Issue 282: A New Gap?

Australian New Air Combat Capability (NACC) head AVM Kym Osley told Australian Aviation in February that he expected the USAF to release its Operational Test & Evaluation (OT&E) results to partner nations several months after completing that process, and that an RAAF IOC would follow the USAF’s declaration by between 18 months and two years, meaning one RAAF squadron would be equipped, trained and combat-ready at RAAF Williamtown by late 2018.

While many of the details are yet to be worked out, the current transition plan calls for the classic Hornet fleet to begin progressively winding down from 2014. At this time the RAAF, attrition notwithstanding, will have 71 F/A-18A/B classic and 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets in service with four operational squadrons and two operational conversion units. Like the RAAF did with its F-111C fleet in 2008, it is likely the aircraft and manpower of the classic Hornet squadrons – the Williamtown based 2OCU, 3 and 77SQNs, and 75SQN based at Tindal – will be consolidated into two or three larger units as the first few pilots and maintainers selected for the JSF can be pulled out of the Hornet world to begin their training on the new aircraft.

This first consolidation could also see as many as a dozen of the highest hour F/A-18A/Bs removed from service and retired or used as a source of spares as they become due for major servicings. 2OCU will likely remain a classic Hornet conversion unit as it will still be necessary to convert and upgrade pilots on the aircraft right up to the type’s final retirement.

As the first JSF unit begins its training and work up on the F-35 in the US in the 2015-17 timeframe, the plan calls for classic Hornets to continue to be withdrawn from service as they fall due for major servicings. It is anticipated that about 40 classic Hornets in two squadrons will remain on strength until the first F-35A squadron declares IOC in mid to late 2018. At that point at least one and possibly two more JSF squadrons will have already commenced their training and transition cycles to the aircraft.

A Full Operational Capability (FOC) of two or three F-35A squadrons plus an OCU equipped with up to 72 aircraft operating out of new squadron and maintenance facilities with a mature supply chain in place is expected to be declared in late 2020, at which point the final classic Hornets will be retired.

But if the USAF IOC slip eventuates as Lt Gen Shackelford suggested in his HASC testimony, this would well and truly deplete any remaining buffer or contingency the RAAF had in its schedule before it has to retire the last of its classics, the oldest of which would be 35 years old by then, and would thus open up a potentially massive capability gap from 2016 onwards.

Options

While the USAF’s plans won’t be known for a few months, if the planned USAF IOC slips to 2018, the RAAF still has several options open to it moving forward, decisions on which will need to be taken sooner rather than later.

One option is to delay the start of the F/A-18A/B retirement, and to ‘flatten the curve’ of that aircraft’s withdrawal schedule which will see a number of Hornets retained beyond the currently planned 2020 life of type. This will likely require an extension of the Hornet’s Structural Refurbishment Program (SRP) to help achieve this, with the classics suffering ageing aircraft fatigue issues not only with their centre barrels, but in other structurally critical areas including wing ribs and panels, the rear fuselage, in fuselage fuel tanks, and in the main landing gear.

For an aircraft that was originally designed to not require any deep maintenance work at all, structural work at these levels of invasiveness is time consuming and costly to perform, and can often be a mission of discovery in its nature.

Fortunately, if no additional centre barrels are required – and analysis by DSTO of barrels removed from RAAF and Canadian Hornets suggests they might not be – the rest of the work should be able to be performed in Australia at BAE Systems’ Williamtown facility with support from DSTO and other experienced industry players such as L-3 MAS and Boeing. This would allow the current transition plan to be slipped to the right to accommodate the revised JSF IOC, but brings extra risk into the classic Hornet fleet.

Upon the retirement of the F-111 last December, Chief of Air Force AIRMSHL Mark Binskin said he was glad to have been able to retire the aircraft at the RAAF’s time of choosing rather than having to be forced to retain a costly and ageing airframe which would have quickly started losing capability in comparison to potential regional threats. The ability to retire the F-111 was facilitated by the 2007 decision to acquire 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets, the first squadron of which declared IOC just one week after the F-111’s retirement. Despite the roughly $3 billion spent on acquiring the Super Hornets, they were deemed necessary to fill the gap between the retirement of the F-111 and the introduction of the JSF. And with its advanced avionics and sensors, The Super Hornet has provided the added benefit of providing a logical capability and technology stepping stone to the F-35 as well.

This risk assessment strategy applied to the withdrawal of the F-111 will likely also be applied in a similar form to the classic Hornet fleet approaching 2020. From a safety management standpoint, the ongoing fatigue issues of the classic will only grow as time goes on, and much of the fleet will be approaching or will have exceeded its designed 6000 hour fatigue life by the end of the decade.

While the known fatigue issues can and are being addressed, it is the unknown issues where the risk is greatest. Therefore, the RAAF as part of the ADF’s wider Ageing Systems Audit process is looking at the known and potential unknown issues in consultation with the US and other long-term Hornet operators such as Canada and Spain, and hopes to have a plan in place within the next couple of years to address these.

While the US Navy has retired most of its F/A-18A/B fleet in favour of younger C/D or E/F models, delays to its F-35C will see it retain several hundred classic Hornets into the next decade. To that end, the USN is looking to extend some of those aircraft out to 8000 hours and possibly beyond.
Canada is in a similar position to Australia in that it has also committed to a JSF-only combat force going forward, and with its 80 remaining CF-18A/B Hornets two or more years older than ours, it has also seen its planned buffer depleted.

While many of the US Navy’s F/A-18A/Bs are up around the 6000 hour mark already, Australia’s fleet leader is sitting around 4500 hours. But Australia’s Hornets are operated differently to those of the US Navy – while they may not experience some of the salt-associated corrosion and heavy landing issues of aircraft carrier operated jets, the RAAF’s Hornet perform more air-to-air combat manoeuvring (ACM) compared to the US Navy’s predominantly air-to-surface role, and therefore are subjected to higher sustained G levels in different parts of their airframes. So by 2020 some of Australia’s Hornets might be close to being global fleet leaders with unique fatigue characteristics, and therefore may be operating in unchartered territory.

The extensive Air 5376 Hornet Upgrade Program (HUG) conducted over the past decade provided the classic pilots with excellent situational awareness through the incorporation of advanced sensors, communications and electronic warfare capabilities, while ancillary programs saw new air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles and precision guided bombs added to the aircraft’s arsenal.

But it is reasonable to assume that the Hornet’s capability, despite these HUG upgrade and regardless of how well it is supported by force multipliers such as Super Hornets, Wedgetail AEW&C, KC-30A tankers and the Vigilare C2 system, will be diminishing compared to regional threats by the end of this decade, and the aircraft will likely be outclassed by the early 2020s.

Another possible option is for the RAAF to commence its own F-35A OT&E program earlier than planned and run it concurrently with that of the USAF, but this would need approval from the USAF for the early release of their test results. And whilst potentially mitigating some of the delays to IOC, this would also add significant risk to the Australian program as the OT&E process is often one of discovery, and there may be potential to actually add to the delays in introducing the F-35 capability.

The ADF has been hurt in recent years by delays caused by signing onto development programs as opposed to more mature, off-the-shelf solutions. Programs such as the Collins class submarines, Wedgetail AEW&C, Seasprite, ARH and MRH helicopters, and the KC-30A MRTT tankers – most of which despite being excellent capabilities are either several years late or have been cancelled – spring to mind immediately.

Indeed, such a scenario was experienced as far back as the late 1960s and early 1970s with the F-111C after that aircraft’s wing carry-through box was found to have been manufactured incorrectly. This saw the RAAF’s 24 F-111s grounded for more than four years from a planned service entry in 1969, and the entire training and transition process for RAAF crews and maintainers was halted and restarted twice.

If during its OT&E the USAF were to discover a critical flaw in the design or capability of the F-35 that resulted in a grounding or the need for a re-design before the aircraft could be declared operationally suitable, the RAAF will likely be forced to also halt its own OT&E work. Such a halt would not only put pressure on the RAAF’s air combat capability, but its skills base and personnel throughput processes would also be at risk, and could result in bottlenecks in the recruitment and retention system that could take up to a decade to clear.

The delays and personnel throughput issues were and are still being experienced with the four year delay to the RAAF’s Wedgetail AEW&C program and the ongoing nearly three year delay to its KC-30A tankers. Fortunately, these issues have been somewhat mitigated by crews and maintainers being able to extend exchange postings and to train on and operate other multi-engined types, both in the RAAF and with the airlines. No such mitigation options on the scale required exist for fast jet crews.

A third option may be to re-think the whole NACC process and instead settle for a longer term air combat force of Super Hornets and F-35s in a roughly 50:50 mix. An additional order of another 24-32 F/A-18E/Fs in the 2012 timeframe for delivery in 2015-17 would remove all risk from the classic Hornet to JSF transition process. This would allow the F-35s to be introduced when ready and the classics to be retired as they time expire, and negate the need for further structural work beyond that already being planned under the current SRP program. Longer term, the planned electronic attack Growler conversion of up to 12 of the F/A-18Fs would still be performed, while the remaining Super Hornets would be relegated to a second tier or ‘bomb truck’ status as the more capable F-35A matures in service.

Although the RAAF is publicly 100 per cent committed to the JSF as its sole air combat capability solution once the Super Hornets have been withdrawn in the early to mid 2020s, the service would be naive to not have the option of additional Super Hornets gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, much as it did with the original Super Hornet acquisition. Likewise, Boeing would be equally naive to not have a tailored solution ready to go if required.

The blame (and later, the credit) for the original 24 aircraft Bridging Air Combat Capability (BACC) that was laid squarely at then Defence Minister Brendan Nelson’s feet was incorrectly reported at the time as being against air force advice. Indeed, the RAAF had been prudently keeping a watching brief on the Block II F/A-18F as their “Plan B” option for some time – no doubt supported by Boeing’s able and well respected business development lead in Canberra – and it was the RAAF that pressed the trigger on the Super Hornet acquisition when it became the clear the F-111 could no longer fulfil the required strike role in the 20-teens, and the transition directly from the classic Hornet to the JSF would be too big of a step.

But the Super Hornet need not be relegated to a second tier role, especially with Boeing’s proposed International Roadmap enhancements (see AA April 2011) potentially on offer and the US Navy’s spiral ‘flight plan’ upgrade path to follow. The International Roadmap’s offerings of additional low observable treatments, enhanced cockpit displays, organic IRST and pseudo-distributed aperture system (DAS), conformal fuel tanks, more powerful engines, and a centreline weapons pod would see the Super Hornet remain competitive against forecast regional threats out to 2030 and possibly beyond, allowing it to robustly augment the F-35 for ‘Day 1’ operations if required. Further enhancements such as the addition of JASSM, JASSM-ER, the proposed JSM anti-shipping missile and other weapons would only serve to increase the Super Hornets effectiveness.

Ioc Is Key

Whatever happens, the USAF’s assessment on when it plans to declare and F-35A IOC is key to the RAAF’s future air combat capability plans.
A William Foundation paper published on March 30 encourages the RAAF to “hold our nerve” and delay the introduction of the F-35 until that aircraft has matured through the all-important OT&E and IOC processes. The paper, penned by retired Chief of Air Force AIRMSHL Errol McCormack, says “it would be sensible to wait and see what happens with the F-35, while simultaneously investigating the cost of capability issues involved in maintaining the Classic Hornet beyond 2020.”

Publicly, the RAAF remains steadfastly committed to an all-JSF force and is backing the current JSF development schedule, and is unlikely to say otherwise. But privately, perhaps some might say that acquiring extra Super Hornets may be a better option, and that extending the classic Hornets beyond 2020 poses too much risk.