{"id":44270,"date":"2018-12-10T10:28:32","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T23:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=44270"},"modified":"2018-12-11T12:20:34","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T01:20:34","slug":"when-night-becomes-day-f-35s-join-the-raaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/when-night-becomes-day-f-35s-join-the-raaf\/","title":{"rendered":"When night becomes day: F-35s join the RAAF"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/20181126raaf8494074_274.jpg\" alt=\"Two Australian F-35s over the Hopi Reservation, Arizona, USA.\" class=\"wp-image-44283\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The arrival today of the first two operational joint strike fighters will strengthen the deterrent effect of the whole Australian Defence Force, says Air Marshal Leo Davies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Royal Australian Air Force chief tells <em>The Strategist<\/em> that allies and potential enemies will look at the ADF, with its stealthy fifth-generation multirole F-35A jets as a key element, and what the force is able to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018They\u2019ll think we\u2019d be a tough nut to crack\u2019, says Davies. \u2018That to me is the first part of having a defence force\u2014deterrence.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The RAAF must be able to provide options for the government that are reliable against any potential enemy, no matter how sophisticated, Davies says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018In our region and abroad, multiple countries are enhancing their air combat capabilities. So we need to maintain a level of sophistication that allows us to do what we need to do when we need to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018The F-35 brings that next step which means we are able to confidently send men and women to do a job and have a better than even chance of survival\u2014and of success.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davies says Australian pilots who\u2019ve flown earlier jets and since qualified on the F-35 have found the difference dramatic. To explain the increase in situational awareness the F-35\u2019s sensors bring, they\u2019ve compared it to the difference between trying to drive in darkness with no lights and driving with very effective night-vision goggles. \u2018It\u2019s that stark in their estimation. Night becomes day so you can drive normally. But to try to drive without night-vision equipment or headlights would be impossible.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davies says an F-35 pilot will be able to characterise an adversary\u2019s aircraft, land forces and ships and then choose how to react to them. Sometimes that will mean not reacting and just monitoring the enemy\u2019s movements. Sometimes it will mean \u2018cuing\u2019 another asset such as one of the RAAF\u2019s F\/A-18 Hornets, or an air warfare destroyer or, in due course, a ground-based air-defence system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The comparison has been made before, says Davies, but it works well. Ordinary aircraft operated like instruments in a band; the F-35 now becomes the conductor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018The F-35 won\u2019t send a package of data and then forget about it. It will orchestrate the operation.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In doing that it will make aircraft such as the Hornet, Super Hornet and Growler much more capable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An F-35 deep in enemy territory will be able to send information to a Super Hornet a safe distance from enemy defences to identify a target and provide a mass of information about it. That will allow the Hornet pilot to launch a weapon at very long range with great precision and confidence about the target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davies says the F-35 channels enhanced awareness into the cockpits of friendly aircraft and ships and army command vehicles. \u2018It enhances their picture. It allows better and faster decision-making.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fidelity of the data the F-35 can pass to a commander on the ground is exquisite, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the battle to drive the Islamic State terror group out of the Iraqi city of Mosul, the RAAF\u2019s Hornets were able to send back a lot of information about what was happening in the streets below, but they weren\u2019t able to bomb while they gathered and dispatched that intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The F-35 can maintain its air-to-air situational awareness, pass data to, for instance, a Wedgetail command-and-control aircraft and provide data to the ground commander at the same time without reducing its own ability to fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The F-35 is not \u2018invisible\u2019, Davies says. \u2018What the F-35 brings is a reduced signature available to the radars trying to find it and a reduced heat signature.\u2019 That makes it harder to locate using infrared scanners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018It also has communication systems with what we call \u201clow probability of intercept\u201d. Information is sent in short bursts using minimal energy and precisely targeted for whomever it\u2019s intended for.\u2019 Davies says the aircraft is able to safely penetrate far deeper into hostile territory than other aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RAAF squadron leader Edwin \u2018Red\u2019 Borrman has been flying the F-35 in the US for three years and training pilots from Australia, the US and other nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He flies one of the two new aircraft to Australia today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A highly trained fighter pilot who has practised, and taught, everything from long-range attack to dogfighting, Borrman says the F-35 is very advanced and can do what other aircraft could not risk doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018The jet is built for the first couple of days of a mega-conflict, to go all the way down-range to a very high-threat environment and be able to find, locate and hit its target\u2014or to hand off targeting to other aircraft\u2014and then get out of there alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018Any kind of fourth-generation aircraft will be shot up before it gets in range to drop its bombs.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Borrman is often asked if the F-35 is much better than existing strike jets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The best explanation he\u2019s heard is to compare the earliest model Nokia to the latest mobile phones being produced now. \u2018There\u2019s just no comparison.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lieutenant Colonel \u2018Chip\u2019 Berke is a retired US Marine Corps pilot who has flown many older jets as well as the F-22 Raptor fighter and the F-35. He\u2019s been a \u2018top gun\u2019 instructor and, as the first operational pilot to fly the JSF, he\u2019s possibly the most knowledgeable practitioner on fifth-generation capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Berke says past combat aircraft tended to operate in some isolation in a predefined airspace with a predefined role. \u2018You might come back and pass on information you\u2019d gathered to build up a picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018Fifth-gen airplanes are totally different\u2019, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They provide the pilot with an unmatched amount of information which can be shared immediately with other units in the air and on the ground and the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018That\u2019s information dominance which allows you to make really smart decisions on what to do and when to do it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Berke says the F-35 is extraordinary and still evolving. \u2018Ten years from now, it\u2019s going to be so far more capable than we even imagined. There\u2019s nothing like it out there. The potential of that airplane is barely being recognised right now. We\u2019re in the infancy of what it\u2019s going to do.\u2019<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The arrival today of the first two operational joint strike fighters will strengthen the deterrent effect of the whole Australian Defence Force, says Air Marshal Leo Davies. The Royal Australian Air Force chief tells The &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":44283,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[166,225,271,726],"class_list":["post-44270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-air-combat","tag-air-power","tag-f-35","tag-raaf"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When night becomes day: F-35s join the RAAF | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/when-night-becomes-day-f-35s-join-the-raaf\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When night becomes day: F-35s join the RAAF | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The arrival today of the first two operational joint strike fighters will strengthen the deterrent effect of the whole Australian Defence Force, says Air Marshal Leo Davies. 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