Back to the future

When the RAAF’s first aircraft finally arrived in Australia in 1973, 10 years after they were ordered, the fleet’s cost had more than doubled, from US$153 million to US$344 million, and there were still major unresolved technical issues. No component seemed immune: at one time or another, the airframe, engines, avionics and weapons systems all severely tested the RAAF. For extended periods, only a handful of the 24 jets would be serviceable each morning.

Yet by the mid-1980s the RAAF had prevailed, and had transformed the F-111C into the most formidable bomber and maritime strike aircraft in South-East Asia. Serviceability rates were acceptable, and the Pave Tack precision targeting system had been fitted. For the next 25 years the aircraft’s combat potential was well-understood throughout the region.

Notwithstanding the RAAF’s excellence, the F-111 could not have succeeded without the unsurpassed technical, RDT&E and financial power of the United States. No other country in the world, including the then USSR, would have been capable of marshalling the necessary combination of intellectual, technological and economic strength to make the F-111 work.

It is a lesson worth remembering as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter follows a not dissimilar developmental trajectory.

Just as the F-111 represented a technological leap in the 1960s with its variable-geometry wings, terrain-following radar, and advanced systems integration, so too does the F-35 today. But, stealth aside, the F-35’s leap is concerned not with physical attributes (speed, acceleration, manoeuvrability), but with decision-making dominance.

It is always worth remembering that the F-35 has a staggering 24 million lines of code, whereas the world’s only other operational fifth-generation strike fighter, the F-22, has two million. Such is the potency of the F-35’s unique [“the only one of its kind; unlike anything else”] sensor suite and information fusion capability, it would be more accurate to describe the aircraft as the “Fighter/Attack/ISR/EW-35”. It will revolutionise pilot situational awareness; and in the era of beyond-visual-range combat it is situational awareness, not airshow aerobatics, that is the key to victory.

But again, as was the case with the F-111C, anyone who thinks that bringing the jet to a mature state will be easy either has little knowledge of military aviation RDT&E or a short memory.

Recently the F-35 was criticised by the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation for its comparatively poor combat performance. The jet reportedly continues to operate under speed and manoeuvrability restrictions; while software challenges (unsurprisingly) continue to adversely affect sensor operations and weapons delivery.

There is also the matter of price. It is difficult to pin down reliable figures, but in broad terms the unit cost has, like the F-111C’s, probably doubled, in this instance from around US$50 million to US$100 million.

Prospective customers have every right to feel frustrated with the slippages in the F-35 program, the price increase, and the jet’s struggle to meet operational specifications. But they would be naive if they were surprised.

The positive news at this stage is that some 175 F-35s have already flown more than 50,000 hours, the aircraft was declared “operational” (albeit under considerable limitations) by the US Marines in July 2015, and it is likely to achieve “initial operations” status with the USAF in August this year.

There is also the non-trivial point that, like the case of the West’s major banks during the global financial crisis of 2008, the F-35 is too important to be allowed to fail. Its combat potential cannot be replicated by, for example, re-engineered fourth-generation strike/fighters, or similar fanciful proposals. Simply put, if Australia is to maintain the regional air superiority which underpins our national defence posture, we need the F-35. The aircraft may be high risk but it offers high return.

Going by Australia’s experience with the F-111C, we can expect that the US will make the F-35 work. It won’t be easy and it won’t be cheap, but it’s far more likely to happen than not. And assuming it does, there is a strong probability that this unique F/A/ISR/EW aircraft will become our region’s dominant military capability for many years.

 The F-35’s leap is concerned not with physical attributes, but with decision-making dominance.