If Australia is crazy enough to sign on for the gold-plated U.S.-made Lockheed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in an era of global economic meltdown, Defence will have a lot of explaining to do.
Let’s forget for a moment some of the more obvious facts that the jet will be Australia’s most expensive Defence purchase in history at $16 billion dollars for less than 75 aircraft. Let’s also forget that this aircraft has very little flight testing done on it and is yet to prove that all of its fancy high-tech war gadgets will work. Let’s forget that costs on the program keep climbing and schedules keep slipping. Let’s forget that this aircraft is not a total air-superiority machine and is mostly a tactical bomber designed to hang around and plink ground targets from middle to low altitudes. Let’s forget that Australia is being led like sheep to the slaughter by an arms industry that has the main goal of making the sale. Let’s forget that the Taliban, Australia’s current enemy, doesn’t even have an air force. Let’s forget all that and more.
If the F-35 does manage to squeak by all of those challenges and get deployed by the RAAF, remember the following: a recent US study states that the F-35 is twice as loud as current fighter aircraft designs.
Australian Defence has known about F-35 noise excess since 2002 when it received some expert advice on the topic. However, Defence leadership would rather keep quiet on this until it is too late to complain. The person that will make the big decision next year on whether Australia should go with the F-35, Defence Minister Fitzgibbon, may doom an area near his home district to serious noise pollution if he gives the nod to the purchase.
RAAF Williamtown north of Newcastle could very well end up upsetting residents. Some of the communities and planned developments around Williamtown will be at risk, even though they are outside the current noise contours. The influences of F-35 noise will be attached to both the Williamtown Airbase (and Airport) as well as the Salt Ash Range areas to the North. Areas like Port Stephens, Nelsons Bay, Tanilba Bay, Raymond Terrace, King Hill, Swan Bay, Medowie, Anna Bay, Karuah, Ferodale. This carries the real risk of stifling property value and the resulting community development even though housing is a vital issue for Defence and the future of Williamtown.
The top salesman for the Lockheed Martin F-35 project, Tom Burbage will be in Australia again soon to give another rose-coloured glasses briefing. Recently Burbage made a sales pitch to the Dutch on the F-35. The last slide mentioned that the noise issue was an “urban myth”. The F-35 noise studies done by the U.S. and by Australian Defence for the Williamtown area disagree.
Australian residents near future F-35 bases should demand answers from their elected representatives. The Australian Parliament should be asking Tom Burbage to provide the truth and not flowery sales hype on the F-35 project before it hands over any money. The Defence community isn’t being honest about the F-35 to the Australian public.
The first buy of F-35s is planned at 75. 100 if all goes well. Given the price slips and schedule slips, it’s doubtful that the price will stay as planned.
When you look at the lowered value of the Australian dollar, you are probably looking at less than 75 for $16B.
Given that there is so much flight testing left to do, I doubt a year is enough.
Consider that the Development phase just slipped again, from 2013 to 2014. About that time they will have just the basics figured out. And well it has a lot more software than an F-22… by far. I figure we are in for more slips on that. They have already watered down the definition of a Block I, 2 and 3 F-35 from what it was in 2006.
Unfortunately, because Defence pulled the rug out from Air 6000 years ago, they made sure that “nothing better is available.” Of course if this turkey falls flat on its face, we will be left with aging Hornets and the Kingswood of new fighters: The Sub-par Hornet. That is best left for another time.
I brought up the Taliban not so much because of what I think, but what a whole bunch of other people think. As you may agree, there are a whole variety of views on what constitutes good long term strategy. Some actually think that there is little air-to-air threat in the future. Yet the big point here is that the Australian taxpayer is asked to throw out gobs of cash on big boys toys and very few of them are going to be used in OPERATION: Useless Dirt (Afcrapistan). Kind of a big disconnect there if that is the big enemy of Australia. A goofed up UAV contract, Helicopters without proper defensive gear against MANPADS, attack helos that won’t be doing much in a hot-n-high like Aghanistan if ever it even shows up (I’m lookin at you Tiger). And on and on. At least Defence still has the crown jewel hard fighting spirit of infantry/SAS. But we have always had that haven’t we? The Just So Farcical may ruin us.
Dumb mistakes? I meant the Danes not the Dutch. Duh. My fault.
There’s quite a few things wrong with this article, and the lack of basic fact checking in articles like this is one of the main reasons I didn’t renew my subscription to Crikey.
* The Australian Government is planning to buy about 100 F-35s for $16 billion, not 75 as stated
* The aircraft is currently in flight-testing and the Government won’t be making a decision to buy it until next year, when it’s in a better position to make an informed decision about the plane’s capabilities and how many aircraft it can afford
* No-one is forgetting that the F-35 isn’t primarily an air superiority aircraft: this is in the media most weeks, and the RAAF doesn’t seem too fussed – probably because it hasn’t fought an air battle since the Korean war, the F-35’s air to air capabilities are adequate for its needs and nothing better is available.
* If the need to structure the ADF to fight the Taliban is the main determinant of the RAAFs needs, why is the author worried about the F-35 not being a good dogfighter? – surely a ” tactical bomber designed to hang around and plink ground targets from middle to low altitudes” is suitable for this kind of warfare?
It would be a rolling disaster for Australia if the Rudd Government follows the lead of the Howard Government on this potentially dangerous and disastrous choice of F-18 replacement. I strongly support the opinions of the RAAF experts who have advised against the purchase of the incredibly expensive F-35 for our future fighter-bomber and have clearly stated their choice of the demonstrably superior F-22 Raptor’.
Surely we need the aircraft which will be capable of taking on and beating the Russian fighters our neighbors will be purchasing.
It seems bad enough to waste any money on upgrading Australia’s defense fighters, but it’s sheer stupidity to go for a Vertical takeoff & Landing aircraft .Talk about buying toys for boys, maybe we need them to look after the rusty M1 tanks we bought.