Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] News, Discussions and Updates

Thanx for the info AD,its just that this guy is supposed to be a Commander and i thought e would know what is right and wrong?I guess with technology these days you have to be so up to date on topics and it seems that you have to be a professional in your field to talk about a certain platform.
I did not believe the quote about Lo being obsolete but to me it seems so difficult to find correct info about certain platforms

AD or any other members im looking for info on courses to do to become a project manager/management position, for defence projects.I am a builder by trade and have 13 years project management skills in construction but i would like to take my skills into the defence industry.I live in sydney and would like any info on courses in sydney,please?
 
It is a no brainer that the F-35 will have substantial capabilities over most combat aircraft including the Superhornet.

This is an aircraft that is still under development and integrating alot of new technology.

Yes the project that has been delayed, but it the program has considerably more complexity than almost any previous aircraft program. Ironically similar issues happened with the F-111, but it turned out great.

A big part of the F-35 will be the use of new weapon systems; particularly with precision surface attack. How will these enhance the capabilites? Remember to take into consideration the F-35 is the first aircraft specifically optimised to deliver these weapons rather than adding them from an existing aircraft platform.

Perhaps we should not complain to much about the capabilites of an aircraft when we only have limited information on it's capabilities; lets wait until it gets into Service and see what capabilites we do have. Then we will have a better idea on the pros or cons of the F-35. Until then I will trust the appropriate defence experts who know the expected capabilities of the F-35.
 
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weasel1962 said:
See no reason why frequency hopping wouldn't take the entire range of the bandwidth. Assuming .25 mhz per frequency (could be less), that's already 16,000 different channels for a 4-Ghz range that existing radars use. Its probably a lot more as non-standard differentials are used.
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No, I don't subscribe to that assumption. Look at Data Link, that is considered secure and uses nowhere near the amount of frequencies you are talking about.
 
the road runner said:
Thanx for the info AD,its just that this guy is supposed to be a Commander and i thought e would know what is right and wrong?I guess with technology these days you have to be so up to date on topics and it seems that you have to be a professional in your field to talk about a certain platform.

I did not believe the quote about Lo being obsolete but to me it seems so difficult to find correct info about certain platforms

AD or any other members im looking for info on courses to do to become a project manager/management position, for defence projects.I am a builder by trade and have 13 years project management skills in construction but i would like to take my skills into the defence industry.I live in sydney and would like any info on courses in sydney,please?
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A Commander he was, yes. But a pilot? That I'm not so sure of...

For the reasons I've outlined, I believe his opinion to be incorrect in a number of ways. Maybe he is right, but if the Super Hornet were more capable than the F-35, then I doubt that Boeing would have gone to the trouble of building the X-32 for the Joint Strike Fighter contest.

They could have offered full rate production aircraft to compete against a rival developmental aircraft (X-35).

This did not happen...

As for jobs within DMO, here is a start:

http://www.defence.gov.au/dmo/careers/careers.cfm
 
I find it funny, if an F-22 or similar LO aircraft were to assault Australia he'd have to fly upside-down. the secret to tracking LO aircraft is to have multiple types of radar operating in a given area, not necessarily bands of radar but a system similar to JORN in addition to ground based radars as well as AWACS, The secret to defeating anything is teamwork, Even the B-2 and the F117 (which was retired recently) can't defeat networks, it only really counts if your talking about fighter on fighter situations where the fighters radar cannot achieve its optimum capability because of the LO effects.
 
Speaking hypothetically, if the F-35 falls through for what ever reason (cost blowout, axed by the new US Pres etc), and the US won't release the Raptor for export, what are the chances of the RAAF buying the Typhoon? Would it suit Australian requirements? Would more Super Hornets be a more realistic option?
 
Scouter said:
Speaking hypothetically, if the F-35 falls through for what ever reason (cost blowout, axed by the new US Pres etc), and the US won't release the Raptor for export, what are the chances of the RAAF buying the Typhoon? Would it suit Australian requirements? Would more Super Hornets be a more realistic option?
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The establishment is already in place to deal with the Super Hornets. That started some time ago. You won't see Typhoons in the RAAF
 
Scouter said:
Speaking hypothetically, if the F-35 falls through for what ever reason (cost blowout, axed by the new US Pres etc), and the US won't release the Raptor for export, what are the chances of the RAAF buying the Typhoon? Would it suit Australian requirements? Would more Super Hornets be a more realistic option?
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The F-35 wont be axed, its too far in the game to be killed. But even if they did want to you must realize its almost impossible to cut military spending these days because the armed services will protest and congress will almost always restore funding. Back in 1993 I think it was they tried to cancel the V-22 time and time again but the program survived and now they have them in service in Iraq. As for cost of the F-35 right now its stable and will likely remain that way. Once full production starts the cost of each F-35 should go down.
 
lobbie111 said:
I find it funny, if an F-22 or similar LO aircraft were to assault Australia he'd have to fly upside-down. the secret to tracking LO aircraft is to have multiple types of radar operating in a given area, not necessarily bands of radar but a system similar to JORN in addition to ground based radars as well as AWACS, The secret to defeating anything is teamwork, Even the B-2 and the F117 (which was retired recently) can't defeat networks, it only really counts if your talking about fighter on fighter situations where the fighters radar cannot achieve its optimum capability because of the LO effects.
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Maybe, if your only talking about a single LO platform. But remember the people who have VLO platforms also have multiple ways to concurrently disable, dislocate and penetrate a networked IADS. The US has he most advanced and comprehensive EW capability on planet earth, and they would all ways bring the appropriate combat capability to the theater. So yes a B2 can defeat a network, considering it will only be one element of the effort to do so. Individual platforms are only players on the team, and alone they will never achieve desicive results.
 
How does "probably clipping a power line" illustrate how "fragile the Hawks are" ?
I'm not taking a position, just asking for clarification.
Cheers,
Mac
 
weasel1962 said:
The word "fragile" in the English dictionary means "easily broken, damaged or destroyed". I did not mention the process by which it is easily damaged just that it is a reminder that it can be easily damaged (whatever the reason may be).

The logical inference is that people should take care of the equipment that they own.

Note in 2003, a ANG F-16 clipped a power line and sustained some structural damage. In that case, the responsibility fell on the pilot.
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Just to make the point, Armidale (where i'm at uni :o) is roughly 200km from coffs harbour where the aircraft landed, considering that it was probably flying at reduced speed to prevent further damage and that it had to circle over the ocean to burn fuel before landing, it sounds like it was in the air for quite a while after hitting the power line, doesnt sound fragile to me.
 
weasel1962 said:
The word "fragile" in the English dictionary means "easily broken, damaged or destroyed". I did not mention the process by which it is easily damaged just that it is a reminder that it can be easily damaged (whatever the reason may be).

The logical inference is that people should take care of the equipment that they own.

Note in 2003, a ANG F-16 clipped a power line and sustained some structural damage. In that case, the responsibility fell on the pilot.
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OK, so if I'm reading your post correctly any aircraft we buy in future should have some degree of armouring on the airframe to prevent them from being so fragile so they can withstand these impacts eh? To what level? No damage from a powerline? No damage from a powerpole? No damage from...? Rediculous argument.

Yes people should take care of their aircraft, and I think you'll find that on the whole the RAAF does a very credible job of taking care of their aircraft. I have heard stories of some of our high hour 20+ year old C130's being sent to the states for upgrades and the Lockheed engineers being astonished at what good condition they were in.

Training on the other hand needs to be realistic and challenging. In the case of the RAAf that obviously includes training at low level. For whatever reason this aircraft impacted a powerline, so there was maybe a mission planning issue or a pilot flew too low - someone will get a kick in the pants.
We could always do as some airforces do - take off, fly for a bit nice and high then land, all done in daylight hours in perfect weather conditions but that hardly prepares a poilot for 24/7 combat ops does it? Maybe if the aircraft in question was a rare and valuable heritage aircraft (Spitfire, Mustang etc) then this low flying would be foolish and better care should be taken, but this was an operational aircraft - it was bought to be used so it is.

I would be more worried if there was not damage on an infrequent basis to military equipment.
 
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