Defence Update

The program called for seven twin-seat Hornet trainers to be delivered to the RAAF in 1985. The single-seat fighters for actual service in the operational squadrons – No. 75 Squadron, now relocated at Darwin from Butterworth (Malaysia), is due to get the first single-seaters and become operational in 1986-87 – will start rolling off the assembly line in Melbourne early in 1986. The production schedule for that year calls for 15 single-seat fighters. The components manufacture and assembly program reaches a peak in 1987 and 1988. The project in Australia involves not only GAF, but the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (final assembly of the General Electric F404 engines), Hawker de Havilland Australia (the undercarriage), Dunlop Aviation, Philips, Computer Sciences, British Aerospace, EMI, Rockwell-Collins and Lucas Aerospace.

The project will bring Australia into new high technology areas. GAF, for example, is making wing flaps and shrouds in carbon composites (known in the trade as “black metal”), while CAC is making some airframe components and underwing pylons for weapons and fuel mountings and some engine parts apart from the final assembly of the engines. Hawker de Havilland at Bankstown, Sydney is doing work on the nose and main landing gear, hydraulic actuators, aileron actuators, rudder actuators and T/E flap actuators. The GAF workload involves final assembly and test, forward fuselage fitting out, trailing edge flaps, trailing edge flap shrouds, canopy assembly and canopy transparency. Apart from the final assembly and testing of the G. E. engines, CAC will make the aft nozzle fairing, the engine access doors, the wing pylons and engine components.

Between 800 and 900 sets of various components manufactured in Australia will be exported over about 10 years and valued at more than $400 million. In Sydney Philips is involved with the Hughes Corporation (USA) in the radar, while Computer Sciences is hooked into software computer programming. British Aerospace (SA) is subcontracting on the avionics “head up-head down” cockpit displays linked to the weapons. British Aerospace also is involved with the flight computer, the IFF set (Identification, Friend or Foe), and the Avionic Fault Tree Analyser. Dunlop Aviation at Bayswater, Melbourne, has the subcontract for the nose and main wheel brakes and systems and is making some components. The company already has cut some metal for speed brake actuators but the carbon discs will be made by Bendix Co (USA). The actual brake heat sink for the complex undercarriage originally designed to cope with the impact of aircraft carrier landings in the US Navy, is a carbon material. The extensive hydraulics that will activate the flying controls in response to signals by the pilots through the computer will be assembled and tested by Hawker de Havilland.

The manufacture of components and their assembly into an entire aeroplane involves a series of operations; over about 12 months culminating in the structural join-up, and the testing of the systems after the fittings of avionics, radar and weapons and other equipment. As it moves into gear, the Australian program is likely to involve modifications to correct faults and improve reliability in such areas as computer hardware and software, engine overhaul and maintenance, airframes and various systems. Such also will be designed to improve range, performance and safety.

As earlier mentioned the 1986 production schedule calls for 15 single-seat fighters, most of them destined to go to No. 75 Squadron when it re-equips, and probably moves to a new base expected to be constructed at Tindal, near Katherine, Northern Territory. In 1987 when production should be at the rate of 1½ planes per month, 18 F-18s should be rolled out – seven more duals, and 11 single sealers. The 1988 schedule is for four duals and 14 single-seat interceptors. The program is set to start slowing down in 1989 – if there are no backup orders – with 13 single sealers planned for delivery. The final four of the total order of 75 are due to be delivered in 1990.

The third major F-18 project management review (PM) took place in Washington between US Navy project managers and the RAAF’s Tactical Fighter Force project team on October 13 and 14. Australia’s TFF Project Director-General, Air Commodore Hans Roser again led the Australian team reviewing all aspects of the program covering operational, technical, support, financial and Australian Industry Participation (AIP) areas. Just under a year ago at a time when major questions about the F-18 acquisition still were to be answered as to combat performance and range, Air Commodore Roser flew a F-18 involved in the first major PMR in the US. A US Navy team of five took part in a scheduled half-yearly review of the program in Australia in April this year. On that occasion, briefings were carried out by the prime contractors, McDonnell Douglas, General Electric and Northrop, and by the main local industry groups involved.

Air Vice Marshal H. A. (Bill) Hughes, more recently Deputy Chief of Air Staff but who was heavily involved in the evaluation of the Mirage replacement program as Chief of Material, believes the F-18 will turn out to be the F-4 (Phantom) of the 21st century. This suggests the current interceptor-strike jet, will be capable of further development through into the next century. In fact, the capability and the room for future development was a factor in the selection of the McDonnell Douglas F-18 ahead of General Dynamics’ F-16. The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal David Evans flew an F-18 in mid-1982 and is another unbridled supporter of the aircraft now in service in the US and Canada and on order by Australia and Spain (84). Although Inflation and currency changes have seen the Australian project cost rise by around $1000 million, the final price will also depend in part on further worldwide orders. If the Australian dollar strengthens, the cost actually could decrease in the US Dollar terms.

While the F-18 acquisition is easily the largest project in terms of money and effort, it will require a huge backup in other major directions such as radar, airborne early warning, aerial refuelling tanker capability and more northern bases to achieve a fully operational air defence system for the nation. Some of the deficiencies in these areas were discussed by Air Vice Marshal Fred Barnes, a former Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, at the United Services Institute of Australia’s seminar on national security and defence at the University of New South Wales in mid-October. As AVM Barnes pointed out, although the RAAF now has 4 707s with the intention of converting them to provide in-flight refuelling for the F-111s and the F-18s, no firm program so far has been announced. It is planned that the F-18s should be fitted with high-frequency radios which would enable them to be hooked into the planned Jindalee over-the-horizon radar. Jindalee is expected to be operational from Central Australia in the mid-1980s, and I shall give more details of that project later in this series. But part of the overall air defence plan would require Airborne Early Warning aircraft to determine the extreme range detection of intruders into Australian Coastal skies.

RAAF P-38 Returns to US for Conversion to AEW Platform

The AEW requirement at present is well back in the Defence Department’s capital equipment list of priorities, but it may be brought forward under review at present underway as ordered by the Defence Minister, Mr Gordon Scholes. There has been periodic argument for 4-6 Grumman E-2C Hawkeye aircraft but they are extremely costly together with the required ground facilities. The RAAF therefore has a special interest in Lockheed’s project to determine the feasibility of using P-3 Orions as the platform for AEW. In fact the RAAF has released one of its 10 P-3B Orions from duty at Edinburgh. It is back at Lockheed’s plant at Burbank as part of the AEW feasibility study, Air Vice Marshal Alan Heggen, the RAAF Chief of Material, was in the US in October not only to bring himself up to date with the F-18 project but to check on the progress of Australia’s order for 10 new P-3C Orion anti-submarine maritime surveillance patrol planes to replace the P-3B models between late 1984 and early 1986. The prospects of turning Orions into AEW planes undoubtedly was canvassed further to AVM Heggen.

Additional Northern Air Bases Envisaged

If the F-18s are to become a potent air defence and maritime strike force, they will need the AEW detection-analysis-classification capability from 1987 onwards along with inflight refuelling to extend the range of action from the string of northern bases planned or seemingly in the pipeline. Defence planners have in mind a string of air bases in the north encompassing the current ones at Townsville, Darwin and Learmonth with one approved and gradually being developed as a “bare bones” base at Derby, north-west WA, a proposal for one at Tindal (NT) which would be the permanent home for a Hornet squadron, and later another “bare bones” base in Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, possibly near Iron Range, in from Lloyd Bay between Cape Direction and Cape Weymouth and north of the Lockhart River Mission.

The plans for Derby incorporate the latest defence concepts in airfield layout, including redundancy in case one runway or taxiway is put out of action. There is to be a 9000 ft main runway, a parallel runway and two angled taxiways with all taxiways capable of duplicating runways. The total area covers 25,000 hectares, or roughly 25 by 15 kilometres.

The preliminary work at the Derby base involves access roads and services, including establishing a water supply. Unless expedited it may not be ready for operations until 1988. It also will serve as an international commercial flights’ emergency airfield. Although planned and built some 15 years ago, partly to service the Harold Holt Naval Communications facility at North-West Cape, Learmonth recently has been upgraded with extra fuel storage, and its conventional main runway and taxiway will be supported by aircraft dispersal pavements. Additional work on facilities was carried out this year to enable No. 75 Mirage squadron to transfer from Butterworth to Darwin.

Approval to proceed with the development of a major air base at Tindal is likely next year. An Adelaide consultant, Kinhill Stearns, is detailing master planning options and preparing an environmental impact statement. If No. 75 Squadron re-equips with Hornets in 1986-87 as planned, it would make good sense strategically and tactically to have Tindal in some readiness by then but this would require a start on construction in 1984-85. Tindal is considered ideal because it is 300 kilometres south of Darwin and not only out of the cyclone belt, but away from the coast where the RAAF’s fighters would be more liable to surprise attack. While the cost of developing Derby as a “bare base” is in the order of $50 m without allowing for the effect of inflation, the all-up cost of establishing facilities to handle an F-18 squadron and base support could be in the $150-$250 million region. But it could be developed in three stages.

The overall plan however caters for about 700 RAAF personnel with a total “family” of around 2000 allowing for wives and children. It is estimated about 450 houses would be required, 350 in Katherine and its surrounds, and 100 on the base for essential personnel. Operational facilities would include hangars and revetment areas, avionics, engine and airframe workshops, an armaments section, and engine test bed, a control tower, briefing and crew rooms, a communications building, fuel storage and a range of support requirements including messes, barracks, medical and motor transport.

Max Hawkins, the Brisbane Telegraph’s Canberra Representative, is the Editor of the DEFENCE INDUSTRY Newsletter.