And we need so many advanced super jet fighters because...?

[i-need-a-martini]

We are about to spend $12.4billion dollars on 58 stealth fighters with another 42 coming. Bringing our air combat fighting capacity up to 100.

Plus we need to send another $1.6billion improving base facilities to house them.

Now whilst I can understand the need to replace our existing aging defence planes because of unreliability, 100 seems just a tad excessive.

[pct001wine]

I dare say this is abbott's way of saying "don't mess with us, near/dear neighbours" - given that he has p'o'd them enough already with his diplomatic "style".  The libs have always been the hawkish types. This sends out the message that abbott the aggressor wants to send out.

Reminds me of that saying "I'd rather see the Defence chiefs running a pie stall to raise funds for new equipment and social services/health/etc. receive all the funding they need" rather than the other way round.

[lakeland27]

word is that the planes aren't properly developed and not much chop anyway. what were the choppers howard bought like ?

[debra9275]

no wonder they keep saying we're broke. They're really spending big aren't they?

[lakeland27]

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@debra9275 wrote:

no wonder they keep saying we're broke. They're really spending big aren't they?

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i guess buying these (apparently dysfunctional) planes will assure there isn't money for more important uses. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[debra9275]

it must be labors fault lol

[tall_bearded]

To our immediate north we have a county of over 100 million people, and with an army of well in excess of 230,000 regular troops.

A country who has territorial aspirations in our region, which they have tried to fulfil  twice (Borneo and East Timor) with, in both cases Australian troops being deployed to resist them (Borneo) or clean up after they were kicked out (East Timor).  A country who has one of the most corrupt political systems on the planet as well as one of the worst human abuse records of recent history - East Timor, over 200,000 people murdered, including Australians, and some of the same people who committed those crimes, now hold cabinet positions in the their government.

So what do those 100 planes give us?  A DETERRENT. 

They have nothing in their **bleep**nal which can touch them.  Therefore, should they one day consider boarding their 200,000+ troops and send them our way. Then they know these 100 aircraft loaded with surface to air anti shipping missiles will be more than enough to sink the lot soon after they left their own territorial waters, and they know they have nothing in their **bleep**nal modern enough to touch them.

That is why we replaced the Sabre with a mix of Mirage and Aardvark (F111), and why we replace those with the Hornet and why we need to do the same now that the Hornet has gone past its service life.

[lakeland27]

c'mon tall b. the planes are allegedly lemons. we buy them to curry favour more than anything else  http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/aerospace/aviation/software-testing-problems-continue-to-plague-...

[tall_bearded]

When you deal with ground breaking technology you have to expect a few hick-ups along the way.

In any event I though the intent behind the thread was to question why we should buy so many, with my response being that is the number we need to provide a credible deterrent..  Therefore if the concept turns out to be too ambitious for the current technology then something more conventional may need to be considered, such as what happened with the F111,  but then we may have to lease more to get the same deterrent effect.

However, here is just a short list of aircraft who, when fist designed and developed were considered by some to be lemons. The Spitfire, the FW 190, the ME 262, F111

[lakeland27]

its an odd concept i think.. to buy planes and then have to actually develop them ourselves when then manufacturer has so far failed to make them work. its a bit like buying a fleet of commodores and spending the next few years at the lang lang proving grounds sorting all the bugs out. a plane of that cost ought to function properly out of the boc. there are most likely properly sorted planes out there available from other sources outside the US.  remenber the SH-2G(A) helicopters which had an ill-fated history in Australia before the contract was paid out and terminated in 2008?  They were refurbished 1960s and 1980s airframes with a new upper fuselage section to bring them to as-newcondition with a 10,000 hour service life certified by the US Navy. The whole fleet only did about 1600 hours in very limited RAN service.