RAAF to get the F-22 and/or F-18E/F?

[Andu]

Numerous RAAF knucks have done USN carrier service as part of exchange rotations so there would be some knowledge in the force.

Really? Can someone confirm this?

[Jetsbest]

Andu

Historically & typically the RAAF has an 'exchange posting' for fast jet pilots to several places in the interest of learning how others do things, sharing our perspectives with other friendlies and bringing their experience and techniques 'home'; Canada F18, USN F18, USMC F18, USAF F15, USAF F15E, UK Tornado/Typhoon, and maybe more these days.

RAAF pilots doing the USN and USMC postings usually get a Carrier Qual. but it doesn't amount to 'carrier service'...just a quick course and proficiency test to 'tick the box' and is more in deference to their often instructional roles while on service with the USN or Marines (also, it's very challenging & FUN). But there's just too much USA-secret (nukes, EW etc) stuff out on the ships, and also the chance of rapid deployment to some USA-hotspot where Aust has no complaint make it impractical for foreign nationals of even the friendliest persuasion to serve on a full US carrier deployment.

But to answer your question, yes, there are numerous RAAF pilots who have qualified for carrier operations over the years and all agree it was a major buzz!

[Andu]

Thanks for the reply, Jetsbest. I know one RAN driver who operated off USN carriers a very long time ago while he was doing an USN LSO course (but I suspect always in the back seat), but I seriously doubted the USN would have allowed any foreign Air Force (!) pilots to fly operationally off their carriers, whether on exchange of not - in fixed wing, at least. However, I know RAAF choppers (when the RAAF operated choppers) have flown off USN carriers, but that's a very different matter to flying fixed wing onto a carrier.

For those dreaming about RAAF F18's staging via USN carriers on some far flung deployment, dreaming is the operative word. As others have said before me, maintaining currency in carrier qualifications, particularly in fast jets, is about as demanding as it gets in military aviation, and even USN drivers on an operational cruise occasionally fail to maintain the high standards demanded to maintain the qualification and are taken off the flying roster until they re-qualify. Every deck landing is videoed and graded, and the gradings, down to which wire was captured, are displayed on a board in the squadron ops room (or whatever they're called on ship).

Imagine you were the captain of a USN CVN watching a gaggle of "furrin" (gasp!) Air Force F18's approaching your ship in mid ocean to carry out each pilot's first ever carrier landing. As for F111's doing the same thing... it ain't ever gonna happen, even if the drivers were USN pilots and all the sons or grandsons of Chuck Yeager (or whoever the USN equivalent of Chuck Yeager is). I just don't think it would be physically possible, if not to land, then to be launched, in a bog-standard F111.

[Taildragger67]

Jetsbest,

Thanks - that's what I meant - I couldn't confirm actual Ronnie attachment to USN line squadrons but was aware of trap training as part of exchange postings.

[Lodown]

Off subject, but...

A Commander's Moon is a reference to a clear night with a full moon when many USN Commanders in the past reportedly have chosen to undertake carrier night ops recency checks.

...just a little information of no consequence.

[Andu]

A bit like the old Air Force Blue Card instrument rating? - (When the colour of the sky matched the colour of te card, such holders did their instrument renewals.) Beloved of senior officers who didn't fly very often.

[Buster Hyman]

but I seriously doubted the USN would have allowed any foreign Air Force (!) pilots to fly operationally off their carriers

Considering they let Bush land on one, then perhaps they have lowered their standards?

[Gnadenburg]

Let's move off the carrier debate. People are taking the piss. Snot predicably and oldm8, you should be ashamed of yourself discouraging public enthusiasm for a well equiped defence force. Plenty of RAAF pilots have been killed on active service over the generations, in unsuitable or unsuitably equiped aircraft- Vietnam, Korea etc.

The F22 has serious political and military ramifications for the region; and I imagine that is part of the reason why a small, silver bullet force is not being entertained. Remembering we were politically averse to providing our own tanking support for the F111 fleet, aswell as ruling out cruise missile technology in the 90's to avoid regional proliferation of these weapons.

A RAAF equiped with F22's, say original F111 numbers ( 24 ), and another multi-role type ( F18's, JSF or whatever ), would make the regional air forces forever obsolete. They would label Australia, America's deputy sherrif now with a big six shooter, and invest in asymetric capabilities no air campaign can ever defeat.

[bob55]

Originally Posted by Gnadenburg

They would label Australia, America's deputy sherrif now with a big six shooter, and invest in asymetric capabilities no air campaign can ever defeat.

And they don't label us that already?

[Wiley]

Some time ago, I posted on Jetblast recommending John Birmingham's sci-fi yarn "Weapons of Choice - World War 2.1". I'm almost at the end of his second offering of what I suspect will be a trilogy (towards the end of Book 2.2, 'Designated Targets', we're still in 1942 and the Battle of Bundaberg).

For those not familiar with the books, they are a rather clever (and far superior) spin on the Michael Douglas(?) movie of some years ago where present day forces are thown back in time to WW2. (Don't let that put you off - Birmingham handles the premise very well IMHO, and Birmingham's troops are from 2130, which cleverly avoids any of the time travelling characters meeting themselves back in 1942.)

Birmingham's rather fantastical premise and the way he sees our immediate future has more than a little bearing on this debate in that the 2130 troops have been at war non-stop for 20 years against 'the Caliphate Forces'). I fear he might be a little closer to the mark in some of his predictions than many people today would be comfortable with. One is that in 2130, the full on war was nowhere near being resolved. Another that comes to mind is the way the 2130 troops summarily execute any enemy they consider to have committed a war crime. (We won't go into the war crime many would consider they are committing in doling out this punishment.) This, along with many other things about the people from the future, deeply shocks virtually everyone from 1942. I find myself wondering if something similar won't happen to us over the next few years in the real world, as we realise we will simply have to put aside some of our sensitivities if we are to prevail - and survive - against an enemny who has no such sensitivities.

As I said of the first book - a good read, if perhaps a little too much like Jules Verne for comfort (in the way so much of Verne's 19th century science fiction has become 21st century science fact).

[Lord Snot]

Originally Posted by Gnadenburg

you should be ashamed of yourself discouraging public enthusiasm for a well equiped defence force.


A RAAF equiped with F22's, say original F111 numbers ( 24 )

I never discouraged anything. I'm all for a well-equipped ADF, despite the cost. The gov't can spend my tax dollars on that instead of, for example, chartering boats and airliners to go to far-flung places to repatriate "Australians" who suddenly need help even though they haven't set foot in this country for 15 years.

I posted the article out of enthusiasm for such a purchase.

As for the second quote, people seem to be reckoning on the F-22 as a replacement for the F-111. Maybe in numbers, yes, due to cost, but not in ROLE. It might move mud but it's not a pig-replacement.

[Dragon79]

Wiley

Nice post and I'll look out for the book, sounds like an interesting read.

But unless I am a bit slow, what the friggin hell does that have to do with the decision on which new jet the RAAF should buy? Unless your the author and your trying to move a few units?

I took this thread of on a bit of a trip about the carrier, becuase I think it would be a handy addition to ADF. With the purchase of the 30 x F22 and 82 x F18 E/FG, the carrier would have given us an airbase to operate off, if a friendly country couldn't be found, or was out of reach.

Or the other suggestion that I agreed with, that as we are unlikely to get a carrier, the new model F15's would provide extcellent backup to the 22's.

I simple can't accept that we are going to seriously think about replacing the capability of the F111 with the limited capability of the JSF. Its a loser on range, payload, single engine etc etc.

My preference in all honesty would be to scrap the current hornet upgrade, that seems to be another winner, and replace both the f111 & the F18 around 2010, with the F22 & F18E/F/G or F15. And purchase 5 more A330's for support.

I'll stop now before I repeat my shopping list.

[Lord Snot]

Naw, go on, do it. It was a good shopping list. Do it.

DO it.

But I'd like to see some MH-60s in there for the lads with refueling booms and some MC-130s to refuel from. Those -60s will need mini-guns too.

Apparently they're looking at some kind of Little Bird now, too. Not the AH-6, I think. Something else.

Just when you thought they were going to reduce the number of ADF rotary types....



Back to the F-22s. A quick show of hands on who's happy to cut spending on hospitals, orphanages, old people and dole-bludgers to fund the new jets???






PS Can we stay off the carrier pud-knocking??? Never have so many dicks been pulled so hard as when RAN carrier talk came up...

[Dragon79]

Hospitals No, Old people No, orphanages do we still have these, sounds like something from the past, like unions, free education and the dragons winning a premiership.

Cut Foriegn aid, most of it ends up in foriegn pollies back pockets, cut imigration from NZ, thats were most of our dole is going (Ducking), and cut one layer of government. How a country of 20 million people are governed, or should that be mis-manged, by 3 levels of government I don't know.

Oh yeah cut out spending billions of dollars on defence projects that wind up being lemons. Buy proven technologies, once they've been proven, by some one else.

I think I posted it earlier, were goning spend $15 billion on on the JSF, out of a budget of $51 billion to equipment the ADf over the next 10 years.

I think we could propably spring for 30 22s along with 80 F18E/F or F15s.

Can the MRH90 be fitted with a boom for refuelling?

[Point0Five]

There won't be any need to worry about fitting the MRH90 with a refuelling boom once our V-22s arrive. I reckon we should buy about 40 of them.

[Dragon79]

Oh God no!

I might have been banging on about a carrier, but I realise that boat most propably ain't goin to float.

First person to seriously raise the idea of the ADF getting V-22s, has to pay for them.

40, that'd end up being our entire defence force, then.

Good Lord.

I listed my helo types before: Chook & Tiger for the Army and common between the army and the RAN the MRH90, UH145 and AH-6. 5 types, 3 common across the two. M/AH-6 could double as the trainer. Aren't they developing an updated A/MH-6, improved engines, increase in weapons, I recall also seeing it operating as test bed for a UAV.

[Wiley]

Nice post and I'll look out for the book, sounds like an interesting read.

But unless I am a bit slow, what the friggin hell does that have to do with the decision on which new jet the RAAF should buy

Dragon, the connection (if very tenuous) to this debate is that Birmingham does a bit of Tom Clancy in the books and gives all sorts of tech details as to what sort of kit the 2130 forces are using. A couple of good twists like a female captain of the RAN submarine that finds itself back in 1942 (and of course, single-handedly holds off the Yellow Hordes with its high tech kit). make it an interesting read.

And no, I'm not the author. If I had the bloke's imagination and writing ability, I wouldn't be in this mug's game. For those not familiar with the writer, he's the same bloke who wrote the classic (and very funny) "He Died with a Falafel in His Hand."

[Dragon79]

Wiley

Wiley

Does he say if we are going to get JSF, F22, F18E/F, what about the V-22 as predicted below? Or if the sea sprite will ever work as intended?

[Buster Hyman]

Wiley...not being a smartarse but I looked up the book & the "future" carrier group was from 2021 & were fighting the war on terror still. They were aboard the USS Hillary Clinton!!!!

I might go out & get a copy !

[gassed budgie]

It was Kirk Douglas and 2.3 is in the book shops.