Page 40 - Williams Foundation Air-Sea Integration Seminar

Shaping an Integrated Force in the Extended Battlespace

“In addition to personnel we have embedded in the overall F-35 program in the US, we have two RAAF
aircraft and four instructors at Luke AFB. Our first cadre of dedicated F-35 maintainers and engineers
departs for the US in Jan 17, and will be gaining the necessary experience so we can operate the F-35 in
Australia from the end of 2018.

“Operating the F-35 will be one thing, but we also need to be able to sustain it, and the methods of sustaining
the F-35 are also different to older platforms.

“We have been planning for a while now, and these plans will continue to evolve, but I’m not sure our system
fully understands that this significant transition is well and truly underway.

“You can keep flying legacy aircraft forever if you want to spend enough money on them, but they all reach
a point where they will become capability irrelevant.

“Our Classic Hornets are doing a great job in the Middle East right now, and due to the raft of Hornet
upgrades we have completed, remain amongst the most capable Classic Hornets anywhere.

“However, they will reach a point in the near future, especially in the higher end fight, where their utility will
be significantly diminished.

“The F-35 brings 5th generation qualities which will allow for a significant expansion across a raft of ADF
capabilities. Air Maritime, Land and most importantly joint

“We’ve chosen, and we have structured it such that the Classic Hornet will run out of effective hours and
fatigue life at the point not too far after when the F35 is being introduced. There is a contingency of course
but not a lot. We don’t have the luxury simply to reflect abstractly on this problem anymore, we’re in the
middle of solving it.

“That gives us a very aggressive F35 introduction schedule.

“For example, we’re planning to change out a classic Hornet to F35 squadron over 12 months. A squadron will
stop flying the classic Hornet at the end of December one year, and by the end of December next year they
are fully up and running and operational on the F-35. That is a very tight schedule. We’ve got a plan to
execute but as you would expect, it’s not without risk.

“However, being a little bit smaller than what other forces might be, we tend to also be more agile.

“And that agility will see us deal with any risks that might materialize, or the other inevitable pop up issues.

“Due to this aggressive schedule, our ability right now to deal with many other things triggered by the F-35 is
somewhat limited, we are rightly focused on introduction.

“Fortunately, most of these associated issues, such as the Mission Data Environment, have already been the
subject of extensive work. We have been positioning our joint force to both provide the necessary level and
type of data to maximize new capabilities such as Growler, Triton and F-35A, and process the vast amounts
of data these capabilities will collect.

“There are definitely remaining challenges in this space, we’ve observed them here in Australia and also with
our key coalition partners, but there is good work underway in parallel with the platform introductions.

Second Line of Defense

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