Super Hornet

Defence’s long stated hedging strategy in case the F-35 program or any of these other major programs were to be delayed beyond the RAAF’s requirements was to extend the life of the current F-111 fleet out to the 2015 timeframe via some systems upgrades, and to replace centre barrels on additional F/A-18A/Bs. However, this option now appears to have been dropped in favour of buying 24 Super Hornets instead.

“The government wants a guarantee that we can maintain a capability edge,” Air Commodore Mark Binskin, the RAAF’s Director General Capability Management, told Australian Aviation in January.

As recently as last October when the RAAF hosted a press conference in Canberra with the head of the Joint Strike Fighter Program Office (JPO), the US Air Force’s Brigadier General Davis, an interim or bridging option seemed unlikely.

“We’re confident that, with the program as is currently progressing, we shouldn’t need an interim solution,” Deputy Chief of Air Force Air Vice Marshal John Blackburn said on October 10. “However, as with most things in Defence, we’re looking at contingency plans.

So we have developed contingency plans and provided those to the Minister for consideration and I think that’s just prudent planning on our part. However, we don’t think there’s any likelihood of that having to be employed and we have full confidence in the program delivering the JSF on time. ” No one factor regarding the viability of the F/A-18 and F-111 fleets or concerns over delays to the JSF program appear to be behind the change in tack. But Minister Nelson appears to have pushed strongly for a low risk interim solution, rather than run the potential risk of F/A-18 and F-111 problems and F-35 delivery delays.

“Australia won’t finally commit to the JSF project until 2008 and before then I have asked the RAAF for a fully developed and alternative option,” Dr Nelson told Australian Aviation in a written statement back on August 21. “I want to make sure we have a well developed alternative ahead of the final decision. ” “When they (government) considered first pass approval (for the JSF acquisition in November ’06) and PSFD (joining the Production Sustainment and Follow-on Development phase of the JSF program) they did that in consideration of what’s happening with the Hornet, what’s happening with the F-111, and all the associated projects,” New Air Combat Capability (NACC) program head Air Vice Marshal John Harvey told Australian Aviation during an interview on the JSF to be published in our next edition.

“When they looked at that though they said

“Government made it clear that they won’t accept a gap so they said what’s out there in terms of cost effective options to ensure there’s no gap, and one of the things is the Super Hornet. ”

they were still concerned about the transition to the JSF as the long term solution, about all the things that were happening with the Hornet, the long term viability of the F-111, and the minister directed that we make sure that we have some cost effective options to cover any potential of a risk of a gap in that period. And government made it clear that they won’t accept a gap, so they said what’s out there in terms of cost effective options to ensure there’s no gap, and one of the things is the Super Hornet. ” An acquisition of about 50 Super Hornets was in fact one option put forward by Boeing in the late 1990s as an alternative to a comprehensive upgrade of the RAAF’s ‘classic’ F/A-18A/B Hornets. Instead the RAAF chose to proceed with the very extensive Air 5376 Hornet Upgrade (HUG) program.

This is seeing all of its 71 Hornets receive major avionics, sensors, communications, and electronic warfare systems upgrades along with discrete structural enhancements, and up to 49 of the jets will receive a major structural upgrade in the form of a new fuselage centre barrel replacement (CBR). The Hornet’s centre barrel (CB) is the key integral load bearing structure of the aircraft, onto which the aircraft’s wings, forward fuselage, main undercarriage, and rear fuselage are all attached.

The RAAF also embarked on a number of programs designed to enhance its air combat capability, such as the Boeing Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft, EADS KC-30B tankers, and JASSM stand-off precision weapons for the F/A-18, key capabilities that were intended to be in service before the F-111 could be retired.

“I think it’s just that, as we get closer to the time about making a decision about the life of the F-111 you’ve got to start focusing down, so you take all the issues in together and the government says ‘well let’s makes sure we’ve got a back up there’,” said AVM Harvey. “As you get closer to an acquisition decision on JSF, closer to a retirement decision on the F-111, you’ve really got to nail these things down. ”

Capability Questions

The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is fundamentally a scaled up version of the original Hornet which has been in service with the RAAF and seven other nations for the past two decades. The Super Hornet program was initiated in the early 1990s following the cancellation of the US Navy’s stealthy A-12 Avenger II attack aircraft and subsequent decision to not adapt the USAF’s F-22 for carrier duties. Following the first Gulf War in 1991, the US Navy was faced with a withered strike force structure based upon ageing A-6E Intruders and A-7E Corsair IIs backed up by the multirole F/A-18A-D Hornets, and desperately needed to modernise its carrier air groups.

The ‘Super’ has built upon many of the systems developed for late build F/A‑18C/ Ds and integrated these in an enlarged airframe. This gives the jet a payload-range performance nearly 30 per cent greater than the Classic and comparable to that of the subsonic A-6E, which for many years served as the Navy’s primary strike aircraft.

In the Super, the US Navy also gained a fleet defence fighter with superior manoeuvrability, sensors and weapons, and comparable range/payload performance to the recently retired F-14B/D Tomcat.

The single-seat F/A-18E is 1. 28m longer, has a 25 per cent greater wing area, and can carry 33 per cent more internal fuel than the F/A-18A/C, effectively increasing its mission range by 41 per cent and its endurance by more than 50 per cent. The Super also features two additional weapons stations on the wings for a total of 11 hardpoints, allowing for more flexible payload mixes to be carried.

“From an organisational point of view, in some ways it is advantageous to go down the Super Hornet route. In other ways it does add a little bit of organisational stress. ”

The Super’s most noticeable distinguishing visual cues are its larger squared-off engine intakes allowing greater volumes of air to be fed to its higher thrust engines, its ‘cleaner’ airframe which features subtle stealth shaping and low observable (LO) features such as conformal antennae and cerated and overlapping panel edges, and its 20 per cent larger leading edge wing root extensions (LEX). Overall, the Super has about 35 per cent fewer parts than the Classic, streamlining production and maintenance.

Under the skin is where the Super has made many of its advances over the incumbents. The current production Block 2 Super Hornet features Raytheon’s APG-79 Advanced Electrically Scanned Array (AESA) radar. In part, AESA allows an aircraft to continue to scan the ground and sky for threats while tracking multiple targets simultaneously. This greatly improves pilot situational awareness and the ability to attack multiple targets with precision weapons at the same time.

Block 2 aircraft also feature new Digital Expandable Colour Displays (DECD), an Advanced Mission Computer and Display (AMC&D), an upgraded Stores Management System (SMS) and other enhancements which are based on commercially off the shelf (COTS) components.

The Super Hornet can carry up to 8032kg of external stores on its eight wing and three fuselage stations, and retains the familiar 20mm M61A1 Vulcan gun in the nose. Its GE F414- GE-400 engines are developed from the F412 core which was to have been used on the A-12, with technology from the YF120 engine which lost out to P&W’s YF119 engine to power the F-22. The F414 produces 22,000lb (97. 8kN) of thrust in afterburner, some 35 per cent more than the F404-GE-400 used in the F/A-18A/B.

The dual-seat F/A-18F has been developed with more than just training and conversion duties in mind. Indeed, although it carries about eight per cent less internal fuel than the F/A-18E, the US Navy is taking more of the two seat F models due to increased flexibility and situational awareness from having two crew. In Block 2 form the F/A-18F will form the basis of the EA-18G electronic attack variant which is due to enter service in 2009.

The RAAF’s Super Hornets are expected to be dual seat F models, with the Air Force likely to heavily draw upon its two-crew experience with the F-111.

Raaf Super Hornets?

In the post-Kinnaird Review era where defence contracts now have to go through a two-pass selection process and have an off-the-shelf alternative, some analysts and commentators have questioned how a rapid acquisition process like that of the Super Hornet can bypass these requirements.

However, with the Super Hornet always considered the RAAF’s second choice after the F-35, it was likely it was always going to be selected if a bridging option were to be taken.

“NACC and Capability Development Executive (CDE) have been keeping a watching brief (on the Super Hornet) for a few years now,” added AIRCDRE Binskin. “And if you were to go another type, an aircraft that we don’t have any background on, then you’re really creating some organisational stress leading into JSF, and that wouldn’t de-risk theair combat transition, it would add risk to it. ” So, with the hedging strategy now changed, a Super acquisition also appears to have diverted the RAAF from its stated desire to have a single aircraft type fulfil its Air 6000 NACC requirement.

“The potential there is to keep them for a 25 to 30 year life and make them a part of the fleet down the track, but you end up with a mixed fleet,” AIRCDRE Binskin said. “The other option is, as they come up to a point in their life, say 10 to 15 years where they’ll need a HUG-like upgrade, to sell them off then, and go to the final squadron of JSFs, so you don’t have a mixed fleet in the future. ” Another concern the RAAF may have is, if it is forced to acquire a bridging capability of Super Hornets which is likely to cost between $2. 5 and $3 billion, will this have an affect from an operational and budgetary position on the number of F-35s it will eventually be able to take.

“I guess the timing we’re looking at for the Super Hornet isn’t when the JSF money is there anyway, so there’s no direct implication of it,” AVM Harvey said. “But . . . realistically you would have to say that if the government would be looking at that, what is an appropriate source (of funding,) and on the face of it, NACC funding would be one of those sources of that money. But that’s up to government to decide. ” What also hasn’t yet been decided is how a Super Hornet would slot into the RAAF’s force structure. But it seems likely to be operated by the F-111- centric 82 Wing at Amberley primarily as a strike aircraft, but alternatively it could be a good fit with Williamtown’s 81WG as a multirole augmentation to the Classic fleet.

“We haven’t got down to that level, but logically you’d probably find that the Fs would be based at Amberley,” said AIRCDRE Binskin. “It hasn’t been decided fully yet but logically that would be the basing and therefore 1 and 6 would be the squadrons.

Regardless, since the former Tactical Fighter and Strike Reconnaissance Groups merged in 2002 to form Air Combat Group (ACG), and with former ACG commanders AVM John Quaife and his nominated successor as Air Commander Australia (ACAUST), AIRCDRE Binskin firmly ensconced in the upper echelons of the RAAF hierarchy, the lines of demarkation between these once disparate organisational groups will continue to be blurred in the coming years.

“From an organisational point of view, in some ways it is advantageous to go down the Super Hornet route,” AIRCDRE Binskin offered. “In other ways it does add a little bit of organisational stress, because it is effectively a staged transition in there. So they’re all things that we’re looking at.

“But that was why, as the bridging fighter, it went to the Super Hornet as the option, because that’s the least risk, as an organisation, if we needed to bring in a bridging capability. We know the systems, we know the processes and we know the US Navy and Boeing very very well. We’ve been flying the Hornet now for over 20 years, so it’s a relatively easy step for us to go across to that bridging type. ” Indeed, the Super may also provide an opportunity for the RAAF to get some of the current F-111 ‘bomber’ crews into a true multirole fighter, and thus perhaps broaden their all-round abilities by exposing them to the concepts of basic fighter manoeuvring (BFM), simultaneous air-to-air and air-to-ground operations, and voiceless data-sharing and networking prior to the F-35 coming on line later next decade.

Unfortunately, this will also mean that some of the F-35 “headspace” Chief of Air Force Air Marshal Geoff Shepherd spoke about needing to come from the F-111 community, in an interview with AA last year (see August ’06 AA), will now need to be drawn from other areas.

Familiarity with Boeing, the Hornet philosophy and the US Navy will mean the transition to the Super Hornet should be relatively smooth, comparedto an all new type such as F-15E, Typhoon, F-22 etc). And RAAF Super Hornet crews will be trained by the US Navy.

But with the Super Hornet entering service in 2010 and the JSF, on current schedules, following only two or three years later, there seems little doubt the RAAF fast jet community will be stretched.

“It’s a challenge,” said AIRCDRE Binskin. “But with the Super Hornet we will leverage off the US Navy training system, so rather than do the traditional train your trainers first, then train your operational crews, in this case we’d be looking at the reverse. Train the operational crews first then use that as a core to train your trainers, so you can ramp up, only because we know the aircraft, the system very well, the employment.

“So we can step into it that way, whereas JSF you’re looking at potentially two different (training) models there, but that would allow us to have the operational (Super Hornet) capability running before we start stepping into the JSF. ” Despite the Super Hornet buy, the RAAF at the moment still plans to take delivery of its first squadron of JSFs in the 2012-13 timeframe. But the Super Hornet bridging option does give the RAAF the opportunity to allow itself a little breathing space and push its own F-35 induction timetable back a little.

“If you had something like a Super Hornet, there is a less pressing timing need to get that aircraft in, but we still want to step up fifth generation capability with stealth, the advanced sensors, data fusion and communications capability,” said AVM Harvey.

“The Super Hornet goes part way there, it’s got the AESA radar, which is a step beyond our current capabilities, but it doesn’t have the stealth, the advanced sensors and data fusion capabilities. ” But the entry of the Super Hornet into the RAAF fighter mix does raise questions about how many F-35s the RAAF ultimately buys, and when they are delivered. Some observers have even speculated that an initial Super Hornet acquisition may soon be augmented by a follow-on order for the aircraft, should the F-35 be considerably delayed and the current Hornet fleet experience problems – the existing Hornets are due to be retired in around 2017.

This could open up the scenario of the F-35 even being bypassed altogether in favour of the F-22 or future unmanned combat capability such as any production versions of the Boeing X-45C and Northrop Grumman X-47B concepts currently under development in the US.

However, the RAAF and government remains committed to the JSF.

“As the government gave first pass approval and signed the PSFD MoU, the JSF is believed to be the most cost effective for the long term,” AVM John Harvey said.

“It’s still going to form the core of our future air combat capability,” added AIRCDRE Binskin.

The Super Hornet certainly fills any short term capability gap, but what it means for the long term structure of the RAAF’s air combat is less clear. o Australian Aviation’s interview with AVM Harvey on Australia’s JSF program will be published in our next edition. Our April edition will also analyse RAAF air combat capabilities in light of the mooted Super Hornet buy.