$24B-plus waste on F-35s will leave Australia defenseless

First, some current events and history.

Indonesia has confirmed it will order 12 "fully equipped" SU-35s as reported by Xinhua news service.

Indonesia currently has 11 SU-30MKK/MK2 and 5 Su-27SK/SKM aircraft.

The Russian and Indoesian relationship is good. It is expected that Indoesia will do around $10B in trade by 2018. Future prospects appear to be solid.

A Russian and Indonesian Intergovernmental Commission set a goal in April to realize $5 billion in trade between the countries by the end of 2015. Russia's trade representative to Indonesia Sergei Rossomakhov last week indicated a figure of $10 billion by 2018.

“We need to actively move in this direction, especially given the commitments our governments have made, namely the achievement of $5 billion in mutual trade turnover. There are plans to achieve this level by the end of 2015 and 2016,” Ambassador Djauhari Oratmangun told RIA Novosti in an interview.

The envoy suggested that improved political relations will positively affect commerce, noting a lack of “aggressive attitude and a readiness to seize new opportunities” among companies in both nations.

Oratmangun suggested that both Russian and Indonesian business communities could take advantage of the sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States, the European Union and their allies over the past two years.

In the late 1990's Air Power Australia warned that the Pacific Rim would someday be awash in modern weaponry including improved variants of the SU-27 airframes. That prediction is coming to pass.

The design goal of the SU-35 is to challenge the USAF F-22. Do that and every other current airframe type is at risk of being run down and killed. The other advantages of the aircraft's design goals are that with all that power, it can also carry a credible variety of air-to-ground weapons.

This aircraft is a large threat.

In WWII, some staff officers of the Japanese Navy 1st Air Fleet commented that when the American F-4U Corsair and P-38 showed up, that Japan could no longer determine how they wanted to fight or even refuse a fight. That is the effect of aircraft like the F-22, SU-35 and similar. The U.S. Navy carrier air wing is rapidly becoming obsolete to the threat. The same goes for the USAF if its few F-22s are nowhere in sight.

Other Pac Rim users of the SU-35 will include Russia and Communist China.

Australia's goal of having regional air supremancy is not realistic. At best it can shoot for co-existance. Spending $24B and climbing on the failed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter won't fix this.


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-Defence covered up chemical contamination at RAAF Williamtown in order to pass $1B F-35 upgrade
-When will Marine Air leadership stop misinforming the public over the F-35?
-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) 



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