Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Australian Aviation
Jan/Feb 2004
bombs improvement program and the successful integration of a standoff strike weapon on the F/A-18s and AP-3C
the F-111 could be withdrawn from service. In other
words, by that time the Air Force will have a strong and
effective land and maritime strike capability. This will
enable withdrawing the F-111 a few years earlier than
envisaged in the White Paper.
Senator Robert Hill: in light of the increasing strike
capability thats going to be attached to principally the
F/A-18s, but also the Orions as I've detailed in this
paper, its believed that the retirement date of the
F-111s can be brought forward a few years. Thats a
decision, thats guidance thats been given to government by Air Force and guidance that government has
accepted. ... Can I just say that the existing projects
such as the AGM-142 will continue.
Chief of Air Force AM Angus Houston: There will be no
gap and I think thats the important message to get across.
Essentially the F-111 will not be withdrawn until such
time as weve fully upgraded the F/A-18. We have the much
more capable tankers. We have the AEW&C. Weve
upgraded our weapons. The F/A-18 will be capable of
dropping not only laser guided precision munitions but
also satellite guided precision munitions and will also be
capable of delivering a follow-on standoff weapon, which
will also be fitted to the AP-3C. ... Well what will dictate
the retirement of the F-111 will be the achievement of a
suitable capability to replace the F-111. Now we think that
will be somewhere from 2010 onwards. And were very
like the JASSM are very easy to integrate they are not
unlike a large Harpoon in delivery method and supporting
software in the aircraft is relatively simple. Therefore an
IOC for a weapon like the AGM-158 JASSM in RAAF service
could be as early as 2006 to 2008. The IOC for the
replacement tanker was originally intended to be 2006, with
slippages perhaps to 2008.
Therefore the likely outcome would be that the F-111
would be withdrawn earlier than 2010, perhaps starting as
early as 2006. The initial leaks to the press over this matter
proposed 2006 as a withdrawal date, and it is not
unreasonable to conclude that this is the actual target
withdrawal date. With allowances for slippage in the gap
fillers, any date post 2006 is possible.
What sets the F-111 apart from contemporary fighters is its prodigious
fuel capacity, combat payload radius and supersonic performance. This
diagram based on a General Dynamics P-chart compares the payload
radius of the F-111 against the baseline full scale development JSF and
proposed Pacrim JSF hybrid, which replaces one of its two GBU-31
bombs with a fuel tank. Both the JSF and F/A-18A require significant
tanker support to compete with the F-111. (Author)
F111A/E / FB111A Payload Radius (HiLoLoHi)
28000
24000
Payload Radius Performance Growth Potential
20000
Payload [lb]
16000
F111A/E Internal Fuel Only
12000
8000
JSF CTOL (FSD)
4000
Pacrim JSF
0
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
1100
1200
1300
1400
Australian Aviation
Jan/Feb 2004
35
With enough tanking you could take JSFs or F/A-18As easily to 1500nm (2800km), perhaps further. Over Afghanistan the USN flew 3000nm+
(5560km+) round trips, but that required enormous USAF KC-135 tanker support. Current RAAF tanker fleet planning covers perhaps 30% of what
numbers are needed to simply offset the loss of the F-111, without allowances for escort CAPs. Claiming the JASSM as a range extender ignores
the need for tactical routing of the missile flightpath which might cut 50% off its range.
36
Australian Aviation
Jan/Feb 2004
Jan/Feb 2004
37
38
Australian Aviation
Jan/Feb 2004
70 x JSF
5 x Tankers
2003
Defence
Capability
Review
2020
Planned
2020
Impact
of JSF
Cost
Growth
Regional
Strike
Capabilities
Planned
2010+
14 x Medium Tankers
15 x Medium Tankers
TUDM: 18 x Su30MKM
TUDM: 12 x F/A18D
TNIAU: 50 x Su27/30
100 x JSF
5 x Tankers
RMAF
15 x Medium Tankers
2000
White
Paper
70 x F/A18A
5 x Tankers
30 x F111
70 x F/A18A
5 x Tankers
TNI
AU
analysing fatigue test articles in Australia largely attributable to poor planning. With the wingtip extensions fitted
all F-111 wings are otherwise identical the different stress
distribution reduces the life of the long wing against the
short wing.
With perhaps 90 percent or more of the key fatigue
limited components in the F-111 airframe concentrated in
the wings, the fatigue life of the current RAAF fleet can be
extended by wing swaps for as long as surplus wings
remain in AMARC mothballs with 200 airframes many
under 3000 hours of time this is a lot of fatigue life. Indeed,
one F-111D went into the smelter with around 2500 hours of
airframe time a mere quarter of its design life. Additional
hours can be added to F-111 wings by reskinning, fastener
reworking and selective component replacement, as done
with the B-52H, C-5B, KC-135, 707 and planned for the B-1B.
Other key structural components such as undercarriage
sets, wheels or WCTBs are available in abundance in
AMARC.
The F-111s aluminium honeycomb sandwich skins can be
arbitrarily replaced with more durable and tougher
carbonfibre composite replacements, using a DSTO devised
reverse engineering technique.
There are no obvious engineering reasons why the F-111
cannot be life-extended into the 2030-2040 period, like the
US Air Force B-52H and B-1Bs both programmed for use
until 2040, using small block retrofits during scheduled
downtime.
The arguments put forth by Defence on both costs and
risks of fatigue related catastrophic failure are paper thin at
best, and essentially speculative. They are in engineering
and strategic planning terms little more than guesswork,
not supported by hard engineering analysis like we see in
the US.
This analyst (and formerly reliability engineer) has
previously challenged the Defence Department to provide a
publicly available, comprehensive Mil-Std-756 compliant
reliability and wearout analysis of the F-111, using hard
statistical data at a component and subsystem level. An
analysis without estimates and projections. The Defence
Department did not respond to this challenge.
The argument that the F-111 is expensive is simply bunk. This diagram
compares the operational cost of doing a task with a single F-111 against
the use of F/A-18As, supported by tankers in the latter two scenarios.
While each F/A-18A is about 30% cheaper, the need to use larger
numbers and supporting tankers drives the costs of the Hornet up
significantly over the F-111. The idea that small fighters with tankers are
cheaper is a deceptive fallacy. (Author)
Cost Scenario A
Equal Payload Bomb
Delivery to 450 NMI
Cost Scenario B
Strike to 1,000 NMI
8 klb Bombs
Cost Scenario C
Close Air Support
at 450 NMI 2.8 hr
Loiter Endurance
Australian Aviation
Jan/Feb 2004
39
CONCLUSIONS
The arguments put forth to justify the early retirement
of the F-111, and the arguments asserting that no strike
capability gap will exist, are difficult to support by hard
facts. It is unfortunate that Cabinet agreed to the early
retirement proposal, as a policy change now presents a
public embarrassment to the Federal Government even
if the responsibility for this situation rests squarely with
the Department of Defence bureaucracy.
Delayed F-111 retirement increases budgetary flexibility
for a future government by spreading the replacement
expense over a longer period. Evidently budgetary
flexibility was not a factor. Given the evident weakness of
the strategic, cost and airframe life arguments against the
F-111, the root cause of the drive to early retirement clearly
lies elsewhere.
The long history of public embarrassments resulting from
F-111 management, maintenance and planning blunders in the
bureaucracy is without doubt the key factor which led to this
situation. The early retirement of a number of key senior Air
Force officers post 2000, all advocates of the F-111, left the
aircraft without any champions in the upper ranks of the
ADF and highly vulnerable to bureaucratic attack.
40
Australian Aviation
Jan/Feb 2004