F-35 - Rapport fra Down Under - AW&ST

Australian F-35 Operations: So Far, So Good Bradley Perrett   It is still early times, but operational introduction of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning in Australia is going more smoothly than expected, with the head of the air combat force seeing few of the problems he anticipated. In particular, logistics and use of the mission planning system by the Royal Australian Air Force(RAAF) have proven relatively free of difficulties, despite operators’ unfamiliarity with them. The commander has also described what seems to be a considerable capacity for F-35 electronic attack, exploited in a January exercise with the U.S. and Britain. Meanwhile, the RAAF and Royal Air Force are building up a capability independent of the U.S. to feed their Lightnings with data on enemy systems. Australia now has 10 F-35As: eight at the U.S. Luke AFB, Arizona, and two at RAAF Williamtown, the main Australian fighter base, at Newcastle on the east coast, where they arrived last December. Two more F-35As will arrive at Williamtown in early April and a further four by year-end, making a total of eight in the country, the commander of the combat air group, Air Commo. Michael Kitcher, said at the Australian International Airshow, held at Avalon, Geelong, Feb. 26-March 3. Australia will also add two F-35As to its aircraft at Luke around the middle of 2019. The RAAF’s first F-35s, used at Luke, were received in 2014. The country’s planned force of 72 F-35As are replacing F/A-18A/B Hornets, the airframe lives of which are mostly close to exhaustion, though some are being sold to Canada. Kitcher reiterated the plan to achieve initial operational capability (IOC) at the end of 2020, when a training squadron, Williamtown’s 2 Sqdn. Operational Conversion Unit, and the frontline 3 Sqdn. will be equipped with the type. A third unit at Williamtown, 77 Sqdn., will convert to the F-35A in 2021 and the final unit, 75 Sqdn., flying from RAAF Tindal in northern Australia, will receive its aircraft in 2022. Final operational capability is due in 2023. Among “things that did not—or have not yet—really gone wrong would be spares supply,” Kitcher says, noting that Australia was far from the sources of parts. That problem “has not materialized; it has actually worked pretty well.”

The first two RAAF F-35s to operate in Australia approach their baseon the Pacific coast. Credit: Commonwealth of Australia

The RAAF’s technical workforce has impressively mastered the new fighter’s Autonomous Logistics Information System, an unfamiliar feature that Kitcher expected would present challenges. Similarly, the F-35A comes with a complex mission-planning system, but “so far, we’ve been getting that right without too many issues,” he says. The fighter has also turned out to be a little less noisy than predicted. Residents near Williamtown have complained about F-35 noise; however, they do so even on days when neither of the two aircraft have been flown. The head of Australia’s F-35A acquisition program, Air Vice Marshal Leigh Gordon, emphasizes that “IOC is not in the bag.” Kitcher says his biggest concern is training people to operate the aircraft. Australia and Britain are jointly operating a laboratory to create mission data sets—information to be loaded into the fighter about such things as enemy radars and weapons. By doing this independently of the U.S., the two countries have greater control over the combat capability of the aircraft. The first such data set has been delivered from the laboratory, which is at U.S. Eglin AFB, Florida. The facility will accelerate the process when physical and software tools from Lockheed Martin are delivered this year. Kitcher recounts his experience as a Hornet pilot in a recent Red Flag exercise involving only U.S., British and Australian forces; this was apparently the exercise held in January. Kitcher says he “watched eight F-35s kick open a door that was a very hard door to open against a fairly determined adversary”—the door being air defenses of the opposing side. “Some F-22s came in after that to hold the door open. The F-35s went back and picked up a strike train that consisted of . . . Hornets from 77 Sqdn., Super Hornets from the U.S. Navy, Typhoons from the Royal Air Force and F-16s, and they were supported by Growlers from the U.S. Navy and F-16 SEAD [suppression of enemy air defenses] aircraft from the U.S. Navy as well,” he says. “And the F-35s took that strike train way down into bad land, through some significant air defenses,” he continues. “Everybody dropped their bombs and got out safely. And while that was going on, there were Growlers providing [SEAD, along with] F-16s doing the same thing. And once the F-35s had dropped their bombs, they were actually doing SEAD as well.” The F-35s had worked with the other aircraft to solve a very difficult problem, Kitcher says, adding that he expected Australia to be achieving similar results at home with its Lightnings, Growlers and Super Hornets within two years. —With Steve Trimble in Washington