It has been widely reported that in the lead up to the 2015 Defence White Paper, Prime Minister Tony Abbott ordered Defence to assess the benefits of F-35B jump jets and converting the Canberra class Landing Helicopter Docks (LHD) to accommodate them.
Previously, the RAAF was committed to buying only the F-35A version of the Joint Strike Fighter.
Writing in the academic blog, The Conversation, in June, Stephen L Jones opined that if Australia was serious about buying the jump jet version of the JSF, it would be wise to look at why the UK is the only country to change its mind on which version of the aircraft to buy.
“While the UK had originally signed on the JSF project to buy F-35B jump-jet fighters to replace their Harriers, the 2010 Review announced the decision to buy the F-35C naval carrier variant instead. The reason given for the change in policy was that the F-35C carrier variant has a 'longer range and greater payload' which was the critical requirement for precision strike operations in the future. The carrier-variant was also cheaper, reducing through-life costs by 'around 25 per cent'. The savings would result from a cheaper acquisition cost, as well as the efficiencies from maintaining only one type of aircraft, instead of two versions.
“In 2012 Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper reported it had seen a highly classified Operational Analysis Supporting Paper which indicated that “planners have grave doubts about the capabilities of the jump jets. According to the newspaper, the conventional variant was 'more effective than the jump jet in almost all cases'.
“For potential missions the British military may have to conduct, it stated that the F-35B was less useful that the other variants. The key issue identified was that the F-35B STOVL version carried less fuel than other the other versions, reducing weapons payloads and reducing the amount of time the aircraft could spend over a target area.
“For a target 300 nautical miles away from the aircraft carrier, the jump jet can spend only 20 minutes over its target before turning back, compared with 80 minutes for the conventional jet.”
A report from the Congressional Research Service on the F-35 JSF Program, 29 April 2014by Jeremiah Gertler cited that the estimated basic costs per aircraft (the airframe, engines and avionics) are:
- US$77.7 million – F-35A CTOL variant
- US$105.5 million – F-35B STOVL variant
- US$89.7 million – F-35C carrier version