Defence Minister Stephen Smith sees that buying additional Boeing Super Hornet aircraft is an obvious and sensible, but not inevitable, solution to excessive delays in the planned delivery of the new Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
In Washington last month Mr Smith held talks with US government officials saying there was a real prospect the US would cut defence spending as it moves to rein in its soaring debt, which could have possible impacts on Australian defence plans and operations.
“So, obviously, we have an interest in seeing that resolved one way or the other because it may well have some implications,” he told ABC radio last month.
Mr Smith said Australia had made a number of sensible, early decisions to minimise risk in the highly developmental JSF program, but delays in the program had pushed planned deliveries uncomfortably close to the Australian schedule limits, he said.
He had discussed Australia’s position with US Admiral David Venlet, the Pentagon’s JSF program manager.
“It is quite clear there will be an exhaustive risk assessment done on the current schedule.
That will be available to the US administration and to partners like Australia, I expect by the end of the year or early next year,” he told ABC radio.
“That will then enable us to start making some judgments about whether we need to make any other plans or take any other action so far as a potential gap in capability is concerned.”
Mr Smith said an obvious option was to buy more Boeing Super Hornets on top of 24 now entering service.
But recently, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss assailed Pentagon purchases of Boeing’s carrier-based F/A-18 Super Hornet, saying the plane is “obsolete” and “will be of limited to no value in any future threat scenario.”
In a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Chambliss argued that if the Pentagon failed to move out smartly on purchasing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the U.S. Navy and other services, “we run the certain risk of ceding tactical air superiority in future conflicts.”