Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Potential threat nations are objectively testing the evidence and have come to a very different conclusion compared to us about fundamentals of air combat. Noted defence commentator and presidential candidate Senator John McCain believes the Joint Strike Fighter is a 'great national scandal' and 'worse than a disgrace'. I echo the venerable senator's words.

Some of the current European fighters better meet the definition for fifth generation than Joint Strike Fighter, which lacks two of the critical measures. It is very interesting to note that, when the F22 first came out, Lockheed Martin defined 'fifth generation' as having the following characteristics: stealth, sensor fusion, supercruise or the ability to cruise at supersonic speed without using afterburner, and supermanoeuvrability. Unfortunately, the Joint Strike Fighter lacks two of these fundamental capabilities—supercruise and supermanoeuvrability. So, when a few years ago, in 2012, I asked Lockheed Martin at Fort Worth, 'How do you define fifth generation now?' they came up with a ridiculous definition of 'networks and survivability in contested airspace'. What the hell does that mean?

The unfortunate reality for Lockheed Martin is that Lockheed Martin does not define a generation; the generation is defined by the market. When you have a look at what the market says, when you have a look at the Russians, with their PAK FA aircraft, and when you have a look at the Chinese, with their J20 and J31, the simple fact is that those aircraft meet Lockheed Martin's original definition of fifth generation. In other words, they view supercruise and supermanoeuvrability as important. Problematically for the Joint Strike Fighter, in an era when, for the first time since the 1960s, tactical speeds in air combat are going up, because aircraft will more routinely be cruising at supersonic speed because of the ability of supercruise, the JSF needs to use afterburners to get to that speed, which lights up the sky in infrared and burns fuel at an incredible rate. But here is a further problem: the Joint Strike Fighter cannot open its weapons bay doors at supersonic speed. So, to shoot its missiles, it would have to decelerate to subsonic speed, then open the bay doors—and note that when the weapons bay doors are open the thing is not stealthy—and then fire its missiles. That is a great tactical disadvantage. The simple fact is these missing capabilities cannot be put into the design by modifications or upgrades; they are absent forever.

The term 'strike fighter' is little understood. In globally accepted terminology, the JSF would be a light bomber with some self-defence capability, which is why it was originally designed only carrying two AMRAAMs. Indeed, that was its design brief. For Australia there has been no defined strategic requirement for the Joint Strike Fighter, no identified capability gap, just a wish by the aficionados. This is no way to ensure that Australia's defence requirements are met and offer the best value for the taxpayer's dollar.

The correct way to come up with the best Defence Force structure is first to define your strategic requirements, or what you expect the Defence Force to be able to achieve against known capabilities of strategic competitors or potential adversaries. Then the focus must be on the capability you require, not platforms. So, once the capability requirements have been drafted, there should be consultation with industry. More particularly, there should be detailed analysis conducted to compare various options to fill the capability gap which compare various capabilities and contenders to fill that gap.

Fast forward 50 years, and we find the lessons of Vietnam have been forgotten. We now have a fighter similar to the original F4 Phantom which has excellent radar and all sorts of other sensors. It also carries four longish range air-to-air missiles internally, but no short-range missiles are carried internally. We are again being assured that dogfights are history and that the missiles will do the manoeuvring.

What has recently been found is that the JSF was comprehensively outperformed by the F16, designed 40 years ago. Indeed, the JSF was holding no weapons whatsoever; the F16 was carrying some external weapons and an external fuel tank. What happens when the JSF comes up against peer threats, and the missiles and stealth do not perform as advertised? They will not even have heat-seeking missiles, as they are carried externally; either they will carry those heat-seeking missiles, which will significantly degrade the JSF's stealth, or they can carry those missiles externally and not significantly decrease the stealth, then the stealth of the JSF is not what it is cracked up to be.

Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, stated that 'war is deception'—the idea is to deceive the enemy. Self-deception, almost by definition, aids and abets an enemy. Given Defence's capability gap on the issue of energy manoeuvrability of the JSF—and in this, they are either complicit or ignorant, and I am not sure which is worse—how do we believe them in terms of the 'secret' capabilities the JSF has? After all, anyone with even a small amount of technical ability in analysis would have been able to see that the JSF would not cut it in terms of energy manoeuvrability.

I welcome the recommendations of the First Principles Review to 'establish a strong strategic centre to strengthen accountability and top-level decision making' in Defence. I also welcome the fact that the committee responsible for the First Principles Review has committed to oversee the implementation of the First Principles Review.

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