The polies should convert the wired-for-but-not-with to G's...
Agreed...apart from the EW and SA aspects, Growler also has a gap-filling quality all of its own.
...and buy another batch of Super Hornets to preserve the fatigue life of the Classic fleet and provide improved front-line capability and 4+ Gen training outcomes that will better prepare the RAAF for the eventual buy of a 5th Gen system.
Too late - even if we ordered more Rhinos tomorrow, they wouldn't be here until 2015 at best, and operational for another year after that. By then our first ~8 F-35s will be flying and we'll be a couple of years away from IOC. I wouldn't want to be flying Rhinos post 2030, unless I had F-35s to accompany me.
Ditch the Spartan/C295 buy and procure a few more C130J's and CH-47F's.
Too late. C-27Js are coming, C-130Hs are gone! RAAF dosn't want any more C-130Js...it's hard enough running the current ones!
Take the option to buy the offered Airbus A330 (KC30) test frame.
We need to get our current KC-30s working first - latest word from inside the program is things are not well...to the point 33SQN was just a few days away from grounding the jets a few weeks ago.
The Navy must be given clear guidance that MOTS is the way to proceed when procuring these boats. Nuclear does not seem to be an option as the pollies do not have a taste for establishing a Nuclear Industry in Australia to support a fleet of SSN's.
The Navy will have little say in this decision - it's all politics and foreign policy! And even if we wanted to go nuke, there's no way a) the US or UK would sell them to us after seeing the shambles our naval engineering is in, b) even if they did, we couldn't set up a nuke support industry in that time, and c) we wouldn't relinquish sovereignty by sending nuke boats back to the US or UK for overhaul/refuel.
That leaves the only politically favourable option of a MOTS boat being an SSK, if we're talking SSK's then there's only two manufacturers, the French or Germans, both of their offered boats could be assembled in SA.
Trouble is, the only MOTS conventional sub with the range and warload we need is Japanese, and they're not for sale. The Euro boats are not designed for open ocean long range patrols or to sit off the coast of Hainan for days or weeks at a time...they have neither the manning nor the range. Further, if we buy a Euro boat, the US is unlikely to integrate a compatible combat system onto it - the Lockheed system offered with the S80 is a devolved system now, and will likely need replacing before the boat's LOT. An evolved Collins building on lessons learned seems the only way to go now.
As ol-mate says, wouldn't the F-15SE suffice?
The F-15SE is still a paper airplane, no one has ordered it yet, and the first customer will be liable for the likely vast development NREs. Elements of the F-15SE catalogue - which is all it really is - are likely to find there way onto other models, i.e AESA, CWBs, new cockpit etc, but I doubt we'll ever see an operational full up F-15SE round.
Most pilots I know wouldn't want to be flying F-15s in 2030 either
And re the F-22, it's a great jet...when it works! Anecdotal reports suggest availability is very low (<50%), and the small USAF fleet needs a ~$10bn upgrade to improve capability and availability which is unlikely to be forthcoming in the near future.