F-22A Raptor - The Australian Context

In the words of the Chief of the Defence Force (formerly the  Chief of Air Force) -

'The F/A-22 will be the most outstanding fighter aircraft ever built. ... Every fighter pilot in the Air Force would dearly love to fly it.'

Now in full rate production, the F-22A is far superior to the JSF currently envisaged by the Department as the RAAF's future combat aircraft. Unfortunately, the F-22A has been the subject of intensive yet always dishonest criticism in Australia, most often through misrepresentations of the aircraft's diverse capabilities, its applicability to Australia's needs and its affordability.

The Director of the New Air Combat Capability (D-NACC) has claimed in the media and representations to Government and the Parliament that -

'There's more to air combat capability than just speed, thrust, payload and wing loading. Air combat in the 21st century is all about systems and networks of systems - the old rules of thumb about what gives you a winning edge are obsolete.' (D-NACC, Canberra, Defence Watch Seminar, May 2004)

This statement is a good example of the reactive and convoluted thinking which has pervaded our Department of Defence since the late 1990s and is reminiscent of other great faux pas in military capability planning (eg. the British TSR-2 Fiasco [Click for more ...] and the infamous Duncan Sandys 1957 Defence White Paper which almost killed British aviation).

The claim that 'Air combat in the 21st century is all about systems and networks of systems' represents only half the story - a propensity for which is a common ailment in Defence today - and, with the proliferation of like systems in our region, will only maintain parity with other regional capabilities.

The statement that '...the old rules of thumb about what gives you a winning edge are obsolete' is of most concern and reflects a view held by some in Russell Offices that the fighter pilot's holy grail of being able to engage, disengage and re-engage at will throughout the space/time continuum of air combat, while staying outside an opponent's kill envelope, no longer applies.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as the air combat kill ratio of the supercruising, high agility F-22A attests, and the soon to emerge supercruising derivatives of the high agility Su-30 family of aircraft will attest. With the advent of agile and smart stand off weaponry, the day of the 'canopy to canopy' air combat knife-fight portrayed in the Hollywood film, 'Top Gun', may well be over.

However, it is being replaced by the even more demanding, in both situational awareness and kinematics, aerial manoeuvring which now takes place 'Beyond Visual Range', where the fighter pilot's holy grail will continue to be the determinant as to whether one lives or dies.