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Montague S
10th April 2008, 09:38 PM
transcript for those who missed it...and still the same questions are being asked!

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 10/04/2008

Reporter: Mark Bannerman

The Rudd government is set to make Australia's biggest defence purchase in history, with plans to spend sixteen billion dollars on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. But will the sale go ahead? 7.30's Mark Bannerman investigates.
Transcript
KERRY O'BRIEN: An updated report on the biggest defence purchase in the nation's history will lob on the desk of defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon later this month.

The report will recommend whether the Government should proceed with plans to spend $16 billion on the F 35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The aircraft chosen by the Howard Government before it had even flown, to be the mainstay of the air defence for the next three decades.

Although some experts have described it as revolutionary, there's now mounting concern that the plane might not live up to the hype and that it can be delivered on time and on budget.

Mark Bannerman reports.

MARK BANNERMAN, REPORTER: It's called the Joint Strike Fighter, or F 35 and it might well be the most anticipated jet in the history of aviation. air forces in Europe and the Americas are waiting on it, and if you believe the PR it's the answer to Australia's strategic air combat needs.

HUGH WHITE, ANU AND LOWY INSTITUTE: The really significant thing about the Joint Strike Fighter is that it's one of only two, what are called fifth generation combat aircraft available to us. The fifth generation are stealthier, they're harder to find on radar and that is a really critical factor in success in air combat or strike operations.

MARK BANNERMAN: Just over a week ago, Major general Charles Davis from the US Air Force gave what appeared to be a ringing endorsement to the JSF.

CHARLES DAVIS, MAJOR GENERAL US AIR FORCE: Our recommendation to the panel was that there was no technical reason not to go ahead and pursue the next 12 aeroplanes. We're already under contract for two for the Air Force already, so this is our second lot.

MARK BANNERMAN: But if the US Air Force is satisfied with its new acquisition, others aren't so sure. Right now the Joint Strike Fighter is at the centre of a major battle, not in the air, but on the ground.

JOHN STILLION, RAND CORPORATION: If the safety, security and sovereignty of Australia ever depends on the Royal Australian Air Force being able to win an air to air battle, is already not the best thing you could potentially buy.

PETER GOON, AIR POWER AUSTRALIA: I'd say the Joint Strike Fighter is an aircraft which the marketing people have written cheques for which it will not be able to honour.

MARK BANNERMAN: Peter Goon is a former squadron leader in the RAAF and the co founder of Air Power Australia.
It's a group that's determined to promote a debate about the country's air power needs. Put simply, APA does not believe the Joint Strike
Fighter has the performance or the range to match it with the new generation of planes, based on these Russian Sukhoi jets.

PETER GOON: They'll be able to run rings around the Joint Strike Fighter from both a performance point of view and a tactics point of view.

RICK FISHER, INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY AND ASSESSMENT CENTRE: Perhaps by the end of the next decade you could see a Chinese aircraft carrier making a courtesy port call in Suva armed with fighters equivalent to the F 35.

MARK BANNERMAN: Rick Fisher works for the International Strategy and Assessment Centre, focusing on threat assessments in the western Pacific.

He says many Asian air forces might be made up of Russian cast-offs now, but in years to come, China, Indonesia and others will rearm and that's bad news for Australia, equipped with the JSF.

RICK FISHER: The weaknesses is that it will not be able to defeat the possible competition that you will face within a decade.

MARK BANNERMAN: These, of course, are pretty serious criticisms. They're the kinds of criticisms we wanted to put to the defence department.

Unfortunately neither defence nor Lockheed Martin, the company in charge of the JSF project, had anyone available to talk to us here.
Lockheed Martin, however, did send this statement.

(Excerpt from Lockheed Martin statement)

The fifth generation Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter is unlike any other. Designed from its outset as a multi-role stealth fighter, it offers "game-changing capabilities" that make all current fourth generation fighters obsolete.

(End excerpt)

There is another dimension to the potential problems the JSF faces, though. This is a plane that has been made to a price.

JOHN STILLION: What is supposed to happen with the F 35 is that if cost rises above a certain point then capabilities will be traded away in order to drive the cost back down.

MARK BANNERMAN: If that's true, there may be more bad news for the Joint Strike Fighter program.
In a report published by the US Congress last month, the Government Accountability Office said of the JSF:

(Excerpt from Government Accountability Office report)

Midway through it's planned 12 year development period, the JSF program is over cost and behind schedule.

(End excerpt)

The US Air Force, though, disputes this finding.

CHARLES DAVIS: We do not agree with the assessments that the Government Accountability Office made, not so much the recommendations they had going forward but the numbers they came up with, which largely were, if you will, gleaned from other service analysis of the program.

HUGH WHITE: The whole viability of the JSF strategy as a future for Australia's combat and strike capability are undermined. I think there are worrying signs in the project. I think it's too early to say that the project is in deep trouble, but we'd be very unwise to ignore the danger signals that these sorts of issues are sending us.

MARK BANNERMAN: All this is deeply troubling and it's even more perplexing when you know there's already a plane that in all likelihood can do the job we need better than the JSF. It's called the F 22, or Raptor.

PETER GOON: The F 22 has been specifically designed to take on these new capabilities that are being developed, particularly those that have been developed for export such as the Sukhoi 35 BM.

MARK BANNERMAN: Six years ago when the Australian Government sat down to decide the fifth generation plane it would buy, the Raptor was deemed way too expensive.

It's also true the US Government doesn't want to sell the plane overseas. But Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has been working hard to change that view, and part of the reason is that the Raptor's price will almost certainly come down.

HUGH WHITE: Yes, when we were putting together the 2000 white paper we looked pretty carefully at this issue. Now since then the price of the JSF has gone up, the price of the F 22 has come down, the performance of the JSF is under questions they weren't under, that weren't under question before and we're now in a position where the product differential might be narrowing to the point that the F 22 might end up being a better bet.

RICK FISHER: In order to deter your adversaries, to make them believe they can not win a war and, therefore, do not want to start a war with Australia, you need the best. And I'm sorry to say that the F 35 is very good in many respects, but in some respects it is not the best.

MARK BANNERMAN: Who's right and who's wrong will be argued out in the weeks and months to come, but one thing is clear, Australia will pay heavily if it chooses the wrong aircraft.

HUGH WHITE: It would mean that Australia would face the distinct possibility that if Asia becomes more contested, if peace breaks down in Asia over coming decades, we would simply lack the capabilities to protect our territory and to project our interests into the region. It's a very significant risk for Australia strategically if we get this capability wrong.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Mark Bannerman.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2213611.htm

Montague S
28th April 2008, 09:58 AM
THE F-35 joint strike fighter will be confirmed as the best choice to become the RAAF's frontline combat aircraft in a classified review to be presented to Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon later this week.

The final report of the high-level review commissioned by Mr Fitzgibbon in February is also expected to rule out the much more expensive US-made F-22 Raptor fighter as an alternative buy to the F-35 JSF.

Mr Fitzgibbon ordered the review into Australia's future air combat capability as concerns have risen about the development cost and production schedules of the JSF, as well as the capability choices facing Australia as the RAAF moves to replace its long-serving F-111 bombers and the frontline F/A-18 fighters after 2010.

The F-35 is being built by Lockheed Martin and funded by the US and eight other partner countries, including Australia, and was selected by the Howard government in 2002 as the next-generation fighter for the air force.

The RAAF plans to acquire up to 100 F-35s from 2013 at a projected cost of $16billion, making the aircraft easily Australia's largest-ever defence buy.

The air combat capability review, led by senior defence bureaucrat Neil Orme, considered the case for and against acquiring the Raptor as well as trends in Asia-Pacific air power up to 2045.

Sources familiar with the review say it emphasises that Australia faces a far more challenging strategic environment over the next 30 years as regional air forces move to buy more sophisticated combat aircraft as well as ships and submarines.

While Australia can expect to retain a technology edge over its immediate neighbours in Southeast Asia, China will acquire 500 to 600 advanced fighter bombers over the next 30 years and is likely to surpass the US as the leading air power in East Asia.
Defence has judged that the F-35's all-round capability is still the best and most affordable platform for the RAAF's longer-term needs compared with the single-role F-22. But Mr Fitzgibbon has been keen to explore with the US Government the chances of acquiring the F-22, which at present is not for sale to overseas customers. Defence experts argue that even if Australia were allowed to buy the F-22, the RAAF could not buy enough to guarantee Australia's frontline air defence. While the procurement cost of the F-35 has risen by about 36per cent in real terms since 2002 to $US77 million a plane, the rising Australian dollar means that the RAAF is still confident it can afford the 100-strong fleet it regards as essential.

Mr Orme's findings will fundamentally shape the Government's defence white paper, due to be released at the end of the year, which will provide a clear road map for the future air force.

Opposition defence spokesman Nick Minchin, who was briefed on the F-35 and F-22 by Lockheed Martin in the US last week, said the F-35 was still clearly the best aircraft to meet Australia's needs.

The first part of the Orme review, completed last month, confirmed the Howard government's plans to retire the F-111 strike force from 2010.

It also confirmed the previous government's controversial $6billion purchase of 24 Super Hornets as a bridging fighter between the retirement of the F-111 and the arrival of the F-35.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23607964-31477,00.html