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Can Australia afford the next generation air dominance fighter?
The Defence Department is exploring options to
replace Australia’s fleet of F-111 and F/A-18 combat aircraft sometime in the
next decade. This will be the most costly defence project in Australia’s
history. The capital cost of replacing the current one hundred aircraft with a
similar number of contemporary aircraft will be between sixty and eight billion
is today’s dollars. While this is a staggering figure in any dimension it is
instructive to look at few comparisons.
Firstly, the acquisition of the current F-111
and F/A-18 were major financial commitments in their own day. In the mid 60s,
the F-111 was controversial because the initial cost of twenty-four aircraft
doubled to over two hundred and fifty million dollars. One way of looking at
this was that the cost was equivalent to the total annual defence budget of the
day, although this expenditure was spread over a number of years. The F/A-18
acquisition in the early 80s cost over two and half billion dollars. This too
was equivalent to the then annual defence budget. A simplistically comparison
would be to say that the acquisition cost of the current fleet of combat
aircraft was the equivalent of about two years of the defence budget. This
ignores through-life costs, upgrades, operating, training and other expenses,
which are far greater than acquisition costs.
The current annual defence budget is thirteen
billion dollars. Thus, cost of replacement combat aircraft would be five to
seven times the current defences budget; more than double the comparative share
of the defence budget that it cost to acquire the F-111s and F/A-18s. Of course,
the comparison also does not allow for the decline in the defence budget as a
proportion of gross domestic product and in real terms over the past few
decades. In the 1960s the defence budget was the equivalent of 5% of GDP, where
as now it is 1.7%. If the decline in defence spending had not been as great, the
cost of replacement aircraft as a share of the defence budget would be about the
same as previous generations of combat aircraft. Another factor is the declining
value of the Australia dollar, which has lost half its value against the US
currency over the past two decades. An eight hundred million dollar F-22 would
cost a mere four hundred million!
Of course this analyses assumes many things
remain the same when they clearly have not. Technological change has been great.
Modern aircraft offer greater range, acceleration and manoeuvrability. More
critically they have enhanced avionics, longer detention and stand-off attack
range. Of course, developments in capabilities are only relevant compared with
mission objectives and air defence technologies. There is a strong argument that
modern combat aircraft are more effective against current air defence
technologies then earlier aircraft were against air defence of their day.
However, this is a dynamic environment and reflects more sophisticated
integration of air warfare elements of which combat aircraft are but one
component.
That the next generation aircraft are massively
expensive does not mean that they cannot be afforded within the current
defence-funding regime. Air combat capability could be given preference over
other defence capabilities. For example, not acquiring air warfare destroyers,
not replacing tactical air transport, or reducing the army to a constabulary
function. There is clearly no political commitment to significantly increasing
defence expenditure in the near future and other major equipment programs have
been frequently deferred. Re-equipment programs need to be made within the
current funding regime, not some fanciful expectation.
Secondly, the number of aircraft acquire could
be reduced. The new aircraft are far more capable than the ones they are
replacing. The threat environment is different too. That the air force had
operated about one hundred combat aircraft for the past fifty years is no reason
why this needs to continue. The Americans operate over six hundred F-15s but
current plans are to acquire less than four hundred F-22s. Other comparable air
forces are also reducing their air combat fleets too; mainly related to ending
of the Cold War over a decade ago.
The acquisition of fewer aircraft would make
the project more affordable, but not proportionately. There are infrastructure,
higher production costs, personal competencies and so on. Reducing the number of
units by half would save about a third of the cost. Reducing the number of
aircraft to twenty or thirty would result in costs greatly outweighing
capabilities, particularly over the longer term. Too small a number and it may
not be worth replacing the aircraft at all – The NZ air force option.
Australia could acquire less expensive
aircraft. Late model F-15Ks and lighter European aircraft such as the French
Rafael fighters cost around $200 million per aircraft. However, they offer
marginal increase in capability over upgraded aircraft. Russian manufactured
high performance aircraft offered some improvements in capabilities, but they
have inferior avionics and high through life costs. Australia could seek to
extend the life of the current aircraft and upgrade their capability. But there
are limits to such approaches. Australia already plans to maintain its aircraft
longer then most comparable air forces. The F-111 air frames are almost forty
years old and structure fatigue is already causing them to be periodically
grounded and high stress manoeuvrers prohibited.
There are technological risks of replacing the
air combat fleet with the latest aircraft available. Investing a very large
share of the defence budget into new aircraft locks options in face of emergent
technology. New aircraft will not come into service until 2010-15 and can be
expected to have a life of at least 25 years. This risks placing "all the
technological eggs in one basket." Acquiring less capable aircraft at
reduced cost would allow other options to be pursued when circumstances permit.
Replacing current combat aircraft sooner then planned would also save upgrade
cost and higher maintenance cost. Almost twenty years ago, Dr Paul Dibb proposed
that the F-111s could be replaced later model F/A-18s. Borrowing from this idea,
the F-111s could be replaced with a squadron of Super Hornets in the
attack/recon role; which cost $400 million per aircraft. Then if the strategic
situations in ten years necessitates, another squadron could be acquired to
replace the F/A-18s in air defence role. Alternatively, uncrewed aircraft or
missile technology may make air combat aircraft redundant within twenty years
time, so resources could be devoted to these technologies. These are the various
options that the Defence Department will need to explore in making its
decisions.
Originally
Published in Defender, Journal of the Australia Defence Association,
Spring 2002
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