I'm curious if the Aussie military considered buying either the eurofighter or the Typhoon? Obviously they're ally countries but I never recalled hearing anything about them looking into those crafts.

Does anyone know if they considered them or not?

[edit on 15-9-2008 by Chadwickus]

There were a number of different platforms that were considered in the initial stages of AIR6000, which is the program that will select Australia's next strike fighter. During that original review, the Government made the decision that the F-35 was likely going to be the preferred solution as it represented a 5th gen capability, which none of the other platforms did. Of course since then we've gone through the whole bridging capability, cost issues, and miscellaneous other spanners in the work. This is all public domain info just to be clear, the bulk was discussed during the recent air combat review.

Err, us brits don't particularly want the F22, we're quite happy with the Typhoon, tvm..

Well forward naval and airbases in southern Indonesia put most of Australia in reach. Now we know that the Indonesians do not have the military will or might to do something like that, but associations with China and Indonesia cannot be discounted.
Not so much towards specific Anti-Australia posturing but more of a SE Asia + energy channel security foothold perspective.
IMHO that is very much in China's long term strategic objectives.

Having said that, it will not be and easy task for them with so many rivals in the area.

Dr Jensen is a disendorsed liberal member (ie: next election, he is "independent") and is not ex-RAAF but rather ex-DSTO where he specialised in ceramics. He is a pottery engineer not an air combat aircraft expert and a fully carded member of that bunch of fruitcakes known collectively as Air Power Australia...

If this test was "official" I wonder why it wasn't peformed at the fighter weapons centre in Las Vegas where the OTHER testing of F-35 capability is actually done?

Well forward naval and airbases in southern Indonesia put most of Australia in reach.

How?

[edit on 16/9/2008 by C0bzz]

Well, didn't Rudd say there was an arms race in the Pacific? Pretty strong words 'arms race', perhaps a build up, but a race sounds very cold war-ish.

I thought we were supposed to be fighting terrorists

Anyway, I still think the JSF 35 is bit of a dead ringer to whatever else there is. It's not even in mass production yet, so maybe we shouldn't be quick to judge...

But when it's billions and billions of dollars of public money on something that's not even built yet, I think people have the right to ask "well, is this thing that I'm hearing is going to suck going to be worth it?"

Even the defence minister has his doubts.

Besides, Australia's defences are probably going to rely more on naval capability. China are rapidly upgrading their submarines for instance and we're surrounded by water for crying out loud, I'd look at that before fancy jets.

But I wouldn't call China an 'enemy' - that's a bit presumptive. They're a hugely important trading partner and Australia has a strong Chinese presence in the population.

This talk of "takeover" of Australia is a bit much, the geopolitical landscape would have to severely degenerate for that to even pass anyone's mind.

i suggest that australians go into massive debt and create their own strike fighter. from all the posts, the aussies have all the answers and would be applauded for taking a more active role in building their own military equipment, which would obviously be superior to american equipment. good luck on that mates

[edit on 20-9-2008 by jimmyx]