F-35 Clubbed like a baby seal by Russians and Chinese

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]

reply to post by Chadwickus


Well to be clear you talking about 1 plane that goes by 2 names

As for if it was considered or not I'm sure it would of gotten talked about in the initial requirement meetings but at that time the EU fighter/ Typhoon was in trials and the role it was being designed to play was much more A2A then A2G then the 35. But in the subsequent meetings in say the past 3 years I'm surprised it hasn't been looked at more carefully or say looking at the Gripen if they are going to be silly enough to look at single engine planes for their requirements of coastal patrol/ long range over water sorties.

Don't get me wrong I don't hate the 35 or the tech it represents but the program is the one entity that is slowly ruining the plane. My biggest gripe about the 35 is the fact its single engine and an export plane to countries that really should have twin engine planes due to the operating environment. Like the the CF, Royal Navy, RAAF

reply to post by Canada_EH


Ah fair enough, I thought the British or was it the French? pulled out of the development of it but continued on with basically the same design on their own.

As for the F35, from what I've heard it does have a good all round package which, for it's role is probably adequate for Australia. Besides I'm sure not all the FA18's will be phased out straight away so just in case the 35 is a real dog we'll at least have some other decent plane.

Oh yeah and we HAVE to keep the F111's even if its just for flyovers of events so they can fuel dump.

Damn thats a good sight

[edit on 15-9-2008 by Chadwickus]

reply to post by Chadwickus


yup the French pulled out but Italy and Germany stayed on as well as maybe 1 or 2 other that I don't recall so you could still make the claim it was a international team headed up the British still.

reply to post by Snappahead


....America is number 2 now. Cool. Maybe we are going to start making closer relationships with the rest of the world now. Or shall we start WWIII for an economic relalighnment?

Originally posted by '___'eed
reply to post by Snappahead

 

....America is number 2 now.

Well if you can provide me proof and backing for a theory to prove this in context to the 35 I'd be happy to listen, but frankly you post is pointless on a aviation thread. Please try to stay on topic or if your really nice you would contribute to it.

reply to post by Darkpr0


If the situation called for attaining air superiority in a high risk environment then the F-35 will be configured for that role. It's really quite pointless to configure external stores, expect maybe fuel tanks which can be jettisoned with no RCS loss. In the future, we might see a configuration for six AMRAAMs, yes there is space, or stealth pods. In any case the current state stands that Sukhois and Migs will be long gone before they even get to spot an F-35. No one in the region will be able to project more then a wing of aircraft near Australia doorstep, and thats the worst case scenario. Such a deployment can be soundly handled with a mix of air to air and air to ground configured Lightnings and the rest of Australia's military systems and capabilities.

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.

reply to post by Hot_Wings
We have got better things to spend our money on like Hospitals, Education, Roads and Housing it’s about time you yanks start doing the same.

Setting the Record Straight on F-35

Recent claims that Russian fighters defeated F-35s in a Hawaii-based simulated combat exercise are untrue, according to Maj. Gen. Davis. "The reports are completely false and misleading and have absolutely no basis in fact," Maj. Gen. Davis said. "The August 2008 Pacific Vision Wargame that has been referenced recently in the media did not even address air-to-air combat effectiveness."

www.lockheedmartin.com...

Just thought I'd point that out.

reply to post by Midav

The exercises were secret, Burbage said, but Air Force officials told Davis that they didn’t even involve pilots "flying" simulators.

"To have somebody extrapolating that into clubbing baby seals is pure B.S.," Burbage said.

www.star-telegram.com...

ROFL @ JENSEN.

reply to post by Chadwickus

In fact, the F-111 is as potent, if not more potent than just about anything going around today, with the possible exception of the F-22 (in fact the FB-22 will be a more lethal item when it goes into service).
The F-35 is a piece of junk. It's like the US developing a Mercedes for itself and then offering the rest of the world a Hyundai with the same 'features'.
It makes me sick, the F-111, now 40 years old still can match it for speed with anything the Russians are building, can carry 4 times the munitions of a F-18, fly twice as far. It may not have stealth but neither do the Suhkoi's or the F-18's. It may not be manouverable but that's not its role, its a long range heavy bomb truck basically.
We should be buying a sizeable portion of the remaining F-111F's in near new condition from AMARC for the $500K a piece the yanks have offered them for and buy a long range fighter (but only 50 of them) to do the dog fighting while the 111's go in at low level and bomb the bases into oblivion and get out at more than Mach 2.
Just about every defence expert has said this as well as a sizeable number of American experts but our politicians think they know better than someone who's been a defence analyst for 20 years.
I do not have exact figures but I understand that the JSF has a rang of about 1200 miles and carries about 4000-5000lb. F-18, 1600 miles and 6000lb, F-111 2500 miles (depending on configuration up to 15,000lb).
Where's the argument. No one can tell me buying something that's in near new condition for 500K a piece and even if it cost 10x as much to maintain is going to be more expensive than something that costs 15b to acquire and a whole lot more to train everyone up in.
It's like the old Oberon Class Subs. Along with the F-111's they used to win just about every exercise with the yanks using Nuclear subs and F-14's.

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]

reply to post by jimmyx


From all the posts? Did you read the thread? From all the posts the F-35 is fantastic. Why are you posting?

[edit on 20/9/2008 by C0bzz]

Could someone translate this for me?

arbejderen.dk...



Babelfish didn't work.

reply to post by C0bzz


It basically says that the JSF is overweight and problematic with a variety unresolved issues. It mentions the tests in Hawaii as a negative. However, the article suggests that so much money has been invested Denmark would not be able to pull out.

Something like that anyway.

Regards