With the development of hypersonic missiles—and ultimately aircraft—flying at several times the speed of sound, space-based systems, armed drones and uncrewed combat aircraft, the Royal Australian Air Force is fundamentally changing as it turns 100.

Heavily involved in World War I as the Australian Flying Corps, the nation’s military aviators were part of the army until the RAAF was formed in March 1921.

RAAF chief Mel Hupfeld says the RAAF is the region’s most technologically advanced air force, but technology alone will not see it succeed.

‘We’ve spent the last two decades concentrating on expeditionary operations in the Middle East,’ says Air Marshal Hupfeld. ‘That’s no longer our strategic imperative through the lens of the defence strategic update. We need to further invest in airbases and to project air and space power into our region across “shape”, “deter” and “respond” [the update’s three strategic objectives]—and we need to do so every day from our national support bases.’

The ability to achieve strategic effects below the threshold of declared conflict will be the measure of success, says Hupfeld. ‘Arguably, we’ve not always been sophisticated in identifying that nuance. The latest air force strategy will see us realise our potential for the joint force.’

The strategic update found that the security environment had deteriorated far more rapidly and in ways that could not have been predicted four years earlier when the last defence white paper was produced. Australia could no longer assume it would have a decade’s warning of a looming conflict.

As the Australian Defence Force applies the measures in the update and the accompanying force structure plan, new weapons for the RAAF will include long-range anti-ship missiles.

To guide the RAAF’s evolution, Hupfeld issued a strategy setting out how it must adapt to carry out operations in the grey zone as part of an integrated approach across the ADF.

He says a simplistic model of ‘peace’ and ‘war’ no longer adequately describes the geostrategic environment and malign actors exploit the grey zone to avoid clear escalation points that legitimise a traditional military response.

‘We must develop our people. This means professionalisation, increasing our diversity and drawing from our whole population.’

Hupfeld says that as the RAAF’s capabilities are enhanced, it isn’t all about flying platforms. ‘Our capabilities are potent and effective because our people are talented, skilled and trained to the highest standards, the critical asset to achieve the edge. We have to continue to invest in them as we have done with the air force’s new platforms.

‘If our combat aircraft fly against an adversary with a similar level of capability, I’ll back my people. Our team’s skills and tactical awareness are first rate. Not that I want to do it, but I’ll pitch them against pretty much anyone out there.’

At home, teams specialised in areas including combat control, mobile air load, and deployable health and aeromedical services and catering helped in the response to the 2019–20 bushfires and pivoted to assist in the pandemic.

On missions against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, RAAF aircrew often flew for 10 hours or more—a long time strapped into a seat. To equip personnel for such missions, ‘contemporary human performance optimisation’ programs, embracing performance psychology and sports science, enhance mental and physical performance for increased combat effectiveness.

Hupfeld says that while technology becomes more complex, the basic need to strive for perfection and deliver precision remains. ‘More than ever, this requires personnel focusing on the fundamentals and the removal of unnecessary distractions. This is the core premise of sports psychology through the creation of high-performance teams.’

He says discussion of future capabilities needs to move away from a platform-centric approach to an effects-based one. That means exploring the gaps and opportunities in the RAAF’s ability to generate effects that exploit range and action from different domains—land, air, maritime, space and cyber—rather than focusing on one solution.

Long-range multi-domain strike is not confined to a particular aircraft and relies on a system of systems.

The RAAF’s capabilities increasingly include technologies and systems that don’t fly. One such system is the Jindalee Operational Radar Network, set up to look far out to Australia’s north and being expanded to watch over the Pacific.

The RAAF’s airbases and its ability to deploy and operate from austere and sometimes damaged airfields was showcased most recently in disaster relief in Fiji.

Rapid development and enhancement of information warfare capabilities covering several domains including space is a key feature of the strategy.

Hupfeld rejects suggestions that the RAAF has lacked an effective long-range strike capability since the F-111 was retired in 2010. ‘This is a far more capable air combat force than when the F-111 was withdrawn.’

So, given Australia’s size, the scale of the region and the vulnerability of support aircraft such as tankers, how does the RAAF achieve the range to keep potential enemies at a distance?

Hupfeld says air combat power is critical to protecting Australia and its deployed forces, and to providing a credible capability to hold an adversary’s forces and infrastructure at a distance from Australian shores.

Integrated air and missile defence will give deterrence and protection for the joint ADF, including tankers and early warning aircraft like the E-7A Wedgetail.

‘Medium-range ground-based air defence missiles will release platforms such as air warfare destroyers and frigates, and fighter aircraft, from inner-layer defensive roles so that they can defend vulnerable support aircraft, and other friendly forces. Coupled with the Wedgetail, Australia’s fighter force can defend for other aircraft, ships or land forces throughout the region,’ Hupfeld says.

‘Releasing these highly mobile, multi-role platforms from close-in defensive roles allows them the freedom of movement to hold potential aggressors at risk, increasing the deterrent effect.’

As a fighter pilot, and despite negative publicity about the ‘fifth-generation’ F-35 joint strike fighter, he has no doubt that it’s the right aircraft for the RAAF.

‘It’s a crucial part of an integrated system tied together with the Super Hornet, Growler electronic-warfare aircraft, the tanker, surveillance aircraft, intelligence databases, space capability enhancements and cyber activities, and more broadly integrating with air warfare destroyers and the army’s air defence systems. The F-35 replaces nothing, but changes everything,’ he says.

The government is committed to purchasing 72 F-35s with 33 already delivered, and the RAAF has an option to purchase 28 more.

Will the additional aircraft be F-35s?

‘We look at all options,’ Hupfeld says. ‘What’s the sixth generation of airpower going to look like when we decide on the next round of F-35s? Is F-35 still valid if there’s a sixth-generation aircraft? Will sixth-generation air combat capability be an aircraft? I don’t know the answer to that, but they’re the things I keep my eyes open for.

‘The [uncrewed] loyal wingman is an example of what may be part of the solution when we look at the next phase of our air combat capability program. And I’d never say never to any of those.’

If the sixth-generation aircraft may not be an aircraft, what might it be?

‘This is where I’d want to get my smart young think-tank people to come in and see what they imagine. Given my experience and the baggage I carry, I have to think really hard to not imagine something like an F-35 with a pilot in the cockpit,’ says Hupfeld, ‘but it could be a space-based system operating with a ship armed with a directed-energy weapon or a railgun. There are many options we want to look at. Our younger generation aren’t constrained in their thinking like I can be.’

A development, test and evaluation program for high-speed long-range strike and missile defence, including hypersonic weapons, is underway and prototypes will be built to inform decisions on future capabilities. That includes collaboration with the US on the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment known as SCiFIRE.

Remotely piloted and/or autonomous combat aircraft, some designed to team with crewed aircraft and ground personnel, will increase air combat capacity.

Advanced longer-range strike weapons will extend the reach of combat aircraft and allow them to avoid increasingly sophisticated air defences.

Advanced loitering munitions will allow the ADF to strike in an increasingly complex environment, and better self-protection systems will improve the survivability of aircrew and aircraft.

Hupfeld says the ability to rapidly deploy defensive missile systems across Australia and within the region is paramount.

The combined effect of the three services operating together is crucial, he says. ‘The air force provides reach and responsiveness and the army and navy provide persistence in their area of operations. The inclusion of both land and maritime long-range strike capabilities highlights the increased importance of holding our adversaries at risk further from Australia.’

In the decades to come, the RAAF will have different skills and weapon systems, agile bases and multiple redundant networks, ‘and we’ll be active in space’.

‘Utilisation of our weapon systems, airbases and people will be transformed from the traditional airpower of our past 100 years to the generation of broader air and space power effects.

‘Our personnel will be strategically aware, they’ll know their place in the joint force and their responsibilities to the government, and they’ll appreciate the strategic effects they achieve every day.’

This force will be agile in its thinking and able to seize opportunities.

‘My intent for the air force highlights that we need to be comfortable operating with constant competition,’ Hupfeld says. ‘Our strategy is to give our people the tools to be creative. Being aware of the strategic effect in everything we do is the key to success. We need to recognise opportunities and seize them wherever possible.’

The future force is likely to include crewed, uncrewed and optionally piloted aircraft.

Hupfeld says uncrewed aircraft development is progressing at a rapid pace and they’re likely to excel in a number of roles and complement crewed aircraft.

But all air forces will have crewed platforms for a long time yet. It’s far too early to predict if, or when, they’ll cease flying crewed aircraft in all roles.

‘Our co-development activity with Boeing’s loyal wingman, the Airpower Teaming System, is teaching us a lot about what’s possible, but also what’s needed to own and operate an uncrewed platform.’

The United States has designed, built and flown a prototype of its latest jet fighter at startling speed. Using advanced manufacturing techniques, the US Air Force has taken its ‘next generation air dominance’, or NGAD, fighter from selection process to a virtual version and then to a flying prototype in just a year.

By comparison, it took about 20 years to develop the ‘fifth generation’ F-35 joint strike fighter from initial conceptual studies in 1996 to initial operating capability in 2016.

William Roper, the USAF’s acquisition leader, told Defense News that the full-scale NGAD prototype flew with mission systems on board.

The speed of development of the jet previously referred to as the ‘sixth generation’ fighter demonstrates just how fast the US can produce cutting-edge technology.

This new experimental ‘x plane’ is a technology demonstrator and is not yet an operational combat capability.  Even so, Roper suggests that going down a digital development path would seem to allow the USAF to move ‘pretty fast’ into actual production.

Depending on the NGAD’s operational capabilities, and noting that it is not necessarily a single airframe, but more likely a ‘system of systems’, there could be a justification for moving quickly to develop the fighter sooner, even at the expense of future planned acquisition of the F-35.

Such a move would have implications for the Royal Australian Air Force. After all, why wait another 20 or 30 years to replace the RAAF’s F-35As with a future fighter, if the US might field a successor later this decade?

This is not a call to scrap the RAAF’s acquisition of the F-35A. We should still acquire our planned 72 jets, and these aircraft are likely to be the centrepiece of RAAF air combat capability through to 2040.

The RAAF should see digital development as a potential opportunity to ensure Australia is not left behind as the next generation of combat aircraft appear. Buying into such a program makes much more sense than remaining entrenched in a 20-year acquisition cycle based on a single airframe.

Defence needs to seize opportunities to try new approaches that enhance the RAAF’s technological advantage in strike and air combat capability, and which could also increase the number of air combat capabilities it has. The result should be a larger, more powerful and more technologically advanced RAAF able to hold a major power adversary at bay at much greater range and with greater speed and precision. Seizing these opportunities would deliver capability faster and with more rapid innovation and boost our ability to deter and to burden-share with key allies.

The digital development path offers us a fantastic opportunity to embrace rapid innovation cycles, and support a paradigm suggested by the proposed ‘digital century series’ that will likely be the basis for future USAF combat aircraft.

Instead of waiting 20 years for a new boutique fighter at great cost, digital development allows us to acquire a range of new platforms, perhaps in smaller numbers and with greater role specialisation, and then to evolve generations of those platforms over shorter periods. Rather than trying to sustain airframes for 20 to 30 years, we should accept that they will have shorter operational lives—perhaps 10 years—and they’ll be replaced by newer and more capable platforms sooner.

The same approach can be applied to other military capabilities. The application of digital development and ‘fourth industrial revolution’ technologies could allow Australia to dive more deeply into building sovereign defence capability in areas such as sensors, long-range missile systems, autonomous platforms, space assets and even naval vessels.

The digital development path also brings back the welcome prospect of increased competition in the aerospace sector. Digital development opens up military aerospace in the same way that the space sector is seeing start-ups and new actors like SpaceX and Blue Origin challenging the major companies. The technology is not nation-specific and, as Australia’s vibrant space sector is demonstrating, anyone can play. Is there any reason why a new approach to developing air combat capability would be confined to prime contractors or limited to US companies? Why shouldn’t Australian companies contribute new concepts and designs into the mix for Australia, the US and other partners?

Cost matters a great deal. The F-35 has been under development since 1996 at great expense, and such a long lead time demands a long service life to generate financial returns to the contractor through high sustainment costs. The RAAF’s F-35As are likely to be in service through to the 2040s and the 2020 force structure plan suggests an evaluation of its replacement won’t happen until the late 2030s.

The systems and software on the F-35 will be modernised over its life, but in 2040 we’ll still be flying the same aircraft that we are taking delivery of now. In contrast, the digital century model of rapid procurement and innovation involves a higher upfront development cost over a much shorter period, but far cheaper sustainment costs because we replace aircraft sooner. The money saved on sustainment would then be invested in the rapid advancement of new technologies.

The upside is much faster development of new operational capabilities rather than sinking ever growing amounts into sustaining older aircraft while adversaries find ways to erode our technological edge. We have a better chance of keeping pace in a technological race through rapid digital development rather than sticking with an outdated acquisition mindset.

The news that the USAF is now flying a demonstrator for NGAD—after only a year of development—shows there’s an alternative path to traditional acquisition of advanced capability that the RAAF should not discount.

ASPI’s Catherine McGregor has highlighted the concerns of two former air force chiefs that there’s an urgent capability gap in the Australian Defence Force’s order of battle—an absence of credible long-range strike capability for the air force and navy. Air Marshals Leo Davies and Geoff Brown told McGregor that Australia needs a long-range bomber (the only real option being the US B-21 Raider now under development) as well as long-range drones and land-based missiles.

If that suggestion is adopted by the government, it will make the strategic review that’s just getting underway a very interesting exercise indeed. It probably won’t produce a status quo document. The review, announced by Defence Minister Linda Reynolds at last month’s Sea Power 2019 conference, comes as Australia faces a deteriorating strategic outlook, dominated by concerns about a more assertive Chinese state and growing uncertainty over the longevity of US military commitments in our region.

The strategic review should examine how the ADF can double down on its strike capability, with an emphasis on range, payload and responsiveness. My colleague Marcus Hellyer has written an excellent series of articles analysing the constraints of the F-35 joint strike fighter. The F-35 is a cutting-edge aircraft, but it’s a tactical multi-role fighter that doesn’t have the range or payload to operate far from Australia’s north and west coasts.

The retirement of the F-111C in 2010—and the missed opportunity by the US to replace that platform with a new strike aircraft to fill the gap between short-range fighters and long-range bombers—now confronts Western air forces. Our potential adversaries—China and Russia—deploy a full spectrum of long-range strike capabilities.

Australia’s strategic and operational environment is characterised by large maritime domains. Short-range platforms like the F-35 struggle to deliver effects, especially in the face of ever more sophisticated long-range capabilities now being acquired by Beijing. An over-reliance on short-range tactical platforms makes it more difficult to deter an adversary or, if necessary, to defend our maritime approaches.

In this context, the call by the retired air force chiefs is spot on. We need to move away from the traditional paradigm of like-for-like replacement that the F-35 epitomises and think about long-range strike—from the air with long-range bombers and drones, or via land-based ballistic missiles equipped with non-nuclear precision-strike warheads.

The government’s quashing of any debate on land-based missiles after the recent AUSMIN talks, was, I think, premature. The US is developing a new medium-range land-based ballistic missile that’s designed to be equipped with a non-nuclear warhead. It’s likely to be deployed in a few years. The government would be wise to reconsider its unwillingness to explore that option, especially given the potential for such a capability to evolve into an anti-ship ballistic missile in much the same way that China has developed its DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Also, such a capability could be the basis for an Australian strike capability centred on an eventual hypersonic glide vehicle that could be developed in collaboration with the US. Australia is a world leader in hypersonics research and development. Both the University of Queensland and commercial company Hypersonix are well placed to support the ADF’s requirements in this transformative capability.

Getting the Americans on board, whether for the air force acquiring the B-21 or the army operating land-based missiles in northern Australia, is essential. The F-35 collaboration has set a precedent, and increased Australia–US space cooperation deepens the capacity to undertake further complex endeavours. This is a discussion for political leaders in Canberra and Washington.

If we’re serious about long-range strike, we need to also think about establishing the sensor-to-shooter link, and examine how the ADF might dramatically expand its sovereign space capabilities to facilitate this capability. There’s little point in having a long-range strike capability without the ability to identify targets, plan strike missions responsively and flexibly, and then do post-strike assessments of bomb damage.

Certainly deploying our own space assets, based around small satellites and constellations of CubeSats, and supported by a sovereign responsive space launch capability, will enhance our value as an alliance partner and act as a force multiplier for our strike capabilities.

Space capabilities can be developed and launched from sites in ways that meet both the operational requirements of both the ADF and our coalition partners. As costs fall, small satellites costing a few million dollars will be able to do the job that once required large, complex, multibillion-dollar satellites. A Space 2.0 approach would not only give the ADF a sovereign space segment to directly support its new strike capabilities, but also add to our ability to burden-share in orbit with the US and other key partners.

Seeing deep is as important as striking deep, and developing a ‘reconnaissance-strike complex’ should be an essential component of any future ADF long-range strike capability. Platforms such as the MQ-4C Triton can’t fly into contested airspace, and we do need overhead persistent imagery.

Space is also increasingly contested and an ‘old space’ mindset of long acquisition cycles won’t work. Instead, the government needs to support a paradigm for responsive space access that includes local space launch and to encourage industry to focus on low-cost small satellite and CubeSat systems that can leverage models for mass manufacture generated by the fourth industrial revolution.

The battle for the space domain in future warfare is as much about rapid reconstitution and augmentation—starting with manufacture—to support terrestrial operations as it is about winning the battle in orbit.

The chiefs are right—long-range strike is missing, and we need to fill that gap. But doing so also means getting serious about developing our space capability.

Shortly after midnight on 6 June 1944, Allied forces commenced landing airborne troops in Normandy, France. At dawn, naval vessels would begin landing troops on beaches codenamed Utah and Omaha for the American forces, and Gold, Juno and Sword for the British and Canadians. The landings would be preceded by an immense bombardment by Allied air forces, supported by thousands of fighter aircraft. The naval operation, involving more than 6,000 vessels, was the largest armada ever assembled. It was the first day in the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi occupation.

D–Day is one of the defining events not only of World War II but also of the 20th century. In the West, commemorations marking the anniversary of D–Day have become the most internationally significant events remembering the war. Although the bulk of the forces in the landings were British, American and Canadian, more than a dozen Allied nations participated in the operation.

Few people today likely realise that Australians, predominantly members of the Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian Navy, were among those who actively contributed to the operation. Australia had entered the war as a partner in the British Empire in 1939. By 1944 Australian forces and personnel were fighting the war on multiple fronts. Australia remained committed to standing strongly by Britain and continuing the fight against Nazi Germany in Europe, while simultaneously dealing with the immense challenge of facing down the Japanese advance across the Asia–Pacific region, which was turned back from Australia’s own doorstep in 1942.

The stories of the Australian men and women who participated in the battle of Normandy aren’t well known, yet more than 3,300 Australians were active in the D–Day landings (2,800 airmen, 500 sailors, and small numbers of men and women serving with the British Army), while thousands more served during the subsequent Normandy campaign. Thirteen Australians were killed on 6 June, but the campaign lasted beyond that one day. On 7 June, 20 Australian airmen were killed; on 8 June another 22 died, and the losses continued until August. In fact, more than 1,100 Australians were killed in Europe in the build-up to and during the Normandy battle (April–August 1944). To this day, June 1944 remains the costliest month in terms of casualties in the history of the RAAF.

One of the difficulties facing historians in telling the Australian D–Day story is identifying the contributions of thousands of individuals who served attached to British squadrons and naval vessels. No RAN vessel was involved in the landings, but Australian sailors were spread across the British fleet. A small number of Australian officers commanded British destroyers, corvettes, minesweepers, landing craft and torpedo boats. Others served in ships’ companies, some commanding gun turrets aboard heavy cruisers. In the air, 10 RAAF squadrons were involved, and No. 453 Squadron, RAAF, flying the Supermarine Spitfire, operated from the ground in Normandy in the weeks after the landing. But the majority of Australian airmen were spread across more than 200 Royal Air Force squadrons.

All of the Australians who served were volunteers. The airmen who served on D-Day had trained as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, which saw 16,000 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, bomb aimers, gunners and flight engineers join RAF squadrons during the course of the war. Another 11,541 men joined RAAF squadrons formed in Britain. On D–Day, 1,000 Australians served in the 10 RAAF squadrons that participated in the Allied invasion. A further 1,800 Australians who participated on D-Day were serving attached to RAF squadrons.

In addition to those in operational squadrons on D-Day, there were 10,000 Australian airmen in training and reserve. Many of them would join operational squadrons as the battle in Normandy raged in the days and weeks after the landing and as casualties to aircrews mounted. To place the RAAF’s contribution—and Australia’s commitment—to the air war in Europe into some perspective, the number of Australian airmen in Britain in July 1944 was equal to the size of an Australian army division in the Pacific at that time.

At sea, RAN sailors served in diverse roles and were involved in all the major naval operations of the war. At least 1,100 members of the RAN served at different times, on attachment to the Royal Navy. Of the 500 serving in June 1944, more than 400 were officers of the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve. Many had enlisted in Australia under the ‘Yachtsmen Scheme’, which targeted recruits with small-ship experience. These men were ideal for training with Combined Operations and for commanding landing craft and ships.

The stories of these Australians who served in Normandy remain little known, but it is important to remember their contribution to the great Allied effort in 1944. Their service is also a reminder that from the outbreak of war in September 1939 to the final day of victory in 1945, Australia was committed to the defence of Britain and the free world. This included defeating Nazism and fascism in Europe, as well defending Australia from Japanese militarism in Asia and the Pacific.

The head of the Royal Australian Air Force’s air combat group says he’s excited by the prospect of Australian pilots flying alongside a ‘loyal wingman’ unmanned aircraft like the one Boeing is developing in Brisbane.

Air Commodore Mike Kitcher says the drone, which will be the first combat-capable aircraft to be designed and built in Australia since the Boomerang in 1942, will present both cultural and technical challenges but the air force will be ready to tackle them.

‘The idea behind the loyal wingman concept is quite a sound one. The practicalities of executing it will prove challenging but are well worth investing in.

‘A loyal wingman that has greater flexibility to aid the defensive or survivability characteristics of a manned platform or indeed augment the lethality of that manned platform by carrying weapons—that’s quite an exciting concept, but it’s early days yet’, he told The Strategist.

And while it might seem intuitive, he says the unmanned plane isn’t likely to lead to an overall reduction in demand for the people the air force needs.

‘I think considering less people would probably be a false economy. I would like to think that those people that are operating the airframe will be far more lethal, survivable and combat capable, enabled by that loyal wingman concept.’

Kitcher told a briefing on the status of the RAAF’s F-35 program at the Australian International Airshow at Avalon that the biggest challenge he faces as head of air combat group is attracting and retaining enough people to run his operation.

‘At the moment, in introducing the F-35 capability the biggest challenges that I see are people. Enough qualified technicians, tradespeople and engineers to actually support the aircraft and its myriad systems, and then people to fly the aircraft.’

The first two RAAF F-35s arrived on Australian soil in December last year, though there are eight more currently being used on training programs in the US. And despite the workforce challenge, Kitcher says he’s happy with the current status of the F-35 project.

‘It would be fair to say it’s very early days’, says Kitcher. ‘I’ll be much more comfortable saying that things are going smoothly in about 12 to 15 months’ time, by mid next year, when we’ve got 12 to 16 aircraft operating in Australia.

‘I think it’d be quite premature to say that everything’s under control’, he says. ‘Things are looking positive at the moment, but there’s a long way to go over the next couple of years to get to IOC.’

The plan to get the F-35 to initial operating capability involves having eight jets in Australia by the end of the year and 30 jets on the ground by the end of 2020.

Kitcher’s biggest priority on that path, though, is making sure the RAAF achieves a ‘sovereign training capability’, meaning it trains all its F-35 pilots and ground crew domestically without the need for them to go to the US, as is currently the case.

‘Being able to conduct sovereign training for Australia is very important, in fact, I think the most important component of our initial operating capability.

‘If we don’t have, if you like, the engine room that is our training capability, then it’s going to be difficult to get to our final operating capability.

That final level of readiness is due in late 2023, by which time the RAAF’s full complement of 72 jets should be in the country.

Understandably, Kitcher doesn’t want to present an opinion on whether the government should acquire an extra squadron of F-35s, as has been mooted, or pursue other options, though among geopolitical and budgetary factors, he mentions that the progress of the ‘loyal wingman’ project may be a factor in that decision.

After coming in for a large amount of criticism over the past several years, the F-35’s aerial performance is now getting more positive reports from exercises like ‘Red Flag’ in the US, which Kitcher flew in last month in a ‘Classic’ Hornet as part of an Australian contingent alongside American and British aircraft.

He says the new jet’s performance was good, but what impressed him more was the way the F-35 integrated with older aircraft like his and enabled them to better do their own jobs.

‘It was actually better than I expected at this stage.

‘Certainly I felt far more empowered and enabled by the fact that that there were F-35s there and, to a certain extent, US Navy Super Hornets as well there making our Classic Hornet capability better than what it would otherwise be.’

During the exercise the ‘blue’ side didn’t have things all its own way, but in some of the missions Kitcher flew in, the F-35 led the way in gaining superiority over the ‘red’ team.

‘They kicked the door down against a fairly determined air adversary. They then retired back towards the strike train while F-22s came over the top and held that door open.

‘The F-35s then, using their sensors and other capabilities, led a combined  strike package that took the Classic Hornet formation that I was flying in, a US Navy Super Hornet formation and a [British] Typhoon formation, supported by US Navy Growlers and US Air Force F-16s, deep into enemy territory against a significant surface-to-air threat to deliver precision-guided weapons on targets, and the F-35s provided sensor awareness that would otherwise have been unavailable to myself flying a Classic Hornet.’

While the RAAF is working to integrate the F-35 with other aircraft and use it to enhance their capabilities, Kitcher says there may be scenarios in which the jet operates on its own because it may be too risky to fly less advanced aircraft on the same missions.

‘The primary focus of our validation and verification activities will be ensuring the F-35 value-adds to the entire ADF capability and improves our entire capability while preserving the option to use the F-35 on its own if the threat environment requires that.’

It’s not just other RAAF aircraft that the F-35 will work with. Kitcher says integration with the navy’s new air warfare destroyers will be key to getting the most out of the jet.

That kind of capability, and the development of ‘sovereign mission data files’ to optimise the F-35 for Australia-specific requirements, go beyond what the RAAF has done in the past.

‘With the F-35, it’s a completely different way of doing business’, he says.