on 23-04-2014 07:05 AM
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.
on 23-04-2014 03:38 PM
on 23-04-2014 03:39 PM
on 23-04-2014 04:08 PM
Jensen saying it was a bi partisan stuff up is a bit partisan , labor defence ministers stalled on the commitment. its all there in the 2012 budget papers .
on 23-04-2014 04:37 PM
@lakeland27 wrote:Jensen saying it was a bi partisan stuff up is a bit partisan , labor defence ministers stalled on the commitment. its all there in the 2012 budget papers .
yes I noticed that in the article, abbott will still be fuming about his little outburst though, off to the naughty corner for jensen.
on 23-04-2014 04:41 PM
he must be used to criticism by now
on 23-04-2014 04:42 PM
on 23-04-2014 05:03 PM
$12.4bil. for scrap metal?
Menizis used to sell scrap metal to make money for the country, not the other way round.
Like some posters said, we should be building our own planes, creating jobs and boosting the ecconomy.
Erica
on 23-04-2014 06:10 PM
on 24-04-2014 06:45 AM
If memory serves we also built the P51 (Mustang) on licence from the US, which remained in service until about the first 6 months of the Korean war when this, our last propeller driven fighter aircraft, was replaced by the new jets (the Sabre)
As for the Boomerang, it is a poor example for the purpose of the point you want to make. It came into existence purely because, at the time, neither the US nor the UK could supply us with sufficient numbers of front line fighter aircraft to meet our requirements so we had to produce something locally. That something, when compared with what was being produced elsewhere was simply outmatched in every area, and as such, as soon as US and UK production increased to allow increased supply of better aircraft, the Boomerang was quickly relegated the role it was most suited, ground support/attack. That is if had more in common with the Bruster Buffalo than the Supermarine Spitfire.
So why don’t we build our own fighter aircraft here now, the simple answer is the cost of set up and tooling. To build a fighter back in the 1940’s was a relatively simple matter, engineering wise. In fact not much different to building a car. The problem is since WW2 military aircraft became more and more complex requiring equally advanced tools and production lines to build them. The point, if we were to attempt to design and build an aircraft remotely as sophisticated as the F35, for the same amount of aircraft (100), be prepared to pay 10 times as much for each.
on 24-04-2014 08:03 AM
& it sounds like pensioners are going to be paying for them
Lots of angry LNP voters were ringing in to a Melb talk back radio station this morning. people who worked from the age of 16 , who didn't have super and never got a baby bonus