F-18Fs for RAAF confirmed

[lancer83 0]

Wow some harsh words for the Super Hornet's. I fully understand the politcal bruh-ha-ha with international military sales, but I got to tell you I worked on the super hornet through its late development to its LRIP configuration for BLK 1. It is very capable it just had big shoes to fill in the U.S. Navy. It replaced both the F-14 and A-6 fleets. Remember gentlemen we are in an age of do more with less. Which sucks but is true. As far as the RAAF F-111's go F/A-18E/F's have more flexable mission usage. Also just a thought Marines love F-35B's because they hate Harriers. They love what they can do, but hate the maitenance and general pilot losses to training.

[PigDriver 0]

Pigsy, is that a confirmed skin for the Superdud? I remember seeing something similar (almost identical) on the cover of the Oz Aviation mag a couple months back...

Well, it's a Boeing artist's impression so I assume so.

[kct 5]

Good to hear that you guys are getting the Super Hornets over here (as much as I hate them, I do admire the work, no thanks to a documentary about the Super Hornet's development), considering the big fat lie that we have to live with over our MINDEF's proposal to bring over the Super Hornets (in exchange for the Hornets we have in service, that was the planned proposal). Let us say that it is a big joke and we decided to buy only the Su-30MKMs.

Edited March 31, 2008 by kct

[SayethWhaaaa 245]

(in exchange for the Hornets we have in service, that was the planned proposal)

 

I'd heard that too. In fact (not to bash Boeing or anything) I'd heard that they were starting to panic about the lack of export sales at one point that they were offering 1 for 1 trades to export customers, specifically Malaysia and then eventually us as well. I wonder why that didn't go through, that is, I wonder what scotched it, other than losing a crapload of $ on 1 for 1 trades for 70+ legacy Hornets... Because initially the idea was to only replace around half the fleet with Superduds, wasn't it?

[kct 5]

That is the problem when sales of military hardware to foreign customers were decided by the government (specifically, the US Congress). In fact, the Americans were reluctant to sell us some of their military hardware (like AAMRAMs and even the M4A1 carbine).

 

Well, it was pretty obvious that we are not on exactly "friendly" terms with the US Government at that time (post 2003), especially the way we criticize the Iraq War when it was started. Not to mention the Super Hornets were an afterthought (planned procurement of the Super Hornets were announced AFTER we are planning to get the Sukhois). Another reason for this was the current Hornets were designed to perform all-weather missions, the purchase of the Sukhois (being MRCAs) meant that the Hornets would be placed in a supporting role. Also, they were considering buying the Super Hornets as MRCAs too, so we would have a mixed fleet of MRCAs (Su-30MKMs + Super Hornets). It would be rather insane from a cost point of view to buy both, in the economic sense (although diversity would be good, but at these times...).

 

Another factor that came into this is that our government insisted that anyone that sells us military hardware MUST be obliged to perform technology transfer (believe me, this is the single most important factor in purchase of military hardware over here) so we could at least perform maintenance on the aircraft ourselves. This was the biggest factor that favoured the Russians, they are more than willing to perform technology transfer than US, who were afraid that some of their technology might fall into the wrong hands (ala Iran, but anyone would know better). The reason licence-manufacturing of the M4A1 carbine hit a snag was because the US Congress wanted a change in our foreign policy.

Edited March 31, 2008 by kct

[+EricJ 4,246]

Now that's just crazy, it's not like the M4A1 is such a highly advanced weapon in the first place. Politics...

[kct 5]

Which is actually the higher cost option. Believe me, when we decided to have a pair of new-generation frigates built by the naval division of BAe, the costs went up because we wanted the frigates to be built here. Part of the UK's Type 45 destroyer's technology went into those frigates though.

 

Everyone, especially the opposition, was questioning about this decision, however beneficial it is to our industry (we have branches of some major companies in the civil and military transport established here, like Eurocopter, Lockheed-Martin, etc.).

 

Of course, the biggest hulaboo was the purchase of a pair of USED submarines from France (removal of Israeli electronics from the Su-30MKMs was a small issue, because some of them politicians wanted to stick to the policy).

Edited April 3, 2008 by kct