Loons

Here is what 'independent', 'research'...funded by a defence budget line-item... buys you...

A MODERNISED RAAF equipped with new combat aircraft will easily overmatch credible regional adversaries and could even take on a great power threatening Australia, a new study says.

THE Australian Strategic Policy Institute says the RAAF is updating almost its entire aircraft fleet, from basic trainers through to frontline combat aircraft.

That includes Super Hornets and Growlers electronic warfare aircraft, plus Lightning joint strike fighters early next decade, to replace ageing 1980s era F/A-18 Hornets.

---

F-35 Reading List...

-DOT&E Report: The F-35 Is Not Ready for IOC and Won't Be Any Time Soon
-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013 
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era
-History of F-35 engine problems
-Compare
-JSF hopes and dreams...early days of the Ponzi Scheme
-The Prognostics
-2002--Australia joins the F-35 program
-Congressional Research Service--Through to FY2013, F-35 has received $83.3B in funding
-F-35 choice gives Dutch a shocking high cost per flight hour
-More indications that the F-35 is a failed program
-From the year 2000. Very insightful. The JSF: One More Card In The House (PDF) 


“It will affordable because already there are 3,000 aircraft on the order books.”
—27 June 2002, Air Marshal Houston, Defence press announcement, Australia joins the F-35 program—


---

Australian Defence Reading List...

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."

-Mark Twain

-Collins sub replacement appears to be a rigged game
-New Defence White Paper fails to address Australia's core security needs
-2009 Defence White Paper Fantasy
-Analysing "The ADF Air Combat Capability- On the Record"
-Find out who is responsible for the Air Warfare Destroyer mess
-Analysis of Defence Materiel Organisation Major Projects Management and What Needs to be Fixed
-New DMO Boss warns the staff that business as usual is over
-How dangerous is the Defence Material Organisation to our Defence Industry?
-Australia's Failing Defence Structure and Management Methodology
-More on the dud-jamming gear Defence wants to buy
-ADF cost per flying hour
-I will wipe out bullying vows new Defence chief (Houston 2005)
-Vacancy
-Put Vol 2 Report of DLA Piper Review into the light of day
-Rory and Jim
-Parasitism as an Abstraction for Organizational Dysfunctions
-Hobart-class "Air Warfare Destroyer" to be fielded with obsolete radar guidance technology
-The Decay Of Critical Military Thinking And Writing-With Particular Reference To The RAAF
-The great M-1 tank myth
-*UPDATE* Fear and loathing in Canberra - Audit released on MRH-90 helicopter project 
-RAN bullies contractor over Collins sub replacement
-2014-15 ADF budget shocker - Star-ranks
-Air Warfare Destroyer -- Billions, not millions over budget
-Australia's M-1 tanks are... a downgrade compared to what it had
-Weak links put on rubber-stamp Defence panel
-Insert Joke Here
-Tyranny of distance--Long, drawn out helicopter projects are unsustainable
-2014-15 ADF budget shocker - cost per flying hour over the last budget year
-Tiger savaged by Navy League of Australia
-Tiger helicopter update
-PDF file - Exploring the Impacts of the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012
-Dangerous minds: Are maths teachers Australia's newest threat?
-Government ignores its own 'rescue' report created to fix Air Warfare Destroyer woes
-DM Johnston fired in cabinet reshuffle