The group, led by retired air vice-marshals Peter Criss and Brian Graf, has written to the Senate foreign affairs and defence committee arguing that the Defence Department has not fully explored the case for alternatives to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is planned to become the RAAF's main strike fighter beyond 2014.
In particular, the group, which includes defence aviation analyst Carlo Kopp, has questioned the recent $6billion purchase of 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets and believes the Defence Department has not adequately scrutinised alternatives to the F-35, such as the F-22 fighter.
They want a "quality assurance review" to test the veracity of some evidence presented by senior Defence officials at a Senate estimates committee hearing last month.
"The reason for this review is that if the Government accepts the statements made at face value and acts on them in good faith, then it is our professional judgment that Australia will be at risk of loss of sovereignty," they said in a letter to the chairman of the Senate foreign affairs and defence committee, Labor's Mark Bishop.
"A sound and timely quality assurance process can detect and correct such serious errors."
The group has queried a $400million cost estimate for cancelling the Super Hornet contract provided by Defence and also argues that the Super Hornets may not be capable of defeating the latest Russian fighters being bought by air forces in Southeast Asia.
They also contend that the Defence Department has never undertaken a proper evalution of alternatives to the F-35 fighter, particularly the F-22 Raptor.
The US Congress has barred sales of the F-22 to foreign countries, butthe Rudd Government is interested in exploring whether the aircraft could be made available to the RAAF.
"Regional capabilities are being fielded, or are expected to be fielded in future, that will defeat the F-35, but not the F-22A. So the requirement for the F-35 has been overtaken by regional capabilities that outclass the JSF whenever introduced to service," the ex-RAAF officers said.
Senator Bishop told The Australian last night it would be up to the Government to consider the group's call for an independent review of advice provided to senators by the Defence Department.
Fighter price taking off, US report says
Tom Allard National Security Editor
THE cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program has risen dramatically, with more rises likely, the US Congress audit office said.
The Australian Government is planning to buy up to 100 of the so-called fifth-generation stealth fighter jets for about $15 billion. Much of the order is to be filled in the early phase of production. This will mean Australia will pay more than the average cost for its F-35s, and will be more vulnerable to delays.
A US Congress Government Accountability Office report said the Pentagon has acknowledged the total cost of the program had risen 10 per cent or $25 billion in the past year alone. Since 2004, the cost had risen 28 per cent, or $60 billion, to almost $300 billion.
More worrying still, the report said independent analyses suggested the figures underestimated the cost blow-out by another $41 billion and that "the development schedule is likely to slip from 12 to 27 months".
"We expect program development and procurement costs to increase substantially and schedule pressures to worsen," the report says.
Of particular concern was a decision by the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, to reduce testing early in the development phase to save money.
This "carries the risk of design and performance problems not being discovered until late in the operational testing and production phases, when it is significantly more costly to address such problems", the report says.
The Minister for Defence, Joel Fitzgibbon, said: "It's more bad news. It causes me great concern. You have to wonder what the previous government was doing over the past decade."
Under the air combat plan devised in 2002, the F-35 was to be Australia's sole fighter jet until the middle of the century, replacing the F/A-18 Hornets and the F-111 long-range bombers. The plan, which is under review, has been heavily criticised, not least because of the risk of the F-35 program unravelling.
According to Andrew Davies, an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the report bolsters the argument for buying the fighter later in the production cycle "when the technology was more mature and the costs have come down".
Mr Davies said it was important to adjust the figures for inflationary effects, but there had still been significant cost increases.
news and politics
Joint Strike Fighter
No comments:
Post a Comment