of the JSF. It can do the air dominance task very well, but it can’t do what the JSF can do in the strike or the close air support role. So if you put all those factors together, the combination of the F-22 and the F-111 is just not as cost effective as the JSF.
Q. When can we expect a decision on the project?
A. A decision to acquire the aircraft is planned for late 2008 – this is what is called ‘Second Pass’. We will complete First Pass approval at the end of 2006 when we also hope to sign the MoU for the next phase of the program, covering production, sustainment and follow-on development.
Q. If Air Force goes ahead with the project, when can we expect to see the first JSF in Australia?
A. The plan is for the first aircraft for Australia to be delivered in 2012. That would allow us to achieve initial operational capability in 2014. We define that as the first JSF squadron ready for deployment for operations and we wouldn’t retire the first F/A18 squadron until JSF IOC was achieved.
The first aircraft may be used for some initial pilot training and operational testing in the US. The actual date of first deliveries is continually reviewed, taking into account program progress and managed in conjunction with F/A-18 withdrawal planning.
In the unlikely event that the JSF is not available when we need it, Defence will have fallback options in place to ensure maintenance of our air combat capability.
Q. How many aircraft would the Air Force need?
A. In terms of aircraft numbers, we try to take an effects-based approach — how many operational aircraft do we need to achieve what effect?
The current assessment is that we probably need four operational squadrons plus a training squadron. You start with the operational aircraft, you need aircraft in maintenance, you need training aircraft, you need attrition aircraft. By the time you put all that together you get towards 100 aircraft.
