Tag Archive for: RAAF

When night becomes day: F-35s join the RAAF

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Two Australian F-35s over the Hopi Reservation, Arizona, USA.

The arrival today of the first two operational joint strike fighters will strengthen the deterrent effect of the whole Australian Defence Force, says Air Marshal Leo Davies.

The Royal Australian Air Force chief tells The Strategist that allies and potential enemies will look at the ADF, with its stealthy fifth-generation multirole F-35A jets as a key element, and what the force is able to do.

‘They’ll think we’d be a tough nut to crack’, says Davies. ‘That to me is the first part of having a defence force—deterrence.’

The RAAF must be able to provide options for the government that are reliable against any potential enemy, no matter how sophisticated, Davies says.

‘In our region and abroad, multiple countries are enhancing their air combat capabilities. So we need to maintain a level of sophistication that allows us to do what we need to do when we need to do it.

‘The F-35 brings that next step which means we are able to confidently send men and women to do a job and have a better than even chance of survival—and of success.’

Davies says Australian pilots who’ve flown earlier jets and since qualified on the F-35 have found the difference dramatic. To explain the increase in situational awareness the F-35’s sensors bring, they’ve compared it to the difference between trying to drive in darkness with no lights and driving with very effective night-vision goggles. ‘It’s that stark in their estimation. Night becomes day so you can drive normally. But to try to drive without night-vision equipment or headlights would be impossible.’

Davies says an F-35 pilot will be able to characterise an adversary’s aircraft, land forces and ships and then choose how to react to them. Sometimes that will mean not reacting and just monitoring the enemy’s movements. Sometimes it will mean ‘cuing’ another asset such as one of the RAAF’s F/A-18 Hornets, or an air warfare destroyer or, in due course, a ground-based air-defence system.

The comparison has been made before, says Davies, but it works well. Ordinary aircraft operated like instruments in a band; the F-35 now becomes the conductor.

‘The F-35 won’t send a package of data and then forget about it. It will orchestrate the operation.’

In doing that it will make aircraft such as the Hornet, Super Hornet and Growler much more capable.

An F-35 deep in enemy territory will be able to send information to a Super Hornet a safe distance from enemy defences to identify a target and provide a mass of information about it. That will allow the Hornet pilot to launch a weapon at very long range with great precision and confidence about the target.

Davies says the F-35 channels enhanced awareness into the cockpits of friendly aircraft and ships and army command vehicles. ‘It enhances their picture. It allows better and faster decision-making.’

The fidelity of the data the F-35 can pass to a commander on the ground is exquisite, he says.

In the battle to drive the Islamic State terror group out of the Iraqi city of Mosul, the RAAF’s Hornets were able to send back a lot of information about what was happening in the streets below, but they weren’t able to bomb while they gathered and dispatched that intelligence.

The F-35 can maintain its air-to-air situational awareness, pass data to, for instance, a Wedgetail command-and-control aircraft and provide data to the ground commander at the same time without reducing its own ability to fight.

The F-35 is not ‘invisible’, Davies says. ‘What the F-35 brings is a reduced signature available to the radars trying to find it and a reduced heat signature.’ That makes it harder to locate using infrared scanners.

‘It also has communication systems with what we call “low probability of intercept”. Information is sent in short bursts using minimal energy and precisely targeted for whomever it’s intended for.’ Davies says the aircraft is able to safely penetrate far deeper into hostile territory than other aircraft.

RAAF squadron leader Edwin ‘Red’ Borrman has been flying the F-35 in the US for three years and training pilots from Australia, the US and other nations.

He flies one of the two new aircraft to Australia today.

A highly trained fighter pilot who has practised, and taught, everything from long-range attack to dogfighting, Borrman says the F-35 is very advanced and can do what other aircraft could not risk doing.

‘The jet is built for the first couple of days of a mega-conflict, to go all the way down-range to a very high-threat environment and be able to find, locate and hit its target—or to hand off targeting to other aircraft—and then get out of there alive.

‘Any kind of fourth-generation aircraft will be shot up before it gets in range to drop its bombs.’

Borrman is often asked if the F-35 is much better than existing strike jets.

The best explanation he’s heard is to compare the earliest model Nokia to the latest mobile phones being produced now. ‘There’s just no comparison.’

Lieutenant Colonel ‘Chip’ Berke is a retired US Marine Corps pilot who has flown many older jets as well as the F-22 Raptor fighter and the F-35. He’s been a ‘top gun’ instructor and, as the first operational pilot to fly the JSF, he’s possibly the most knowledgeable practitioner on fifth-generation capability.

Berke says past combat aircraft tended to operate in some isolation in a predefined airspace with a predefined role. ‘You might come back and pass on information you’d gathered to build up a picture.

‘Fifth-gen airplanes are totally different’, he says.

They provide the pilot with an unmatched amount of information which can be shared immediately with other units in the air and on the ground and the sea.

‘That’s information dominance which allows you to make really smart decisions on what to do and when to do it.’

Berke says the F-35 is extraordinary and still evolving. ‘Ten years from now, it’s going to be so far more capable than we even imagined. There’s nothing like it out there. The potential of that airplane is barely being recognised right now. We’re in the infancy of what it’s going to do.’

Preparing for stormy skies (part 3): the RAAF’s strike power beyond 2040

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The immediate future of the RAAF’s strike and air combat capability seems clear. We’re getting 72 F-35A joint strike fighters that will form the heart of the force into the 2040s and serve alongside up to 12 E/A-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft.

The RAAF could order a fourth squadron of F-35s, but as I highlighted in part 1, a better option is to sustain and upgrade the 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets to Block III standard by the mid-2020s. Given the low cost of that upgrade, and the capability improvements it delivers, there seems little justification for retiring the F/A-18Fs in favour of an additional squadron of F-35s.

But what will come after the F-35s, Super Hornets and Growlers? It seems less likely that a very expensive, and lengthy, fifth-generation project, leading to the acquisition of limited numbers of F-35s in the early 2020s, will be followed by an ‘exquisite’ platform emerging out of an equally expensive and lengthy sixth-generation fighter project sometime in the 2040s.

The US and European future combat aircraft projects seem to be heading away from 5.5 or 6th generation language. They’re emphasising a system-of-systems model that has multiple manned and unmanned platforms operating as a networked whole across multiple operational domains. That approach has two benefits: faster acquisition of new capabilities and the ability to keep pace with adversaries’ capability development at a lower overall cost.

For Australia (and the US), long range and high speed are important criteria. Short- to medium-range tactical platforms are less useful given how far away we are from likely focal areas such as the South China Sea and maritime choke points in Southeast Asia. Our thinking therefore needs to shift from the ‘sea–air gap’ mindset towards expeditionary airpower and power projection.

The F-35’s potential weakness is its limited range and payload. To deliver long-range effects with standoff weapons, the F-35 is dependent on either forward basing arrangements or forward-deployed (and thus vulnerable) airborne refuellers. That approach to the ‘defence of Australia’ mission is showing its age in the face of hypersonic land-attack cruise missiles, counterspace threats, precision ballistic-missile systems, and cyberattacks.

Certainly, acquiring long-range standoff weapons for the F-35 may mitigate the problem over the next 20 years. But if we’re talking about what follows the F-35, our thinking shouldn’t be constrained by a fixation on tactical fighter platforms.

It’s time to move away from contemplating a like-for-like replacement for the F-35. That will demand some willingness to challenge orthodoxy—about the type of platforms we acquire, the number we acquire, and the role they may have in a more contested and uncertain future.

The option of manned–unmanned teaming—also known as the ‘loyal wingman’ concept—opens up many possibilities. It would involve using manned aircraft to control a swarm of unmanned combat air systems (UCAS) that penetrate an adversary’s anti-access and area denial (A2AD) envelope, defeat its air-defence systems, and then deliver precision effects with advanced, high-speed standoff weapons or non-kinetic weapons such as electronic warfare, cyberattack and directed-energy weapons.

That vision implies, of course, that the US and other key partners do in fact develop UCAS that Australia can acquire. The US Navy has already had the opportunity to do so under the UCLASS (Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike) project and has demonstrated advanced capabilities with the Northrop Grumman X-47B. However, UCLASS was transformed into an unmanned tanker (a role secured by Boeing’s MQ-25 Stingray) for the Carrier-Based Aerial Refuelling System (CBARS) because of concern within the navy about the role of unmanned platforms as a potential competitor to manned combat aircraft—particularly the F-35C. The US Air Force too seems to have pulled back from embracing UCAS with its withdrawal from the J-UCAS project, despite demonstrated capability with its X-45, perhaps for similar reasons.

Instead, the US seems to be focusing on a long-range platform, more akin to a bomber, that can exploit the partnership of manned and unmanned systems. That’s the approach under the air force’s Penetrating Counter Air project. Likewise, in Europe, future combat aircraft like BAE’s Tempest and the Franco-German fighter jet plan emphasise a manned fighter controlling unmanned wingmen, possibly derived from the British Taranis and French NEUron platforms.

As James Mugg noted back in 2016, thinking about manned–unmanned teaming would suggest that the unmanned component—the UCAS—needs to extend the manned fighter rather than replace it. That means it needs to be cheap, autonomous and capable of working as a swarm, perhaps via artificial intelligence, and ultimately be expendable. Mugg highlights the target-drone concept as promoted by Kratos Defense, stating:

The concept of large, production-type UCAS is still hampered by the existing paradigm of fewer, more expensive aircraft. An interesting new development is the USAF’s effort to develop a cheap target-drone style UCAS … The demonstrator is expected to operate at high subsonic speeds, with a 2,800km range and 225kg of payload capacity … [at] a targeted unit cost [of] just US$2–3m.

So, given these developments, it’s possible to speculate on how Australia’s strike and air combat capabilities should evolve. We should focus first on transitioning from a dependency on small numbers of expensive, high-end manned aircraft like the F-35 to a mix of manned and unmanned systems working together, with the latter extending the former’s capabilities.

The future manned platform might be larger than a traditional fighter—closer, perhaps, to an F-111 or even a B-21 in size—to enjoy longer range and greater payload. That platform can use the swarming UCAS to attack at long range, deep inside an adversary’s A2AD perimeter.

If we emphasise long-range, high payload and manned–unmanned teaming, we start to close gaps in our force structure around long-range strike, and can better deter any adversary. But it can’t just be an air capability.

The future RAAF must fully embrace operations in which a manned or unmanned platform can take advantage of sensors and weapons across a variety of domains. It might be that, rather than an exquisite sixth-generation fighter, the path forward for the RAAF is a long-range, survivable, networked system of systems in the air, in space, in cyberspace and across the electromagnetic spectrum, of which the platform is just one part.

Preparing for stormy skies (part 1): the RAAF’s future fighter force

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Australia’s deteriorating security outlook, and what it means for our strategic relationships and our defence planning, has been a hot topic of late. Two key articles, by Paul Dibb and Peter Jennings, highlight the growing strategic threats in our region, particularly if US security commitments begin to look shaky in coming years.

Even if Australia’s defence alliance with the US remains on firm footing, we must be prepared to assume a greater share of the defence burden. As we consider how our changing strategic outlook might affect future force design, our air and naval forces should take priority given the maritime nature of the Indo-Pacific region.

For the RAAF and, specifically, for the air force’s strike and air combat capability, we have some room for manoeuvre when considering future platforms.

The RAAF’s 24 Super Hornets raise some interesting possibilities for force structure planners. As we’ve explored in past articles (here and here), the F/A-18Fs will be a viable capability for considerably longer than the 2030 replacement date suggested in the 2016 defence white paper. There’s no reason why they can’t be progressively upgraded to Block III standard by the mid-2020s, to become a high-end complement to the F-35.

The upgrade would extend their operational service lives to 9,000 flight hours, and equip them with similar capabilities in avionics, sensors and data systems to F-35s, but with considerably greater payload. Certainly, the Block III Super Hornet isn’t as stealthy as the F-35. What may matter more is the ability to use the F-35 as a stealthy sensor and the Block III Super Hornet as a shooter to maximise their effectiveness. A mixed fleet would be more flexible than an all-F-35 (JSF) force.

The Block III Super Hornet represents a ‘4.5 generation’ capability, in a ‘high/very high’ mix with the F-35. Maintaining this mix also mitigates against the potential risk that adversary ground-based air-defence systems might increasingly incorporate more advanced counter-stealth capabilities that can direct long-range double-digit surface-to-air missiles and advanced multirole combat aircraft. Sensor developments include low-frequency radars and quantum radar that over time could erode the stealth advantage of an all-F-35 force.

An upgrade to the Block III F/A-18F would be considerably cheaper than the unit cost of an entirely new F-35, which is on track for around US$80 million per aircraft. Based on information provided by Boeing in 2016 and 2017, and ASPI research in 2017, it would cost around US$20 million per aircraft to upgrade a Block II F/A-18F to Block III, and US$8 million per aircraft to upgrade the EA-18G Growler to ‘Advanced Growler’. With 24 Super Hornets and 12 EA-18G Growlers, this represents a total cost of US$576 million for a fleet-wide upgrade, versus US$2.24 billion for a new squadron of 28 F-35s (not including their very high lifetime sustainment costs). That’s a big saving which opens up some interesting options for force development.

The US$1.66 billion saved could be invested back into further enhancing the RAAF’s strike and air combat capability, potentially by expanding the overall number of planes it flies. The savings could buy an additional 20 Block III Super Hornets or could be spent as ‘buy in’ to future capability programs, including unmanned combat aerial vehicles that will offer the RAAF the ability to exploit manned–unmanned teaming. Ultimately, the air force needs to think about what will come after the F-35 in the 2040s, and that’s a discussion that should start soon.

In considering the first option of additional aircraft, is there a case for a larger strike and air combat force? One answer can be found in applying Lanchester’s square law, which Andrew Davies explained in a 2014 Strategist piece (he even includes equations for the true geeks). The bottom line is that ‘doubling the force size quadruples its combat weight’. A larger force of 44 Block III Super Hornets would allow for more sorties and higher force concentration for less money than an additional 28 F-35s. Numbers matter, even in an era of stealth and precision weapons, particularly if the F-35’s stealth advantage is eroded.

However, modern air combat is less about a single platform-on-platform contest than it is about a network-versus-network conflict. The F/A-18Fs and F-35s would be part of a system of systems that includes electronic attack, airborne early warning and control, long-range radar, space and even cyber capabilities. Calculating the true value of extra aircraft needs to incorporate the effects generated by this system-of-systems approach.

Next year will mark the beginning of the quadrennial force structure review, and the force design process needs to assess how comparative qualitative balance in a system-of-systems framework is changing over time, and how quantitative factors could affect that change. The process should include a robust debate that tests the assumptions that drive current thinking about the future composition of Australia’s strike and air combat capability.

All of this has a funding dimension, especially if the government decided to acquire the full complement of F-35s as well as expand and upgrade the Super Hornet fleet. Jennings rightly says that Australia must boost defence spending, arguing that ‘we should start to lift defence spending to reach 2.5 or 3% of gross national product in a decade’. That could certainly fund a larger strike and air combat capability force.

A balance must be found and funds must not be spent unless they lead to real capability increases. In the next instalment, I’ll explore the issue of addressing capability gaps, before summarising the prospects offered by next-generation air combat capability programs for Australia.

F-35 update: the good, the bad and the unknown

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The past couple of weeks have been a case of ‘good news and bad news’ for customers of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. As a country about to commit to the bulk of its currently approved 72 aircraft purchase, it’s to be hoped that our defence procurement people have been watching recent developments closely. We’re now looking at a longer wait and a higher price for some of the key capabilities we’re after—especially a dedicated maritime strike capability.

But let’s start with some good news. The USAF budget request for the 2019 financial year was released recently and, as was the case in the past few years, the forward prices reflect an increasingly mature production effort.

The figure below, drawing on budget requests since 2013, shows the ‘flyaway price’ of the air force variant that Australia is buying. As usual, I’ve included a calculated ‘learning curve’ of prices that represents the industry standard. This year’s figures are shown in black and the predicted prices are flattening out as expected. There are only very slight year-on-year changes over 2017, 2018 and 2019.

So far so good. The bad news is in two parts. First, those numbers are just budget placeholders, and don’t yet represent contracted figures. It’s not unusual for there to be a certain amount of argy-bargy between the government and contractors during price negotiations, but the public discourse between the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin is getting a little heated.

We’re now five months past the Pentagon’s preferred October 2017 contract signature date. If all else fails, the Pentagon can take unilateral action to finalise the deal, as it did in 2016. But it would be better for both parties to agree on the price and terms.

The contract details matter to Australia. Despite having been partners in the program since 2002, the amount we end up paying will still reflect the production costs in the US-based program—there are no fixed price deals here.

The second lot of bad news concerns the jet’s capabilities. The figures above refer to aircraft at ‘Block 3’ standard. Many of the capabilities we really want—especially a dedicated anti-ship weapon—won’t be delivered until later capability blocks. We’re now starting to get some public indications of the costs of those future capability increments, and they aren’t especially reassuring.

The F-35 ‘modernisation program’, in truth, actually includes many of the capabilities that customers originally thought would be in earlier deliveries but have since been pushed out in order to streamline the already-delayed development program. The upgrades now might carry a price tag of US$16 billion, considerably more than previous estimates. The international partners in the program will potentially be required to pay US$3.7 billion of those additional costs.

The bulk of the upgrades—though not all—will be implemented through software, rather than through physical modifications to the aircraft or its subsystems. That’s only partially reassuring though—the aircraft’s processors probably need replacing to run later software loads, and software development and testing are also frequent sources of delays.

And not everything can be done with code. My reading is that a decision is needed in the next couple of years as to whether to include the required hardware modifications on the production line, or to retrofit them later. There are pros and cons to either approach.

Changing the hardware fit on the production line now, just as the benefits of the learning curve are kicking in, risks slowing the production rate and bumping back up the learning curve until the changes are completely assimilated. But retrofitting later necessarily takes aircraft offline for a while and is generally more time consuming (read: expensive) than building changes in from the start. And it’s unclear how any such decisions would impact the move towards a multi-year ‘block buy’.

So it seems that Australia faces additional costs—or a longer wait—for capabilities we previously identified as ‘must haves’. Block 3 aircraft will be very capable and would certainly be a step up in capability from the Hornets and Super Hornets we’ve sent to Iraq in recent years. But those missions don’t reflect our regional strategic circumstances, which really require advanced maritime strike capabilities.

The F-35 program continues to offer a mix of promised advanced capability and disappointment. While there’s no real alternative for the 2020s (and probably for some time beyond), we’re still going to be flying Super Hornets until the Block 4 or 5 F-35s mature. And potential adversaries are working on closing the gap, so the F-35s’ slow development means that users will get less utility from the purchase than would have been the case had the jets been delivered close to the original schedule.

In that context, I think it’s worth reiterating something that Malcolm Davis and I wrote a couple of years ago: the RAAF shouldn’t rush to buy more F-35s early in the 2020s. Time’s moving on, and there might be smarter options coming along.

The Australian Flying Corps, 1917–18 (part 2)

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By early 1918, four Australian Flying Corps units were on active service: No. 1 Squadron in the Middle East, and Nos. 2, 3 and 4 Squadrons on the Western Front.

AFC crews in the Middle East were also attached to a special air unit formed to protect Colonel T.E. Lawrence—the legendary Lawrence of Arabia—and his force of 30,000 Arab irregulars, who were suffering rough treatment from German bombers. Lawrence was thrilled by the nonchalant bravery of Lieutenant Ross Smith, whom he described admiringly as ‘an Australian, of a race delighting in additional risks’.

Allied air power reached its zenith in the Middle East in September 1918 during the Battle of Armageddon, a campaign planned to achieve the final overthrow of the Turks. Having first established air supremacy, the allied airmen attacked the enemy furiously, causing terrible carnage. During one engagement, 10 aircraft from No. 1 Squadron decimated a trapped force of 3,000 troops, 600 camels and 300 horses, repeatedly bombing and strafing terrified men and animals. The battle ultimately resulted in the destruction of three Turkish armies and the capture of Damascus, events which precipitated an armistice on 31 October.

Mention must be made of the theatre’s outstanding AFC personality, Richard ‘Dicky’ Williams. A thin, intense man whose high forehead and penetrating gaze accurately reflected his probing intellect, Williams was strong-minded, confident and an excellent organiser. He was also a courageous pilot, decorated with the DSO and OBE and twice mentioned in dispatches. Williams was promoted to command No. 1 Squadron after only a year in the Middle East, and in June 1918 he was given command of one of the two wings comprising the Royal Air Force’s Palestine Brigade, a considerable achievement for a ‘colonial’. Subsequently the first chief of the Royal Australian Air Force in 1921, Williams remains the greatest figure in Australian military aviation history.

On the Western Front, the most notable event occurred in July 1918, when the AFC participated in the Battle of Hamel, arguably the first genuine application of joint (air and land) warfare, planned by the brilliant General John Monash.

Conclusion: a revolution in military affairs

Popular images of air combat in World War I have been shaped by flickering films and sepia photographs, in which chivalrous amateurs seem to play out an exciting new sport remote from the squalor of the trenches. In reality, the war in the air was ruthless, cruel and, ultimately, professional.

Casualty rates were shocking, reaching 88% in some squadrons for extended periods, and averaging more than 50% for the war. The life expectancy of new pilots on the Western Front was three weeks. At the direction of the British air commander, General Hugh Trenchard, aircrew were not allowed to wear parachutes, a decision which condemned those whose aircraft were shot up to the horrific choice of either burning alive or jumping to their deaths. Contrary to popular notions of chivalry, once the early excitement of the war had been replaced by hard cynicism, it was common for downed airmen to be strafed and killed by enemy pilots.

Nor was there much understanding of the physiology of flying. Sustained flight above 3,000 metres in an open cockpit in winter subjected men to severe stresses, and aircrew frequently died from the bends or in spasms and fits after landing.

Those squalid happenings were offset to some extent by brilliant technical achievements. In August 1914, aircraft performance was abysmal, and it was not uncommon for pilots to experience an engine failure a week. By 1918, fighters could climb to 6,000 metres in 43 minutes and cruise at 7,300 metres, impressive figures which necessitated oxygen systems and heated flying suits. Other innovations included engines that had five times more power than their predecessors and were vastly more reliable, air-to-ground wirelesses, bomb racks, automatic cameras, multi-engine bombers, and illuminated navigation beacons that flashed in Morse code to guide crews at night.

Technical advances were complemented by the rapid development of sophisticated doctrine. Roles such as control of the air, close support, interdiction, reconnaissance, army and fleet cooperation, anti-shipping strikes and, most significantly, strategic bombing, were all familiar to air force commanders by 1918, as were complex tactics for coordinating the activities of very large formations of fighters and bombers.

The rise of air power between 1914 and 1918 represented the 20th century’s first revolution in military affairs. The men who were to lead the RAAF when it was formed in 1921 were exposed to that revolution, and received a severe professional education. In that context, the achievements of the AFC were heroic in their own right, and constituted a precious legacy for the RAAF.

The Australian Flying Corps, 1917–18 (part 1)

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By 1917, the men of the Australian Flying Corps’ No. 1 Squadron had been fighting in the Middle East for almost two years. Now Australia’s airmen were ready to join the allies’ broader campaign in the Great War.

Because Europe was the main theatre, the next three AFC squadrons to be raised—Nos. 2, 3 and 4—were designated for the Western Front. They arrived in England for additional training between late 1916 and early 1917. Supplementary courses for aircrew and mechanics were conducted at a number of English military depots and civilian institutions (including Oxford University), and covered such subjects as rigging, engines, weapons and wirelesses. Four AFC training squadrons were then established in England: Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Flying training was a dangerous business. Royal Flying Corps (RFC) statistics show that on average every trainee destroyed six undercarriages and wrecked two aircraft ‘completely’. Arthur ‘Harry’ Cobby and George Jones, who were to become major figures in Australian aviation history, both crashed in England and were lucky not to have been killed. By the end of the war, there were 25 Australian graves in the cemetery near the training base at Leighterton in Gloucestershire.

No. 2 Squadron was the first AFC unit to arrive on the Western Front, where it was integrated into the RFC. Brilliantly led by Major Oswald Watt, the squadron distinguished itself on the first day of the Battle of Cambrai on 20 November 1917. Flying their DH5s only metres above the trenches because of heavy fog, the Australian pilots bombed and strafed enemy troops, gun batteries, fortifications and supply trains. By the end of the day, six of the squadron’s 18 aircraft had been shot down and another was missing. When the battle was at its fiercest, the squadron was visited by the commander of the RFC on the front, Major-General Hugh Trenchard, who described the Australians as ‘really magnificent’.

Nos. 3 and 4 Squadrons arrived in France shortly afterwards, the latter allocated to fighter and attack tasks, the former to reconnaissance and army liaison. Because of their artillery spotting and photographic roles, No. 3 Squadron’s RE8s were prime targets for German fighters, often being attacked by as many as 12 aircraft. Despite the RE8’s modest performance, the Australian pilots and observers managed to shoot down 51 enemy aircraft, a remarkable achievement.

No. 4 Squadron was to become the AFC’s most successful fighter unit in terms of enemy aircraft destroyed, claiming 199 kills to No. 2 Squadron’s 185. That slender margin may have been due in part to No. 4 Squadron’s having been equipped from the outset with one of the war’s outstanding fighters, the Sopwith Camel, whereas No. 2 Squadron had to make do with DH5s until rearmed with SE5as after the Battle of Cambrai. No. 4 Squadron also benefited from having in its ranks the AFC’s two leading aces, captains Cobby and E.J.K. McCloughry.

Harry Cobby was the archetypal fighter pilot: courageous, dashing and good-humoured. A bank clerk from Prahran, he joined the AFC in 1917 and by the end of the year was in France. He scored his first kill on 4 February 1918; and on 20 March he and another pilot intercepted five aircraft from von Richthofen’s Flying Circus and shot down three. In a brief period in July, Cobby scored double victories on the 9th and 14th, and four kills on the 19th. In between those dogfights, Cobby, like his colleagues, strafed and bombed German trenches and supply lines.

On one occasion while patrolling alone Cobby was attacked by 16 Fokkers. With his guns jammed, he threw his Camel into a series of desperate manoeuvres that enabled him to break away and escape by hedge-hopping back to allied lines. His aircraft was so badly shot up that when he landed it split apart, leaving him unconscious but unscathed. Another time, his seat was shot out from under him and he had to fly home holding on to the fuselage to save himself from falling out. Once he landed his Camel in the middle of the Australian lines and, still dressed in flying helmet and boots, rode the winner of an impromptu horserace the diggers were holding. He then took off and resumed his patrol.

By the end of his tour, Cobby’s reputation was such that he was leading formations of up to 80 allied aircraft. He finished the war as the AFC’s top ace and a national hero, having shot down 29 aircraft and 13 balloons.

F-35 will be regional game changer, says RAAF chief

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The RAAF’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, closely integrated with the Navy and the Army, will be a game changer for regional stability, says Air Force chief Leo Davies.

In a major speech in Washington DC last night, Air Marshal Davies told the Center for Strategic and International Studies the F-35 would redefine how the ADF carried out ‘joint’ operations. The JSF was reinforcing the relationship between Australia and the US, Davies said. ‘We are technology partners whose capability brings us shared futures.’

Davies described a vision of the RAAF becoming the first ‘fifth generation’ air force able to work intricately with allies in the Asia-Pacific to help perpetuate a rules based order. ‘Freedom of overflight and navigation, for example, symbolise what our regional partners expect of our vision for the future,’ he said.

And he set out the increasing benefits a well-equipped and interoperable RAAF could bring to Australia’s US ally and the major changes in thinking that would require in the RAAF, the Navy and the Army as they geared up for ‘joint warfighting’. Fully integrating the F-35’s capabilities into the ADF would bring tremendous opportunities and complex challenges.

All of the RAAF’s combat force would be able to operate closely with US forces. Australia would have the same ‘A’ model of the JSF as the US Air Force and its Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, Triton unmanned patrol planes, Super Hornet strike aircraft and Growler electronic warfare aircraft would all match those of the US Navy.

‘Our modern Air Force offers the potential to explore how we can operate together in a maritime environment supported by sea and land-based air capabilities,’ Davies said.

JSF pilots from the RAAF, the US Marine Corps, the US Air Force and the US Navy could draw from common intelligence mission data, threat libraries, target-acceptance and validation, he said. They’d be linked to networked, nationally agnostic command-and-control systems, electronic warfare assets, airborne early warning and control systems and air-to-air refuelling elements from a combined force. ‘They have trained together, they have fought together,’ he said.

Software and hardware would combine to make this team one of the most lethal and versatile air combat capabilities available to allied and coalition forces. The ADF would also need to understand how it would function with regional nations which did not possess these advanced capabilities.

The RAAF chief invited the USAF and the USN to join with the ADF in assessing how to get the best from the JSF. ‘Together we can realise the full potential of fifth-generation capability more quickly than alone. We must accelerate meaningful conversations between our armies, air forces and navies on joint-force integration at an alliance level.’

Davies noted that, for the ADF, being smaller could be an advantage. ‘In some respects, our size allows us to turn faster.’

He said the RAAF should be a strategic technological bridge to Australia’s neighbours. With the insight of a permanent resident, Australia could help the US develop its relationships with nations such as India and Indonesia.

The RAAF’s new Poseidons with their sophisticated, integrated sensors would continue to operate from Malaysian bases on their ‘Gateway’ patrols far up over Asia waters and they’d take allied ‘air rider’ observers with them.

‘We in Australia can see parts of the sky that you, in the US cannot,’ Davies said. Australia and the US could work closely with nations such as Japan and Singapore to develop space and cyber systems.

Space and cyber were critical to the air domain. ‘They will be contested and congested, and we, as in the US, Australia and partners, will have to maintain superiority in those areas to prevail.’

Despite the ‘urgency of geography’, relationships matter. Some relationships, in some locations, more than others. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the space and cyber domains.

We in Australia can see parts of the sky that you, in the US cannot. Equally, countries such as Japan and Singapore are defined by geographies which drive their regional choices. We therefore have a confluence of commercial capabilities and geography which, if focused, could be strong assets in a mutual development of space and cyber systems.

Space and cyber are critical to the air domain. They will be contested and congested, and we – in the US, Australia and partners – will have to maintain superiority in those areas to prevail.

It is our unique relationship with other regional players, relationships which the US may not enjoy, that allows us in Australia to play a special role here. We have, if you will, the insight of a permanent resident.

Our relationship with countries like India and Indonesia, to whom you in the US seek greater access, are perhaps a case in point. Both countries are emergent powers, emergent economies, as space and cyber rise to prominence in warfare.

A key alliance objective should therefore be for us to harness regional partners in the development of key technologies like space and cyber – to guarantee increased participation in, and shore up the notion of, the rules-based global order, and to defend it with leading edge capabilities.

Such a future will take brokering. It will require consideration and trust. But it will be necessary in tilting the balance of regional interests in our favour. And it will shape the future of the air domain.

We not only have to pull our weight in the conventional, military, sense. We must also act as ambassadors for the rules-based global order we want our region to foster.

Fifth-generation capabilities, born of a values-based alliance, go beyond that. They are a living example of what strong strategic relationships – founded in history and developed with trust over time – can produce.

Australia and the US are now in a strong position, as fifth-generation technology partners, to shape a discussion about the alignment between capability and values. This may be pivotal for the ongoing development of a rules-based global order.

The JSF: time for a reality check (part 1)

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Image courtesy of Flickr user Forsvarsdepartementet.

Within days, Australians will get to see the first of the RAAF’s new Joint Strike Fighters—just months after the jet’s noisiest critics told an inquiry it was a ‘jackass of all trades and masterful of none’. Two members of the Air Power Australia group went on to tell the Senate committee the aircraft was ‘a broken and obsolete design, unsuitable for modern combat’. The reality, say Australian fighter pilots and senior members of the ADF with intimate knowledge of the JSF’s capability, is vastly different.

RAAF chief, Air Marshal Leo Davies, tells The Strategist that while the JSF, now officially the F-35 Lightning ll, has had its problems, it could never have got to the stage it’s reached if its critics were right. ‘It has flown over 70,000 flight hours, more than 200 jets are flying, the United States Marine Corps has reached Initial Operational Capability (IOC), the US Air Force has gone IOC, the US Navy is about to go IOC,’ says Air Marshal Davies. ‘It’s incongruous to me to hear people suggest it doesn’t work. That can’t happen. ‘Is it at its peak war fighting design and software load at the moment? No, it has got one more step to come.’

The JSF remains a work in progress, but by the time the RAAF buys its aircraft, the next design and software upgrade should be complete and the F-35s will be significantly more capable than Hornets or Super Hornets.

Air Marshal Davies says the results of the intense Red Flag air combat exercise in the US ‘absolutely cement our view that this is the right aeroplane for Australia.’ US media is talking about a 15:1 kill ratio in favour of the F-35 against older generation fighters in the exercise in which RAAF air crews took part. (Though some commentators have raised questions about the significance of that figure.)The officer responsible for the Australian end of the US-led multinational JSF program says the aircraft will revolutionise the way the nation fights wars far into the future.

The head of the RAAF’s JSF Capability and Sustainment Group, Air Vice Marshal Leigh Gordon, says four factors give the F35 its ‘fifth generation’ edge—stealth, sensors, fusion and data sharing.

‘Two factors stand out. One is the phenomenally powerful cutting edge radar. The other is the distributer aperture system, or DAS, cameras which give the pilot a 360 degree infrared view of the world. The third element is the way all of that information is fused together to give the pilot unparalleled situational awareness.’

A fourth element is the JSF’s ability to quickly share the vast amount of information it gathers with air, land and naval forces. ‘It will allow us to operate in the high threat environments we will need to operate in if we end up in a conflict.’

Air Vice Marshal Gordon is confident that the first of the 72 JSFs on order for the RAAF will be based in Australia by December 2018 and the first operational squadron and a training squadron will reach IOC by December 2020. Three squadrons will be fully combat ready in 2023.

Group Captain Glen Beck has been a fighter pilot all his adult life and is now director of the RAAF’s Air Combat Transition Office. He served in Iraq in 2003 as a flight commander and he’s trained many of the RAAF’s top pilots. The aim, he says, isn’t just to see aircraft delivered and hangers built for them but to get to a mature and self-sustaining system with fully trained pilots ready for operations. ‘With F-35 we are on a massive learning curve.’ He says RAAF specialists deeply embedded in the program in the US are well placed to identify any problems with the JSF. Two RAAF pilots are in the US instructing international pilots to fly the JSF and three others are training there to become instructors.

‘When you compare JSF to other options, when you look out past the 2030s, looking at the global strategic situation and where technology’s going, it is the standout choice as the best solution to Australia’s air power needs. The guys love how it flies. It’s very easy to operate.’

The JSF is designed for what the pilots call ‘BVR’—beyond visual range—combat but the Australian pilots say it can dogfight as well.

Group Captain Beck says it’s all about what the fighter pilots call the ‘kill chain’. ‘Do I have more options than the bad guys to stay alive longer and then do I have more options to fight than the bad guys? I don’t care if they find me if they can’t track me and target me. ‘If they do find me, then to track me is a different problem again. But the F-35 has fantastic sensors. I will know they are targeting me and I’m not going to do nothing if I think I’m being shot at.’

Getting the pair of highly advanced, ‘fifth generation’ jets to the Avalon Air Show will itself be a comprehensive demonstration of aviation logistics. They’ll be flown to Australia by Aussie pilots and frequently topped up along the way by a RAAF KC-30 air-to-air refuelling tanker.

Another officer with an intense interest in ensuring that the JSF works is Army chief Lieutenant General Angus Campbell. He rejects suggestions the F-35 will not be able to provide troops on the ground with effective air support. ‘The JSF is an extremely advanced fighter which has extraordinary and possibly unparalleled capacities in information networking which we’ve not seen in the ADF before,’ says Lieutenant General Campbell.

‘Every soldier on every battlefield through modern history will want, or pray for, control of the air above him or her. The F-35 gives our soldiers the greatest confidence that they will have air control above them. I’m delighted we’re getting it. Only those who don’t have air control above them know the true horror of that environment and I would not want that for Australian soldiers.’

Triton to herald sea-change in RAAF surveillance

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The arrival in November of the first of Australia’s new P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft is a reminder that the days of the RAAF’s AP-3C Orions are numbered. For three decades the Orions of 10 and 11 Squadrons performed roles, including anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue and overland intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).

The Poseidon can fly faster and stay on station longer than the Orion, can be refuelled in-flight and its radar, Electro Optic and Electronic Support Measure systems are a generation ahead of the latest AP-3C upgrades. The RAAF intends to have its 15 Poseidons in service by the late 2020s, on the same missions as the Orion.

But Australia will soon be acquiring a very different aircraft which is much less of a like-for-like replacement. The MQ-4C Triton, to be in service by 2019, will also be filled with sensors, but without a single crew member on-board. The remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) will conduct maritime surveillance for the RAAF alongside the Poseidon.

The RAAF operates Israeli Herons in Afghanistan but the Triton is a strategic-level asset which will likely be tasked at the highest levels of Defence. The RAAF plans to buy only seven for $2–3 billion. To operate the Triton effectively, the ADF will need to deal with several issues.

A benefit of RPAs is that the crew remains safely on the ground, sometimes thousands of kilometres away. American RPAs operating in the Middle East and South West Asia have been piloted from control centres near Las Vegas. It’s now possible for Full Motion Video from an RPA over Yemen to be viewed by analysts in Qatar, Germany, Langley, or anywhere in the world. But that ‘reach back’ also contains risks.

In the late 1960s, US President Lyndon B. Johnson personally chose targets for American bombers. With today’s RPAs, Johnson could have watched live video footage from North Vietnam, chosen what to destroy and then watched that happen in real time. The ‘reach back’ Triton will give Australia’s senior political and defence leaders brings the risk that, even after the Triton crew has been given its mission orders, there’s the possibility of ‘real time’ interference while the mission is underway. That’s heightened by the Triton’s almost certain involvement in the politically-sensitive border security role. While this ‘reach back’ will also exist with the Poseidon, there will rarely be a decision-maker standing directly behind the aircraft’s crew telling them what to look at or what not to look at.

While the Triton won’t carry weapons, it will be fitted with a surveillance radar, an EO/IR sensor and an ESM suite. The US Navy is planning to use the Triton in the airborne signals intelligence mission. Triton patrols lasting upwards of 24 hours mean those sensors will collect a great deal of data, which will need to be transmitted and analysed both in-flight (to determine what’s going on around the aircraft and whether something needs to be reacted to) and stored for post-mission analysis, such as pattern of life studies. The analysis will require many trained personnel across Defence and other government agencies which will use the information. As a former USAF Deputy Chief of Staff for ISR stated, ‘We are going to find ourselves in the not too distant future swimming in sensors and drowning in data.’ American experience with the Global Hawk RPA (upon which the Triton is based) found that of the 300 personnel required to maintain a constant RPA combat air patrol, only 13% were actually flying the aircraft. Those needed to exploit the collected information amounted to 34% of the total personnel.

Finally, there will likely be political limits to where Triton can be used. While the ADF will have undoubtedly learned lessons from operations in Afghanistan, there are considerable differences between a largely permissive environment where the RPA’s presence is allowed by the host government, and a strategic platform operating over and adjacent to countries which may not want it there.

Not having aircrew means RPAs can be operated in areas too dangerous to have an aircraft with a crew, who if caught would almost certainly not be accorded the protections of the Geneva Conventions. US overflights have been dubbed ‘spy flights’ and Triton operations will almost certainly be given the same nickname, not just by the Australian media, but by countries near where they are operating. A Triton looking for boats of asylum seekers in the Timor Sea may not be viewed favourably by Jakarta.

Orion crews over the South China Sea, have routinely received radio challenges from the Chinese military and they’ve been able to respond that they’re exercising their internationally guaranteed freedom of navigation rights to avoid any escalation. The Triton, with no crew on-board, would likely have more difficulty making that claim. It’s just not the same when the person on the radio is thousands of kilometres away. Indeed an adversary could likely have fewer qualms about destroying an RPA than its manned equivalent.

The Triton will be an important part of the RAAF’s move to become a Fifth Generation Air Force. But platforms alone won’t make that work. It’ll be how the RAAF uses its new equipment, especially together, that determines how effectively it will perform.

UCAS and the RAAF’s future   

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Image courtesy of Flickr user U.S. Pacific Fleet

A common refrain when discussing the future of airpower is that ‘the F-35 is the last manned fighter’ and the future belongs to unmanned systems. The expanding use of unmanned air systems (UAS) such as Reapers and Predators against international terrorist networks implies a future of remote, push-button warfare. That entails minimal risk (on one side) for maximum tactical precision effect. The panorama of future battle is captured in targeting footage presented on evening news, and has become the centrepiece of movies—for instance, the excellent Eye in the Sky.

The 2016 Defence White Paper highlights Australia’s acquisition of an armed reconnaissance UAS for Army in the early 2020s (para 4.55), and seven unarmed MQ-4C Triton Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Air Force (4.38). Army already makes extensive use of tactical surveillance UAS such as the RQ-7B Shadow 200, while RAN has completed experimentation with the ScanEagle UAVS, and may employ Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Firescout on the Future Frigates and the Canberra-class LHDs.

There’s huge potential for transformation associated with higher performance Unmanned Combat Air Systems (UCAS), epitomised by prototypes such as the Northrop Grumman X-47B, the BAE Systems Taranis, and the French Dassault nEUROn projects. Those systems dispense with time-consuming processes and costs to ensure certification for manned flight, and X-47B and nEUROn are autonomous rather than remotely piloted. The effectiveness of the X-47B’s autonomy has been highly visible with a perfect record for landing trials (and here) aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush in July 2013. The same precision was shown in airborne refuelling trials (and here) in 2015. In both instances, the X-47B was in charge—not a human.

UCAS operational costs are dramatically reduced as training for operators can be done largely in simulation, with the UCAS flying only when necessary. A recent analysis of UCAS vs manned aircraft for the USN by the Centre for New American Security (CNAS) suggested savings for UCAS over manned fighters of US$42.5 billion for 362 UCAS over 30 years, or potentially as much as US$131.5 billion over the same period for 191 UCAS compared to 463 manned platforms. So in an Australian context, money saved on life cycle costs could be reinvested back into further capability acquisition to allow a larger and more powerful future RAAF.

Future UCAS can be optimised for Australia’s specific requirements and can be scaled up or down, in terms of size, payload, operational range and endurance. Already the X-47B has superior range over manned aircraft, with Northrop Grumman quoting a range greater than 2,100nm—considerably more than the F-35A’s 1,187nm. That long range allows airborne refueller aircraft to stand further back from a threat, increasing their survivability, while not affecting the ability of the UCAS to enjoy persistence over a battlespace of hours rather than minutes with a manned platform. Operating from RAAF bases, UCAS could deploy deep into maritime Southeast Asia or the Indian Ocean to carry out a broad range of roles and tasks. UCAS can act as unmanned wingmen to manned fighters, carrying extra weapons or sensors, and operate forward in more contested environments. In the traditional air-to-air role, the F-35 may control a number of UCAS that act as missile trucks for beyond-visual range (BVR) engagements, or they could undertake a broad range of strike and ISR roles.

So is UCAS the future and the F-35 the last manned fighter? We aren’t seeing the end of manned fighters but witnessing an evolving concept for air warfare in which ‘systems of systems’ replace individual platforms, and a mix of manned and unmanned systems work together. As noted previously, low-end UCAS which exploit swarming and numbers for tactical advantage over more sophisticated platforms may also be a feature. Absent true AI, and current political and legal constraints imposed by rules of engagement will constrain UCAS autonomy and promote manned fighters. Important debates over the ethics of lethal autonomous weapons, and the undeniable cultural influence of fighter pilots within the leadership of air forces, also mean that manned fighters won’t disappear from that mix any time soon.

Australia should collaborate with the US, as well as the UK, to help develop UCAS capabilities. That could involve early practical steps with key partners, including for example, opening up Australian defence facilities for further operational testing of existing prototypes such as the Northrop Grumman X-47B (noting the precedent with the UK’s Taranis already having flown from Woomera). There needs to be a degree of ‘pull’ from states that can benefit from development of UCAS that can match the ‘push’ from corporate actors who are developing systems, to help bring those systems from prototype to operational deployment, and in particular to gain acceptance within an air force led by fighter pilots. With the requirement to replace the F/A-18F next decade, Australia has a golden opportunity to help drive transformation in air combat capabilities in the 21st century.