F-35 Archives

US tech-defence leaders want to upend the establishment

13 December 2024

Elon Musk wants to cancel the F-35, get rid of manned combat aircraft generally and rely more on drones.

It was no surprise, even without Musk’s comments along those lines, that the US Air Force punted any decision on the Next Generation Air Dominance air-combat project to the next administration. Leadership been undecided about how to proceed and about the impact of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program upon requirements. And the incoming Trump administration has dialled the chaos to 11.

It is not just the nomination of the problematic Pete Hedgseth as secretary of defense. In the closing weeks of the presidential campaign, Musk emerged as a powerful support for Trump, and he has been constantly close to the president-elect since election. Trump has appointed Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy to run a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): its formal status remains uncertain but it can make its writ run via the Oval Office.

This followed the nomination of JD Vance as vice-president—less than two years after the author and venture capitalist was helped into the Senate by Peter Thiel, founder of data-analysis software firm Palantir and the major backer of defence-technology company Anduril.

The Tech Bros’ hold over the administration would look like a virtual coup even if Trump was an engaged and savvy leader. But Trump has no great reputation for deep understanding of technology.

The tech-defence community, centred around Musk, Thiel and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, have been clear about their intention to reboot the defence establishment—comprising the Department of Defense (DoD), armed services and industry—which they argue has ossified since the end of the Cold War and will be unable to match China.

At the end of October, Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar published 18 Theses for defense reformation. ‘Everyone, including the Russians and the Chinese, has given up on communism,’ Sankar writes, ‘except for Cuba and the DoD. The only problem is that we are bad commies.’

Sankar’s diagnosis is that consolidation has stifled innovation blocked vital change, while leading to poor performance on major programs such as F-35, KC-46 tanker and Sentinel nuclear ballistic missile. His prescription is to break up acquisition and hand it to combatant commands; end cost-plus contracting; and move away from pure-play defence primes to mixed commercial-defence enterprises—like Palantir and SpaceX.

Trump’s Tech Bros could change rules and divert cash from current programs to new systems.

The Pentagon might announce a slowdown and early end to F-35 procurement and a greater emphasis on CCA, while requiring bidders to invest in development—as General Atomics did in the first decade of the century—in return for higher margins. In that case, venture-capital-backed firms will be well positioned to dislodge the major primes.

The Tech Bros will not be dictators. Republican states dependent on Defense don’t want to lose those well-paid jobs, or trade them for automated gigafactories. Most of DOGE’s targeted ‘government bureaucrats’ work for contractors or as civilians on military bases and pay taxes all over the country.

The military itself has been successful at negating or outlasting civilian revolutionaries. (‘Musk is Robert McNamara 2.0.’ Discuss.) Whatever one’s view of the F-35, it can’t be replaced by a quadcopter. The Western Pacific is emphatically not Ukraine and the need for reach—range and speed—sets a limit to small and cheap.

Above all, the armed services need a continuing supply of hardware and can argue against disruption in the face of an imminent threat. They can make a case that civilians have been proclaiming the death of the manned aircraft, the tank and the aircraft carrier for 70 years.

But what if the military sees the White House as a temporary ally, to make politically unpalatable changes? On 5 December, Air Force Global Strike Command chief General Thomas Bussiere was asked about the future of the over-cost and behind-schedule Sentinel: ‘If the nation directs us to do something different … some kind of mobile system,’ Bussiere said, ‘we will develop such concepts.’ But he was far more positive about the need for more B-21s to meet ‘an unprecedented demand signal’ for the bomber force.

The Sentinel program is pouring air force money into holes in the ground (the missile is fine, and the overruns are in silos and bunkers) and stands apart from other missions. The F-35 continues to incur heavy research and development bills. Redirecting resources from money pits into force redesign centred on bombers and bomber-launched weapons—the air force’s first love—while blaming Musk might not be without its appeal.

We are in a moment in US politics like none other since Reconstruction. There is much left to be settled between now and 20 January, Inauguration day, but there are all kinds of revolutionary ambitions in the mix—and the history of revolutions is that the outcome isn’t usually what the instigators planned.

What Iran is facing: Israeli strike power combines precision with mass

11 October 2024

On October 1, before Iran launched more than 180 missiles against Israel, an X user called @MossadIL posted a video of the Damavand power station. It’s a 2.9 GW combined-cycle natural-gas plant that is the largest of its type in the region and the main source of power to Tehran.

The implication was unsaid but unmistakable: ‘Nice power plant. Shame if anything happened to it.’

Even online trolling can sometimes have a germ of reality to it. On October 9, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said, ‘Our strike will be lethal, precise and above all, surprising. They won’t understand what happened and how. They will see the results.’

It’s the ability to deliver large numbers of fire-and-forget, accurate, small but lethal weapons that gives Israel’s leaders the ability to hold at risk a very large range of Iranian targets with controlled effects. They could be energy or transport infrastructure, military targets, such as bases and missile plants, or many other facilities. This includes a capability, as Gallant suggests, to achieve surprise.

Evidence that Israel is not bluffing comes from the April 19 reprisal for Iran’s April 13 massed drone attack. A guided weapon hit and destroyed a mobile radar unit in Isfahan, 500 km from the closest border to Israel. The radar was part of one of Iran’s three prized Almaz-Antey S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile systems.

The exact weapon combination used has not been disclosed. But the message is that even when Iranian forces could be expected to be under high alert, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were confident they could penetrate deep into Iranian airspace and attack, of all things, an air-defense system.

Israel has developed a powerful and unique regional, conventional strategic strike capability, with a steady modernisation effort that started in the mid-2000s when Iran’s nuclear ambitions became clear and when Iran increased its supply of weapons to Hezbollah.

The modernisation effort has occurred alongside the growth of Israel’s information technology sector and amid a long-term change in the defense industry towards a more export-driven, more commercial structure.

The IDF’s philosophy at all levels of warfare is to obtain the clearest possible operational picture, fused from the inputs of many high-end intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems. Israel has developed and retained a sovereign satellite launch capability, even though geography dictates a less efficient, eastward launch for its Ofeq electro-optical and radar spacecraft. The country selects orbits that provide frequent passes over the Middle East.

The IDF already has Israel Aerospace Industries Shavit (signals intelligence) and Eitan (airborne early warning) aircraft, based on Gulfstream G550 business jets. They were joined in service this year by the first Oron, a G550 equipped with a multi-sensor ground and air surveillance suite and new-generation processors including artificial intelligence that can pick out targets autonomously.

The air force’s fleet of combat aircraft has been steadily modified with an emphasis on improving reach and survivability while integrating new weapons that have either greater range or reduced size and cost.

The fighter force is on its way to a 2034 inventory that will consist entirely of Lockheed Martin F-35Is, Boeing F-15s of a further improved variant (the F-15IA) and Lockheed Martin F-16Is. Although the F-15 was originally a fighter, Israel’s version is close to being a medium bomber. The F-16I has conformal fuel tanks for longer range and, to go even farther, routinely operates with two external tanks that each hold another 2300 litres. And IAI is developing external tanks for the F-35.

Both the F-16I and F-15I are equipped with electromagnetic warfare suites from the Israel’s advanced manufacturer IAI-Elta.

Israel’s F-35Is have unspecified differences to other F-35s, and the country uses one of them as a test asset, supporting integration of Israeli weapons. Israel has a sovereign capability to modify mission data files (which for other F-35 users are generated under US control). The F-35I almost certainly has a special Israeli datalink whose transmissions would be hard for an enemy to detect.

The air force has more than 250 aircraft suitable for strike missions, plus tankers to extend the range of some of them and other F-15s, designed mainly for air-to-air missions, to cover them.

Both IAI and Rafael have been publicly promoting long-range, high-speed weapons, indicating that there is either a domestic or export competition for such equipment underway. Rafael’s Rocks is based on the Black Sparrow ballistic target missile. Its guidance system, combining scene-matching and passive radar homing, suggests a focus on suppressing the enemy’s air defences. IAI’s Air Lora is an air-launched variant of the company’s surface-to-surface Lora artillery rocket, using jam-resistant GPS-inertial guidance.

While these weapons are important, the watchword for Israeli air-to-ground development in the 21st century has been ‘mass precision’. Earlier air-to-ground weapons could achieve mass or precision but not both. For example, laser or command-guided electro-optical weapons are inherently limited in numbers because they need control; GPS-INS weapons are less accurate and subject to jamming in the target area. The Israeli goal has been to overcome this limitation to precisely hit a great many target points.

A clear example of this capability is the combination of Rafael’s Spice-250 glide bomb and Litening 5 target designation pod. The pod has improved optics and adds a shortwave infrared band. Shortwave infrared’s most important attribute is that it penetrates atmospheric moisture better than other IR or visual wavelengths, so the aircraft can launch a weapon farther from the target.

Litening 5’s 60km targeting range is too far for laser designation, but the Spice family of weapons use a different, fire-and-forget terminal-guidance system. The weapon is programmed with a set of images located around the target and the target’s position relative to those points. Even if the target is obscured by cloud or smoke, the weapon will still guide, and the target map is large enough for the missile to find the scene even if GPS has been jammed in midcourse.

Additionally, Spice-250 has an imaging-plus-datalink human-in-the-loop mode that makes it possible to track moving targets or abort attacks.

Spice-250 carries an 80kg warhead. Elbit’s ordnance division has worked since the 2000s on the fundamentals of bomb and warhead design. It has created a series of bombs that look like the US Mk 82/83/84 series but are designed for focused blast and fragment effects against surface targets and better penetration of buildings. Elbit claims that the MPR-250, of about 230kg, is as effective as the United States’ 900kg Mk84. The same technology makes the Spice-250 warhead more effective than its size would imply.

Spice is integrated with a smart quadruple rack that includes a targeting-management processor and a datalink with front and rear antennas. This means an F-16 can carry 16 rounds, and an F-15 can in theory carry 28 weapons.

Decades of combat experience have shown that a small number of 900kg-class weapons with moderate accuracy tend not to damage large-area industrial targets severely; four times the number of precise impacts are a different matter.

The Super Hornet flies on

18 July 2023

The Royal Australian Air Force says it will fly its 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets through to the mid-2030s rather than retiring them by 2027 as had been intended. And it will open up a competition for a replacement rather than necessarily acquiring additional F-35A Lightning IIs. It seems likely that the Block II Super Hornets will be upgraded to full Block III configuration to maximise their capability.

The operational extension has clearly has been under consideration for some time. Most recently, the defence portfolio budget statement made clear that:

During 2023–24, F/A-18F and EA-18G aircraft are scheduled to undergo planned capability upgrades as part of the US Navy-managed Spiral Upgrade Program to ensure the platform’s ongoing lethality and survivability in a contested air combat environment, and to maintain configuration alignment with the United States Navy.

The upgrade will modernise the F/A-18F cockpit with new widescreen displays called the advanced cockpit system or ACS, and incorporate tactical targeting network technology (TTNT) and a distributed targeting processor network (DTP-N) as capable as those in the F-35A. The upgrade is likely to be done in Australia.

The Block III brings a new infrared search and track (IRST) capability to detect targets at greater range without using active radar, as well as enhanced satellite communications, and new fuselage coatings to reduce the radar signature. The airframes are upgraded to extend their service life from 6,000 to 10,000 hours.

The DTP-N and TTNT will give the F/A-18F a rapid growth capability in terms of avionics, computing, and systems architecture. The Block III aircraft can more easily undertake crewed–autonomous teaming with the MQ-28A Ghost Bat, which the defence strategic review said would be further developed under a collaborative program with the US. The new configuration will also make it easier for the aircraft to network with other weapons and platforms.

Australia’s Super Hornets will remain a potent capability, especially when teamed with the Ghost Bat and as a platform for delivering long-range standoff weapons such as the AGM-158C LRASM and AGM-158B JASSM-ER. An air concept of operations could see the F-35A acting as a forward sensor, exploiting its stealth to avoid detection, and then cueing targeting information to upgraded Super Hornets while EA-18G Growlers stop an adversary from using radar systems or sending information to air defences and opposing fighters. A team could also include other specialised electronic warfare aircraft, such as the MC-55 Peregrine and the E-7A Wedgetail, and tankers.

So, what does a force look like beyond the mid-2030s?

The RAAF must continue to develop as an air and space force, with advanced space capabilities playing a key role in command and control and battlespace awareness through intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems. But these projects must avoid the trap of relying only on a small number of high-end, costly and exquisite satellites that are increasingly vulnerable to Chinese and Russian counterspace capabilities.

Defence must complement these high-end capabilities with a ‘small, cheap and many’ approach based on large constellations of small satellites produced locally and ideally launched from Australia on locally developed launch vehicles, enabling rapid augmentation and reconstitution of space capabilities in a crisis. That would make space capabilities more resilient against growing counterspace threats. Then air combat capabilities such as the F/A-18Fs, F-35As and Ghost Bats can more assuredly depend on sovereign and allied space capabilities including positioning, navigation, and timing services from global navigation satellite systems.

It would be a mistake to assume that small numbers of large satellites are somehow immune to attack, and the value of larger constellations of small satellites has been clearly demonstrated by SpaceX’s Starlink supporting Ukrainian operations despite ineffectual Russian attempts to jam it.

Crewed–autonomous teaming needs to be embraced and Defence should support the development and fund the acquisition of sufficient Ghost Bats to complement crewed platforms. The government has indicated that it supports developing a ‘Block 2’ Ghost Bat. That fits neatly into US efforts to develop crewed–autonomous teaming as part of future air combat capabilities including the US Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) project.

The RAAF should join US and other allied sixth-generation projects early. While the F-35A will continue to fly into the 2040s, it would be a missed opportunity for the RAAF to simply rely on that aircraft and ignore important developments in NGAD, the US Navy’s F/A-XX program and the UK-led Global Combat Air Programme.

RAAF chief Air Marshal Robert Chipman has said: ‘We will look at the F-35 and we’re very, very comfortable and very happy with the capability of the F-35. But it would be remiss of me not to look at what else is available for us to replace our Super Hornets in the future.’

With the defence strategic review emphasising ‘impactful projection’ as a key requirement for the ADF’s approach to a ‘focused force’, it’s important for the RAAF to emphasise long-range air dominance and multirole air capability in the post–Super Hornet era. NGAD is almost a return to the days of the interceptor, with range, payload and low observability likely features. Given the vast distances across Australia’s strategic environment, NGAD’s likely supercruise capability at high altitude will enable the RAAF to exploit ‘near space’ for the first time. From there, advanced sensors, communications and weapons such as beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles like the AIM-260 joint advanced tactical missile can be best used for long-range air defence.

Defence white papers, and the recent strategic review, have emphasised strike missions for the RAAF, but air dominance will become increasingly important, especially to counter cruise missiles or forward-deployed combat aircraft and loitering munitions. Having the upgraded F/A-18F, together with the F-35A, clearly opens up opportunities for advanced crewed–autonomous teaming with platforms such as the Ghost Bat and places Australia in a good position to consider a sixth-generation future force with advanced, high-performance crewed aircraft, standoff weapons, autonomous systems and space capabilities at its heart.

Defence strategic review comes up short on airpower

31 May 2023

When examining the public version of the defence strategic review, it’s important to remember that it’s an unclassified version of a classified document and we’re not seeing the full picture. The review comments on the capabilities and workforce of the Royal Australian Air Force and gives general guidance on investment priorities in the air domain. But we’re left to guess how the move to a focused force and anti-access and area-denial strategy will lead to new capability options and force posture developments for the RAAF.

That can be taken positively as suggesting that the RAAF’s force structure is about right and doesn’t need much alteration. It’s also possible that the government will release information held back from the unclassified DSR. That seems to have been the case with the announcement in April of an ‘advanced strategic capabilities accelerator office’ to fast-track new technology including autonomous systems.

The DSR strongly recommends continued development of Boeing Defence Australia’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat combat drone collaboratively with the US. It’s the only significant air capability development measure in the DSR. Yet that commitment isn’t an order for actual platforms to be introduced into operational service, and the Ghost Bat needs to be seen as a ready for evolution into a more capable platform.

A $2 billion boost for upgrades for Australia’s northern air bases and $1 billion more to upgrade other facilities are positive outcomes for the RAAF.

In the context of pursuing ‘impactful projection’, the AGM-158C long-range anti-ship missile (LRASM) will be carried by the F-35A Lightning II and the F/A-18F Super Hornet. LRASM and its land-attack equivalent, JASSM-ER, are too large to be carried internally by the F-35, so integrating them will mean the aircraft must operate in ‘beast mode’ and sacrifice its low-radar cross-section. With that in mind, the DSR also recommends integrating the Kongsberg joint strike missile onto the F-35; it can be carried internally once the aircraft has received Block 4 upgrades.

It’s worth noting that the US Government Accountability Office’s tactical aircraft study, released in March, found that the Block 4 modernisation program is suffering from ‘increases in scope, costs and delays’ and delivery has been delayed to 2026. The report also warns of continued increases in planned capabilities, cost increases and schedule delays.

Absent are any plans for an additional squadron of F-35As (or the short take-off and landing F-35B variant, which was never very likely) to bring the force up to 100 aircraft. Lockheed Martin has indicated than an additional squadron would take up to four years to arrive. The DSR notes that there have been ‘detailed discussions in Australia and the US in relation to the B-21 Raider as a potential capability option for Australia’. However, it dismisses the idea, saying: ‘In the light of our strategic circumstances and the approach to Defence strategy and capability development outlined in this Review, we do not consider the B-21 to be a suitable option for consideration for acquisition.’

That has an air of finality, at least under the current government. Given the need to rapidly acquire capabilities, it’s likely that the B-21 would have taken too long to arrive and would probably have blown out the defence budget when placed alongside acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for the navy. Additional cuts to the army would have resulted, leaving the Australian Defence Force without a key element of military capability in exchange for a small number of high-end long-range strike platforms.

However, it would be a mistake for Defence to permanently take the B-21 off the table, and maybe it needs to be reconsidered in a future review, if economic and strategic circumstances permit. Like the submarines, it may become a 2030s-and-beyond capability.

The RAAF’s strike and air combat components will continue to rest with the current force structure—the F-35A, the F/A-18F Super Hornet (at least until it’s retired by the mid-2030s) and the E/A-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft, along with the Ghost Bat. We’re betting on more capable standoff missile capabilities on these aircraft filling a strike gap and giving us ‘impactful projection’.

In terms of combat support for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare; command and control for integrated air and missile defence; airborne refueling; and air mobility, there’s no hints in the DSR about new initiatives. That assumes a status quo force structure, and greater investment in the workforce.

If the DSR’s approach to a strategy of denial rests with anti-access and area denial as part of a focused force—what some commentators have taken to imply an ADF entering the missile age—and given the rapidly building threat environment, the air section of the DSR would have benefited from more depth. Clearly, with no higher growth than originally planned in defence investment over the forward estimates, and an ‘expectation’ of higher defence spending beyond those three to four years, we are left waiting for the rest of the picture to tell us how the RAAF is going to project impactfully at greater range.

The key source of hope here is the new approach of replacing irregular defence white papers with a biennial ‘national defence strategy’ from 2024. That will allow Defence to assess development of China’s long-range power-projection capabilities, which already have the range to strike bases across Australia’s north and west from the South China Sea. That’s beyond the reach of Australia’s existing or planned strike capability. Australia’s defence aspirations in the DSR need to be able to compete with the capability ambitions of a potential adversary. We can’t assume that the review’s policy choices will be fit for purpose in the second half of this decade, given the speed of modernisation and expansion of capabilities that could be directed against us. That modernisation will accelerate and broaden. Defence policy must be flexible and agile, and not constrained by one review.

A true strategy of denial needs to be able to kill the archers before they release their arrows. The DSR’s approach to long-range strike, including RAAF standoff capabilities, is still limited in reach compared to China’s long-range precision-strike capabilities, such as its DF-26 and DF-27 missiles, air-launched ballistic missiles and high-speed anti-ship cruise missiles. In the lead-up to the 2024 national defence strategy, further analysis is needed on how the RAAF can build on decisions in the DSR to deliver greater long-range projection. The DSR is a great start, but more work is needed.

Brendan Nelson recalls tough decisions and finest moments as defence minister

14 April 2023

Sometimes, says former defence minister Brendan Nelson, ministers must make decisions that run contrary to the advice they receive from their departments. That’s why his concerns about delays in developing the F-35 joint strike fighter drove his determination to buy 24 Super Hornet fighters to avoid an air combat capability gap.

In a video interview as part of ASPI’s ’Lessons in leadership’ series, Nelson tells former ASPI executive director Peter Jennings that when he became defence minister, he didn’t know what an F-35 was. He immersed himself in the details of a wide range of defence projects to understand their technical complexity and their capability—but always with an eye on the politics of the US Congress and Australia’s changing geostrategic circumstances.

By May, he’d realised that a number of projects were running well behind schedule or having other problems and he decided that he wouldn’t sign off on the next stage of Australia’s commitment to the F-35 until he knew precisely what the Australian industry involvement in the project was, its dollar value, and what options there were to grow it.

‘One of the things that you learn in leadership is you have to have the imaginative capacity to see the world through the eyes of other people. So, for me as a civilian, I imagined the uniformed military people would see the minister as an obstacle to be overcome, someone who is coming into the portfolio for an indeterminate period of time and they would be very concerned, they wouldn’t want the minister of the day interfering with the plan, which they have developed after a lifetime of commitment to, and deeply immersed in this case, Australia’s air combat power,’ says Nelson.

‘As I went progressively through that year of 2006, I became concerned that we faced the prospect of an [air combat capability] gap emerging. I was told by the chiefs, hand on heart, “The first F-35s, minister, will land in Australia in 2012.”’

He asked the defence force chief, Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, what the fallback option was if the F-35 project was delayed.

Houston replied: ‘It’s the Super Hornet.’

Nelson says that his concern deepened as it became clear that the air force’s F-111 long-range bombers were nearing the end of their operational lives and as problems persisted with the joint strike fighter’s development. He and his staff taped sheets of paper to his office walls to chart progress and potential problems, he says.

Eventually he told his chief of staff: ‘It’s a conspiracy of optimism. These people are going to tell me whatever they will tell me to stop me interfering with the plane.’

He raised his concerns with Prime Minister John Howard and his key advisers and was told to work up a proposal to buy Super Hornets. The decision to do so was made in March 2007 and Nelson recalls scathing criticism of him that followed. Some of those critics have since apologised, he says.

As it turns out, he was vindicated: the Royal Australian Air Force’s first F-35 wasn’t accepted into service until 2018.

Nelson, who was defence minister from January 2006 to December 2007, says he almost always acted on the advice that came from his department, but it’s ‘absolutely critically important’ that ministers understand that it’s up to them to make the final decisions.

He says he’s often dealt with experts who know much more than him, but, ‘For all their magnificent expertise and commitment, they see the world through a straw. And with some exceptions, they have an understandably relatively narrow commitment to whatever it is that they are doing.

‘If the minister wasn’t exercising judgement and occasionally, but importantly, saying, “No, we’re not going to do that. We should instead do something else”, well then, of course you would just have the public service that would run the country.’

Dealing with complex technical issues such as proposals to buy particular weapons and platforms, Nelson says he’d read the documentation three times to be sure he understood it well enough to explain clearly to his cabinet colleagues why the equipment was needed and why they should sign off on spending millions of dollars.

Asked what pieces of advice he’d pass on to a future defence minister, Nelson says the first would be that the men and women of the Australian Defence Force are extraordinary people whether they be privates, generals or air chief marshals.

‘My second advice is that the Australian people have such respect for those men and women and what they do that as you go through the portfolio, you find that it is far, far less subjected to the political partisanship that characterises pretty much every other part of ministerial responsibility.’

Nelson says his third piece of advice, based on his own experience, is that information coming to the minister is like a whale carcass dragged through a pool of sharks. When he received a brief from his department, he’d phone the person whose name was on the bottom of it to say how good it was—’which was usually the case’—and ask them questions about it.

There were times, too, he says, when he felt it appropriate to call the commander of a unit such as a ship at sea to talk to them about a brief that he suspected didn’t reconcile with what was going on.

Nelson talks at length about tough decisions, including the choice of air warfare destroyers for the navy and abandoning the Seasprite helicopter project. The hardest issues to deal with, he says, were the casualties, including the death in Iraq of soldier Jake Kovco.

Nelson speaks of his pride in the ADF’s people and recalls landing after midnight in a Gulf state after a long day that included stops in Kabul and Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan and then Baghdad and Al Muthanna province in Iraq. As his RAAF transport flight landed, he noticed the silhouette of another RAAF aircraft several hundred metres away. There were men in overalls working on it in the 40° heat, so he strolled over and said, ‘G’day’. They responded, ‘G’day, mate’, and Nelson asked them what they were doing.

One responded: ‘We’re bloody well fixing the plane.’

Nelson told them he was proud of them and ‘Australians would be proud of you too.’

An airman glanced up and saw Nelson with Houston.

‘Oh, shit!’ he said. Then he and his mate jumped up like they were on an ejector seat spring, says Nelson.

More of the maintenance team tumbled out of the aircraft. They explained that they were repairing damage that occurred when a load shifted on takeoff. ‘Our people are depending on this plane and we are going to do everything we can to get it serviced,’ one said.

‘That’s what makes me proud,’ says Nelson. ‘They were the finest moments.’

ASPI’s ‘Lessons in Leadership’ series is produced with the support of Lockheed Martin Australia.

Towards a sixth-generation air combat capability for the RAAF

11 January 2023

Last month, the world got its first look at the US Air Force’s new long-range bomber, the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider. The company has called it ‘the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft’ and says it will incorporate enhanced stealth technology based on new manufacturing techniques and materials. The B-21’s open-systems architecture will allow new technology, capabilities and weapons to be ‘seamlessly incorporated through agile software upgrades and built-in hardware flexibility’.

The importance of the B-21 as a potential capability choice for Australia is covered in a recent ASPI report by Marcus Hellyer and Andrew Nicholls. But the ‘sixth generation’ tag alone is important, because it highlights the path for the USAF’s ‘next-generation air dominance’, or NGAD, system. NGAD isn’t a platform but a system of systems combining a crewed multirole combat aircraft with loyal-wingman-type autonomous systems.

Australia’s development of the MQ-28 Ghost Bat loyal-wingman system for the Royal Australian Air Force means that it’s already well positioned to contribute to NGAD, were Australia to approach the US with participation in mind. Capabilities such as the Ghost Bat may be relevant to some of the other next-generation air combat systems being developed around the world. And the MQ-28 itself could be developed into a larger, more capable platform that could sit at the mid-point between the F-35 fifth-generation fighter and a larger platform such as the B-21.

Australia’s strike and air combat capabilities rest on 72 F-35As, all of which are expected to be fully operational this year. Sometime this year, the Department of Defence, acting on advice from the defence strategic review, will consider acquisition of either an additional 28 F-35As or the MQ-28A Ghost Bat under Project Air 6000 Phase 7. Whichever platform is chosen, it will ultimately replace the RAAF’s 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets by the early 2030s. The RAAF also operates the E/A-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft, with a total of 11 currently in service. So, the RAAF’s strike and air combat force seems to be coalescing around the F-35, potentially the Ghost Bat, and the Growler.

At the same time, the USAF is charting its path through NGAD to replace the F-22 Raptor, and the US Navy continues to work on its F/A-XX concept to replace its F/A-18E/Fs in around the same timeframe as is being considered for the RAAF’s Super Hornets. The UK, together with Japan and Italy, is looking to develop the ‘global combat air project’, of which the Tempest sixth-generation fighter will be a central component. This marks a historic step both for Britain in forging new ties with Japan that will give the UK a larger role in Asia, and for Japan in collaborating with new partners beyond its traditional partnership with the US. Meanwhile, France’s Dassault Aviation and Airbus are set to move to the next stage of development of the ‘future combat air system’, a sixth-generation fighter that like NGAD is a system of systems rather than a single platform.

In effect, the development of Western airpower is approaching an inflection point in a transition to future air combat architectures. The consistent trend across all three major projects—US, French and UK–Japanese–Italian—is crewed–autonomous teaming, with a high-end sixth-generation crewed platform at the centre of a networked air warfare capability.

It’s important that Australia take full advantage of this moment to pivot decisively towards next-generation capabilities that could initially complement, and ultimately replace, the F-35A. The objective must be a larger and more powerful RAAF with greater range and ability for ‘impactful projection’ across the Indo-Pacific. To get there, Australia should consider investing in partnerships on the next generation of air combat systems. Initially, that would comprise an autonomous component, such as the locally developed MQ-28A Ghost Bat or an evolved successor, and F-35s. At the same time, though, Australia needs to commit to acquiring a sixth-generation crewed combat aircraft in the 2030s that’s optimised for long-range air defence alongside autonomous systems. It would be a mistake to ignore the potential offered by sixth-generation capabilities in favour of relying only on the F-35A through to the 2040s. Acquiring additional F-35s under Air 6000 Phase 7 shouldn’t be the default capability solution, because it won’t address the RAAF’s lack of a long-range capability.

The retirement of the F-111C in 2010 left a clear gap in Australia’s long-range strike capability that has yet to be filled. Under the current force structure, the RAAF cannot operate deep inside the highly contested anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) environments that are likely to exist to the north of the Indonesian archipelago. At the same time, the challenge posed by China’s long-range air and missile capabilities, which can strike at northern Australian bases from inside that A2/AD envelope, will make it more difficult for Australia to support the US and other key partners in the Indo-Pacific. So far, there appears to be no effective capability response to the Chinese long-range missile threat, though maybe something will emerge from the defence strategic review when it reports in March.

Australia’s force structure lacks the means for defending Australian bases or supporting forward coalition forces directly from Australia without forward host-nation support. Developing long-range strike—perhaps with the B-21 or other capabilities—is only one element of a more complex capability solution to the distant defence of Australia. Undertaking long-range offensive and defensive counter-air missions with a mix of crewed and autonomous platforms—at long range and by exploiting effective stealth and crewed–autonomous teaming—must also be a requirement.

The development of advanced air combat capabilities could certainly be promoted as a new priority area for AUKUS, allowing Australia to work with the US on NGAD and the F/A-XX as well as with the UK on the Tempest. It would complement work already done with MQ-28A Ghost Bat and, were Australia to acquire the B-21, it would make sense for such a capability to be seen as part of a system of systems with fifth- and sixth-generation crewed fighters, long-range bombers and loyal-wingman-type autonomous systems.

By seizing the moment apparent in this inflection point in airpower, Australia should identify a goal of developing a larger and more powerful air force, with greater operational reach, even in highly contested airspace. Such a force could operate directly to deter or, if necessary, defend against the growing threat posed by China’s long-range strategic air and missile capabilities. Without this, Australia will be unable to deliver impactful projection far beyond the archipelago to its north. That would, in effect, be more of the same: a focus on the defence of Australia based on an assumption that we can effectively defend the sea–air gap.

ASPI’s decades: Betting, fretting and getting—buying and flying the F-35

4 July 2021

ASPI celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. This series looks at ASPI’s work since its creation in August 2001.

When ASPI began its work, the F-35 joint strike fighter was Australia’s biggest and most expensive program ever. (Now that label has passed back to the submarines.)

The F-35 arrived 10 years late. (The Attack-class submarine program exhibits similar tardiness.)

The F-35 is now slowly delivering what Australia wants. Because of the delay, Australia spent $6 billion on an ‘interim’ Super Hornet capability, later topped up with another $3 billion on Growler electronic-warfare aircraft. The ‘interim’ has become more like a 20-plus-year force structure element.

Australia decided to work with the Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Program Office to develop the F-35s to replace its fleets of F-111s (due to leave service in around 2010) and F/A-18s (due to retire between 2012 and 2015).

The bet was ‘a big deal’ for Australia’s future air combat capability, as Aldo Borgu explained in 2004; it was the biggest of calls and a deal with many elements. Joining the JSF project was partly motivated by the chance to develop the nation’s aerospace industry, to have Australian firms supplying individual components as part of a global supply chain.

The JSF was still a ‘paper plane’, Borgu wrote, a US program ‘driven by costs and not by requirements’.

To confront the key question—‘Is the JSF good enough’?—the chief of the Royal Australian Air Force, Air Marshall Angus Houston, published an ASPI paper arguing for ‘a true fifth generation, stealthy, multi-role, single-seat, single-engine, fighter aircraft’. In explaining why it was a better bet than other candidates, such as the F/A-22, he argued that the F-35:

promised ‘the margin of capability we require for the tasks we intend for it’
was ‘the most “network-enabled” capability on offer’
would be ‘truly multi-role, giving us great operational flexibility and cost effectiveness’
could be ‘acquired in operationally meaningful numbers within the available budget’
would be ‘able to be supported in service at lower cost than any alternative’
had ‘the best growth potential, at lowest on-going cost to us, … because of its large production base’
offered ‘the potential for a significant and long-term industry program that should exceed in value and benefits the conventional offset arrangements of any alternative’.

Houston’s final line was: ‘The conclusion is clear.’

The RAAF’s course was set. And in all the dogfights that followed, the service seldom wavered from that conviction.

By 2006, though, Canberra was starting to worry about the unacceptable risk of a ‘capability gap’ arriving before the F-35. The eventual answer was to buy 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets, the successor to the RAAF’s F/A-18A/B Hornet fleet.

Australia would ‘spend in excess of $4.1 billion to acquire this fourth generation “stopgap” aircraft’, Andrew Davies wrote in 2007, yet the big risk of a generation gap remained: ‘We could conceivably find ourselves faced with a difficult decision towards the end of next decade. We could have a mix of Super Hornets and barely viable Hornets and be desperately waiting for JSF capability to become affordable and mature.’

In 2014, Canberra was about to decide whether to spend between $8 billion and 10 billion on the new F-35, cementing it as the main instrument of Australian airpower for decades into the future. ‘After several false starts,’ Davies and Harry White wrote, ‘we’re now reaching the main decision point.’ Despite management issues, enormous complexity, and significant cost and schedule overruns, the plane seemed to be on track to come into service by the end of the decade.

The government had only two options: buy more F-35s, accepting a mixed fleet of three types (F-35, Super Hornet and Growler) for at least the next 15 years, or decline the F-35 purchases and consolidate the existing fleet with additional Super Hornets. Turning to the Hornets would hurt Canberra’s relationship with Washington and provide less capability in a rapidly modernising region. ‘On balance,’ wrote Davies and White, ‘the decision that appears to meet government priorities for capability, industry participation and alliance management with the US seems to be a further purchase of the F-35.’

The first two operational F-35s arrived in Australia in December 2018. Explaining the situational awareness they offered compared to previous generations of jets, the RAAF chief told The Strategist the F-35s turned night into day: it was the difference between driving a car at night with no lights and driving a car with very effective night-vision goggles.

Air Marshal Leo Davies said an F-35 pilot could characterise an adversary’s aircraft, land forces and ships and then choose how to react to them. Sometimes that would mean not reacting and just monitoring the enemy’s movements. Sometimes it would 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. Ordinary aircraft operated like instruments in a band; the F-35 became the conductor: ‘The F-35 won’t send a package of data and then forget about it. It will orchestrate the operation.’

Marcus Hellyer considered the sustainment challenges of the F-35; the range of the plane in projecting power; and the advantages of operating it from off-shore bases on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean, Butterworth in Malaysia, and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

The F-35s are due to achieve final operational capability by the end of 2023. Malcolm Davis noted that the force structure plan allocates funds for ‘additional air combat capability’ between 2025 and 2030, so the period between 2035 and 2040 is the time for considering a replacement for the F-35.

The US was no longer speaking about ‘sixth-generation’ fighters, Davis wrote, recognising the risks of slow, decades-long acquisition cycles for a future fighter. The focus of its next-generation air-dominance program was now on a ‘digital century series’ approach of rapid development of small numbers of several types of airframes over short periods of as few as five years.

The Davis conclusion:

It would be a mistake for the RAAF to embark on another 20-year acquisition project to eventually replace the F-35 from the late 2040s, yet that’s exactly what the force structure plan implies. Waiting until 2035 to begin developing a replacement ignores the clear trends that suggest a desire for faster capability acquisition.

The F-35 has taken two decades to develop, at great expense, and the approach of a common airframe for multiple tasks means it can’t be optimised for a single role. Going back to platforms optimised for a specific role—air dominance, long-range strike and electronic attack, or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance—that can be acquired faster might be a better path.

The RAAF shouldn’t wait until 2035 to get started on developing these types of capabilities. Its plans to complement, and then replace, the F-35 can be accelerated, and it would make sense to promote collaboration with the US and the UK in this endeavour to boost the RAAF’s air combat capability sooner.

As the F-35 showed, buying and flying involves much betting and fretting in the getting.

Editors’ picks for 2020: ‘Australia’s air force should already be planning to replace the F-35’

29 December 2020

Originally published 19 August 2020.

Australia’s 2020 defence strategic update and accompanying force structure plan outline the next 20 years of development for the Royal Australian Air Force’s strike and air combat capability. Some notional funding streams are provided in the force structure plan that define the priorities for capability development and raise some intriguing questions for future planners to consider.

At the centre of the plans for the RAAF, of course, are the F-35A fighter jets, which are due to achieve final operational capability by the end of 2023. The force structure plan also allocates funds for ‘additional air combat capability’ between 2025 and 2030. It doesn’t specify what that additional capability will be, though it says that the government ‘is committed to … support of the F/A-18F Super Hornet strike aircraft, and acquiring enhanced air launched munitions’.

The Super Hornet remains an important capability, given that it will be the initial primary launch platform for the AGM-158C long-range anti-ship missile, or LRASM.

The F/A-18F fleet could be upgraded to ‘Block III’ standard, allowing the jets to remain in service into the mid-2030s. That makes sense from a risk-management perspective, because the government wouldn’t be betting everything on the long-term effectiveness of the F-35’s stealth. China’s continued development of quantum sensors and use of artificial intelligence could erode that advantage in coming years.

Defence’s 2016 integrated investment program contemplated acquiring a fourth squadron of F-35s, stating that:

the Super Hornet fleet has been extended beyond its initial bridging capability timeline and is now planned to be replaced around 2030. Its replacement could include either a fourth operational squadron of Joint Strike Fighters or possibly a yet to be developed unmanned combat aerial vehicle. The decision on the replacement of this air combat capability will be best undertaken post-2020 when technology and emerging threat trends are better understood.

The 2020 plan doesn’t mention a fourth F-35 squadron, but elevates support for what it calls ‘teaming air vehicles’. It anticipates their acquisition between 2025 and 2040, which would fit in with decisions being made on the future of the F/A-18F versus an additional squadron of F-35s.

Boeing’s loyal wingman drone for its ‘airpower teaming system’, being developed in Australia, could emerge as a good solution to the RAAF’s long-range-strike requirements by the end of this decade. It could be evolved into a more capable platform, with greater range, payload and speed, from its current prototype design. It wouldn’t be the equivalent of acquiring the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, but an evolved loyal wingman would represent something closer to a true long-range-strike platform than simply purchasing another squadron of F-35s, without all the political, financial and strategic challenges associated with the B-21.

Alongside achieving final operational capability for the F-35 and teaming vehicles, the force structure plan seems to focus on long-range missiles as the centrepiece of a ‘strike’ option for the RAAF. But thinking needs to go further than simply bolting long-range munitions onto F-35s and F/A-18Fs, and a future strike capability will need to extend beyond the RAAF.

For example, any new capabilities will need to rely heavily on the Defence Intelligence Group, established on 1 July to ensure that platforms have access to the latest intelligence to maximise their combat effectiveness. That could bring in a host of non-airpower capabilities, ranging from unmanned surface vessels equipped for maritime surveillance such as the Ocius Bluebottle, through to surveillance satellites in low-earth orbit that are to be acquired through Defence Project 799, Phase 2.

The 2020 plan also suggests that the RAAF must consider a replacement for the E/A-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft between the late 2020s and 2040. Keeping the Growlers operating alongside the Super Hornets makes good sense. But if the Super Hornets are retired by the mid-2030s, that would be an ideal time to explore new approaches to electronic warfare and attack. Once again, the sensible solution would be to take full advantage of unmanned systems wherever possible. One option might be for Australia to team up with the United States to develop a stealthy and highly survivable variant of the loyal wingman, with the US supplying the complex and classified electronic warfare payload on board.

Looking further into the future, the plan mentions the period between 2035 and 2040 as the beginning of a process for considering a replacement for the F-35. In fact, something would be amiss if the RAAF weren’t discussing the F-35 replacement right now and thinking about how Australia could work with the US, the UK and other allies on fielding new types of air combat platforms much sooner. For example, the US is no longer speaking about ‘sixth-generation’ fighters, and recognises the risks of slow, decades-long acquisition cycles for a future fighter. The focus of its next-generation air dominance program is now on a ‘digital century series’ approach of rapid development of small numbers of several types of airframes over short periods, as few as five years.

It would be a mistake for the RAAF to embark on another 20-year acquisition project to eventually replace the F-35 from the late 2040s, yet that’s exactly what the force structure plan implies. Waiting until 2035 to begin developing a replacement ignores the clear trends that suggest a desire for faster capability acquisition.

The F-35 has taken two decades to develop, at great expense, and the approach of a common airframe for multiple tasks means it can’t be optimised for a single role. Going back to platforms optimised for a specific role—air dominance, long-range strike and electronic attack, or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance—that can be acquired faster might be a better path.

The RAAF shouldn’t wait until 2035 to get started on developing these types of capabilities. Its plans to complement, and then replace, the F-35 can be accelerated, and it would make sense to promote collaboration with the US and the UK in this endeavour to boost the RAAF’s air combat capability sooner.

Australia’s air force should already be planning to replace the F-35

19 August 2020