I see there’s a thread on the same subject on the Military Pilots Forum. gaunty, I spoke only last week to a multi-starred man who should know, and he tells me that despite all the best wishes in the world, the TrippleWun is on its last legs, with technical shortcomings appearing that simply can’t be ignored.
I suspect that recent events might have helped convince a few of the suits in Canberra that what those boring men in blue uniforms have been telling them all along just might be true - the JSF simply will not and can never replace the F111 as a credible deterrent.
I forget who it was who originally coined the ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’ phrase (one of the Roosevelts or Harry Truman?), but in an increasingly uncertain world, the JSF simply isn’t a big enough stick (or to be more accurate, doesn’t have nearly long enough legs) to provide Australia with a credible deterrent force, and it might only now be occurring to a few of the civilian mandarins in Canberra that the day might actually come – and in the not so distant future - when we have (to hopefully only threaten) to use it.