As the RAAF prepares for the introduction of a fifth generation fighter capability, in the form of the Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter later in the decade, Chief of Air Force (CAF) has announced details of the transition plan.
Speaking at a Williams Foundation dinner in Canberra on May 29, Air Marshal Geoff Brown defined what a fifth generation capability bring to the table and outlined areas which will need attention if the full capability is to be understood and harnessed, both by Air Force and the wider Defence Organisation.
However AM Brown was critical of the walls or stovepipes in the organisation which have the potential to hamstring the transition and was forthright in his views on what must be done to change the current mindset.
Fittingly for a number of reasons, CAF’s transition blueprint has been named ‘Plan Jericho.’
Transition to 5th generation capability According to AM Brown, the definition of 5th generation capability is the fusion of low observability, low IR signature, low electronic emissions, AESA radar and associated sensors and ‘enablers’.
“The most important thing the F-35 brings, in my mind, is the fused picture that situational awareness brings to the operator. What has happened? What is happening? What might happen? – The level of situational awareness is a combination of all these things,” he explained.
CAF noted that in studies of air combat over the years just five per cent of the pilots have taken 95 per cent of the kills.
“The F-35 gives you a massive leap in situational awareness and that’s the key factor in 5th Generation,” he said.
“They will fundamentally change how Air Force interacts with Navy, Army and our allies (but) we need to work as a system of systems. We can often be constrained by previous mindsets.”
AM Brown noted that when the Super Hornet was introduced to RAAF service in 2009, many in Air Force viewed it as simply a Hornet with a radar which had three of four times the range of the existing aircraft.
“We were really lucky the USAF had given us some slots on the F-22A and the influence of those guys on Super Hornet tactics very much changed the way we used the Super Hornet and actually gave us quite an acceleration,” he said.
But he warned that Defence needed to look beyond its current capabilities, citing fundamental changes to the way information is brought into an Air Operations Centre, the exponential adoption of simulation and preparedness as areas which need to be improved.
A change in mindset CAF noted that current AOC personnel have up to six screens of information to analyse, and with the capability of platforms such as Super Hornet, Wedgetail and F-35 to ‘pipe’ fused data in almost real time, a fundamental change is required.
“The technical and policy differences have really got to disappear if we are to get the best out of these 5th generation systems. I call it ‘swivel-chair integration’. Six separate systems. My highly-paid, highly-trained analysts spend 75 per cent of their time actually looking for the information and only 25 per cent actually analysing,” he said of the current AOC.
“Intelligence has been totally ‘operationalised’, it is there in real time. We need to go from those six separate systems to an ‘intel’ cloud we can actually pull the data from. The capability is actually out there, we just haven’t driven ourselves towards it fast enough.”
From a preparedness viewpoint, AM Brown noted that a JSF fighter pilot will be much more capable much earlier, because of the sensor fusion capabilities. He also predicted future efficiencies in the training system, because the aircraft is much easier to operate than its forebears, but a greater understanding of the benefits of simulation is required.
For example, he cited a recent exercise where RAAF Super Hornets with Wedgetail support, scored 210 victories to ten against a high-end aggressor threat.
“That is just the difference of the changed tactics with an AESA radar, the JSF will be far superior to that. In a line environment, with an AESA radar you actually have a lot of trouble challenging the aircraft. Simulation is absolutely key to getting the best out of the capability,” he predicted.
“From a whole of Defence point of view, simulation has got to get a much bigger focus. It just can’t be on individual platforms, we’ve got to create an integrated simulation environment if we are truly going to move to these 5th generation capabilities.”
Plan Jericho – breaking down the walls Noting that Plan Jericho was named both for its biblical significance as well as ‘Operation Jericho’ in the Second World War, where Mosquito bombers broke down the walls of a Gestapo prison in occupied France, AM Brown was critical of the ‘silos’ within Defence which he says must be broken down.
“We are really hamstrung by the organisational focus. We’ve seen some of the challenges we’ve had with the functional supporting silos, they aren’t necessarily well aligned to our capability outputs and we see the manifestation of under investment in infrastructure,” he told guests.
“I really think the First Principles review of the Defence organisation is an enormous opportunity for Defence, if you take a different mindset into it.”
CAF was also critical of the current acquisition processes, which he said were too slow to achieve desired results.
“We’ve got to fundamentally move away from the industrial acquisition process – it is way too slow to actually keep up with where we need to be in the future. And it will not keep up with capabilities like JSF and Wedgetail,” he said.
“I talk about the difficulties of actually getting anything done in the Defence organisation. It’s like having a whole lot of corks in a bucket of water and what you have to do is to identify every stakeholder, then you have to put your hand over all of these corks and keep them down for the entire time. If one of them pops up, you’re going to have to start again.
“If I don’t want something to happen in Defence, my tactic is to send it on whatever process we’ve designed, because that is an absolute guarantee that it will not succeed.”
CAF noted that the issue was not just a single-service one and pledged to work closely with Army and Navy in the transformation under Plan Jericho.
“Breaking down walls, or breaking down the stovepipes of Defence is central if we’re actually going to realise the full capability of 5th Generation,” he argued.
Industry also has a large role to play in Plan Jericho and AM Brown asked defence industry leaders present to partner with him in its development.
“For industry, you need to consider how to work with us, not just on a platform basis and not just in terms of an RFT,” he told them. “We need help with the intellectual horsepower in thinking through how we actually maximise those 5th generation capabilities.”
AM Brown also warned that opportunities offered by the new technology would be missed if the First Principles review didn’t address the ‘stovepipe’ issue.
“The threat here is the high priests of centralism. In general, centralism has a stranglehold on management thinking, not only in Defence but arguably in the big corporates as well,” he noted.
“Highly centralised organisations cannot produce the results that small teams do. The more you get people in line with the output, the better they will perform. If you actually put them in stove-piped, centralised organisations, they actually get disconnected from the output.
“We have an enormous amount of work to do in the ADO over the next four to five years. We don’t have the same amount of people that we’ve had. There is pressure on the whole public service side. If you are going to get rid of people, you’ve got to get rid of process, you’ve got to streamline the organisation.”
A STOVL F-35B for Air Force? CAF also revealed that Air Force is currently studying the potential operations of a short take off vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B from the decks of Navy’s new Landing Helicopter Dock ships.
The Abbott government is reportedly interested in expanding the LHD role by the addition of combat jets and analysis is now being undertaken to determine what will be required.
Air Force has previously (and repeatedly) said that the F-35B was not under consideration and that modelling showed the LHDs could be adequately protected by shore-based F-35As.
“Any idea is worth a look at, because the situation changes, circumstances change. STOVLs have their place, they are a more expensive aeroplane, they have a lot less range and they don’t have the weapons capability,” he noted.
“It depends on how you see the LHD. If you want to convert it to take STOVL, there are a lot of considerations that you have to take into account and JSF/STOVL by itself isn’t a capability. It needs weapons and it needs fuel.
“And I think that if you go and look at the changes you have to put in place to operate STOVL off an LHD you will see that it’s got its challenges. That’s what we’ll work through over the next few months is to articulate what those challenges are, what additional cost, if that’s the way we decide we want to go.”
