The first two Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II aircraft for the Royal Australian Air Force are due to roll off the assembly line in Texas on July 24.
The ceremony at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth facility will be a red letter day for the RAAF, but more importantly the Australian Government’s recent decision to commit to a further tranche of 58 aircraft sets the future of Australian air combat capability in stone for the foreseeable future.
The latest tranche of Joint Strike Fighters brings Australia’s total commitment to 72 aircraft – sufficient to equip three fighter squadrons and an operational conversion unit. Assuming no delays to the delivery of the aircraft, due to begin arriving in Australian in 2018, this means that the RAAF can now confidently plan the withdrawal of the ‘classic’ F/A-18A/B from service.
It also means sufficient funding is now available to undertake the wide range of infrastructure works required to air bases and weapons storage facilities around the country.
Australia’s New Air Combat Capability Prior to the announcement, Stage One of the New Air Combat Capability (NACC) project had approved fourteen F-35As, but only the two which are due to be rolled out this year had actually been ordered.
The additional 58 aircraft approved under Stage Two takes the combined budget to somewhere in the region of $15.5 billion, including some $1.6 billion for infrastructure.
“It’s a great outcome for us,” remarked the head of the New Air Combat Capability project office, Air Vice Marshal Chris Deeble. “Stage One didn’t deliver all of the aspects we require, but we now have sufficient funding to establish the level of infrastructure that’s required to support the capability in the longer term.”
AVM Deeble has only been in the job for a short period of time and has recently spent six months in Spain, working through the Airbus KC-30A boom remediation and before that was in charge of the Collins submarine and Wedgetail AEW&C projects.
“So basically the approval allows us now to look far more holistically at how we’re delivering the capability,” he detailed. “We have also nominated our first two fighter pilots to fly the JSF and they will start their conversion in the middle of 2015. They will form the core of the personnel who will develop the capability requirements, conduct the training and provide support for operational test and evaluation back here in Australia.”
From a build schedule perspective, AVM Deeble said that the next batch of eight aircraft will be ordered in 2016 as part of Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) lot 10, for delivery in 2018. A further eight will follow twelve months later in LRIP 11, which is currently planned to be the last low-rate production batch before full Rate production begins delivering aircraft.
The Full Rate Production batches will continue on from LRIP 11 in yearly increments and Australia will have 15 aircraft in each of the first three years of full-rate production, with the balance of nine aircraft delivered from FRP lot 4 in 2023.
A further decision on additional aircraft to replace the RAAF’s current Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets is due to be taken by Government in coming years, probably early in the next decade. If taken, this will take the total number of F-35As in RAAF service to 100 – in line with the plan when the JSF deal was first announced back in 2003.
“We will start to build up an initial capability in Australia at the end of 2018 and we’ll effectively stand up our sovereign training organisation, (2 Operational Conversion Unit) and first operational squadron (3 Squadron) at Williamtown over the next two years” AVM Deeble noted.
Initial Operating Capability is planned to occur at the end of 2020 and over the following three years the next two operational squadrons (Nos. 77 and 75 Squadrons respectively) will give up their Hornets for newly-delivered F35As.
Hornet drawdown will begin in 2020, commensurate with IOC, and be complete by the end of 2023, at which point the F-35A is planned to achieve Final Operating Capability.
Program risk But the program is still facing a significant degree of risk, both from a developmental point of view as well as the establishment of infrastructure and sustainment systems here in Australia.
The software in the aircraft still poses the greatest level of risk with much of the hard yards still to come, in terms of testing multiple complex systems and sensors simultaneously.
The latest software version, 2B, was delivered to flight-test at Fort Worth in May and should be flying as these words are read. This will be followed by version 3I in the middle of 2015, which had originally been planned to support US Marine Corps IOC in July and thereafter by 3F (final) which will represent the warfighting capability desired for Australian IOC.
Chris Deeble says he sees risk in these dates, but there are contingency plans to mitigate any late software delivery.
“At the moment 3I software is running about three months late and it was due in the middle of 2015. 3F software has probably got about six months’ worth of risk and was due around the end of 2017,” he notes.
“Our first aircraft will be arriving in Australia towards the end of 2018, so our contingency is to use 3I software if necessary. It is still a significant step forward and is the risk mitigator for our declaration of IOC.”
Beyond 3F, versions 4A and 4B will add further weapons functionality, including a maritime strike capability in the former, which is required for Australian FOC in 2023.
“There’s been a lot of work done on the schedule risk and clearly one of the issues is to make sure we keep that software expertise in place to be able to work through the issues, the gap between 3F and 4A and 4B,” AVM Deeble said.
“General Bogdan (head of the F-35 Joint Program Office in the US) is really making sure that we are maintaining the required functionality within the various software builds and holding Lockheed Martin accountable for delivering those capabilities.
“So at this point there’s a good mechanism for tracking where we’re going in that domain.”
From a capability standpoint Chris Deeble says he is very happy with the performance of the F-35A, pointing out that it is more than just aerodynamic capability, stealth capability or radar prowess alone, but rather the systems integration and situational awareness that comes with a fifth generation fighter.
“I’m sure you are aware of the negative press out there about the aircraft’s aerodynamic performance and comparisons to other regional capabilities,” he explained.
“I’ve been in the Air Force a long time, I have an F-111 background and I’ve also worked on (Wedgetail) AEW&C and other high-end capabilities for the ADF and I’m of the view that JSF will definitely be a world class capability.
“I think when you just take aerodynamic performance in isolation, you lose sight of all the other things that come together as a package, including very capable and very smart weapons that adds to the whole dimension.”
Aside from the aircraft itself, there is also risk associated with the complex, software-driven Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), which the project office is watching carefully and looking at possible workarounds required before Australia’s first aircraft arrive at Luke Air Force Base early next year to begin training operations within the F-35 international training centre.
“I think we’re going to have to look very much at an incremental development for ALIS over time. We need to understand the functions we need to perform to support our initial operations and to work closely with the US on how it subsequently develops,” AVM Deeble said.
“Another area which does worry me is sustainment. I think that is an area we are going to have to look at very closely, because the global support system is not fully defined at this point in time and I think General Bogdan appreciates that getting all the pieces into place will be a significant challenge.”
Infrastructure and Australian industry According to Chris Deeble, around $357 million worth of work has been awarded to Australian Industry to date and expects this to increase to around $400 million by the end of the current financial year.
“We are envisaging that we will get at least $1.5 billion – and that’s a fairly conservative figure – of industry engagement and we’ll be aiming for somewhere between $2.5 and $4 billion,” he said. “And on top of that there’s about another $7 billion worth of work which we can compete for.”
Local industry also wins from the $1.6 billion infrastructure work to be carried out in anticipation of local operations.
Around one billion dollars will be spent at Williamtown with other significant work to be carried out at Tindal. RAAF Bases around the country, including the bare bases at Scherger, and Curtin and also works at Pearce, Townsville and Darwin.
The ADF weapons storage facility at Myambat, near Muswellbrook in New South Wales will also be upgraded to handle new weapons, including the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb delivered with the aircraft. and a maritime strike weapon in the future.
“The key goal is to bring everything together with respect to the overall capability and ensure that we have the aircraft and operating systems, the support and sustainment systems in place and ramping up from when the first aircraft hit the tarmac at Williamtown at the end of 2018,” AVM Deeble concluded.
