TO THE FUTURE
Air Commander Australia
Air Vice-Marshal Steve ‘Zed’
Roberton has an impressive
resume of classic and Super
Hornet operations.DEFENCE
East in 2014, and had a stint as
Commander Air Combat Group.
“One of the great privileges of
this command is that I get to fly in
pretty much everything across Air
Command,” he said. “I’ve done my
C-17 short course, I’ve flown P-8 and
PC-21, P-3, Super Hornets, Growler,
and Hawk.
“I’m still theoretically current on
the classic, and it’s still my first love,”
he added. “It is amazing looking back
at the development of it and what a
workhorse it has been. So, two and a
half decades ago when I started flying
it, it was the leading edge of multirole
fighters – certainly within the region
it had the capability edge – day, night,
all-weather and multirole.
“And today it’s still super capable,
the way that it has been maintained
and upgraded in partnership with
the US Navy and through the Boeing
industry team.
“The jet we fly now doesn’t operate
anything like what it did two and a
half decades ago. And yet, it still starts
the same, and flies the same, and once
you get the thing to the holding point,it feels very, very familiar. It’s just
an amazingly responsive jet, and it’s
wonderful to see it having proven itself
in operations so effectively.”Transition
The classic Hornet to F-35 transition
will be far from a traditional one-for-
one replacement, despite the current
and planned fleet numbers of both
types currently being near identical.
Because of the revolutionary
capabilities the F-35 will bring to the
joint battlefield of the future through
its low observability, situational
awareness, advanced sensors and
communications, the biggest mistake
the RAAF or any operator could
make is to treat the jet as a one-for-
one replacement of an existing 4th
generation capability.
Indeed, this is a risk path the RAAF
has already been down with the Super
Hornet. Despite being acquired as a
“bridging capability” in 2007 due to
delays with the F-35 program, and
even though it numerically replaced
the 3rd generation F-111 nearly one-
for-one in the RAAF inventory, theTrucking on! An F/A-18A classic
Hornet wearing 3SQN markings.
The RAAF’s classic Hornets may
have some life left in them yet if
the sale of 18 examples to Canada
goes ahead.DEFENCE