Tag Archive for: air capability

Ukraine’s air force has survived. Taiwan’s almost certainly couldn’t

The Ukrainian air force went to war against invading Russian forces in February 2022 with just 125 combat aircraft concentrated at around a dozen large bases. Given Russia’s overwhelming deep-strike advantage—hundreds of deployed warplanes and thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles—few observers expected the Ukrainian brigades to survive the first hours of the war.

But they did survive. And 38 months later, they’re still surviving—and flying daily air-defence and strike sorties.

It has been an incredible feat. Can the equally outgunned Taiwanese air force duplicate it?

Almost certainly not. Geography, and the scale of the Chinese threat, will be harder on Taiwan’s air force and its 400 fighters.

The Ukrainian air force escaped the initial Russian bombardment because, tipped off by Ukrainian and allied intelligence agencies, it had dispersed its people, planes and munitions away from the big air bases. It spread forces across potentially scores of smaller civilian airfields and even stretches of highway. ‘The targets of each strike had moved by the time the missiles hit their designated aiming points,’ analysts Justin Bronk, Nick Reynolds and Jack Watling wrote in a 2022 study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.

The Ukrainian flying brigades have kept up this practice throughout the war. Indeed, they’ve suffered the most losses when they’ve become lax in their dispersal routine. A cluster of deep strikes by Russian Iskander ballistic missiles in July destroyed several jets, including hard-to-replace Sukhoi Su-27 interceptors, on the ground at easily-surveilled air bases near the front line.

Even with constant vigilance, which the Ukrainians haven’t been able to sustain, the Taiwanese might not be able to dodge incoming Chinese missiles. ‘Geography constrains dispersal,’ says Eric Heginbotham, a principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program and a specialist in Asian security issues. His research has looked closely at the survivability of the Taiwanese air force.

Ukraine is 20 times as big as Taiwan by area and has many, many more airfields: more than 900, compared with about 50 Taiwanese ones, according to Spottingmode.com, an aviation data website. That limits the potential for the much bigger Taiwanese air force to survive by spreading out.

There are complications. ‘Taiwan’s air bases’—there are 10 of them—‘are quite large, and it has some room to disperse on air bases,’ Heginbotham says. ‘Taitung air base on the east side of the country also has underground shelters, and some aircraft might survive in these.’

But China’s huge, and growing, arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles could erase any margin for hope on the part of Taiwanese planners. ‘China can maintain a large and near continuous missile bombardment that would effectively neutralize most if not all of Taiwan’s air force—at least during the opening two weeks or so,’ the analyst says.

That’s not just conjecture. In a series of rigorous war games overseen by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in January 2023, Heginbotham and other analysts consistently reached the same conclusion. ‘The invasion always starts the same way: an opening bombardment destroys most of Taiwan’s navy and air force in the first hours of hostilities.’

It’s not for no reason the California think-tank RAND has long advocated for Taiwan to spend less money buying fighters and more money on ground-based air-defences, which should be easier to hide on Taiwan’s rugged terrain. The Chinese military ‘has been turning up the temperature on Taiwan’s fighter force and now has the means to destroy it (or force it into underground storage),’ RAND concluded in 2016.

If there’s a glimmer of hope, it’s that China’s rocket force, the military branch built around surface-launched strike missiles, will be heavily tasked. Yes, it has thousands of missiles. But it’s taken decades for the rocket force to build up its inventory. Once the missiles are spent, there’s no quick and easy way to replace them. ‘Both sides have finite magazine depth, so both have to pick and choose targets,’ Heginbotham says.

And surviving fragments of the Taiwanese air force might have some effect on the war.

All that said, it’d be lunacy for Taiwan to count on its extremely vulnerable air force, crowded on a small number of bases, to save the island from an invading Chinese army.

When advocates of defence reform in Taiwan plead with the government to spend more on concealable missiles and tiny drones, they’re not just advocating for fancy new technologies. They’re acknowledging the uncomfortable but undeniable reality: in a full-scale war, Taiwan’s air force almost certainly has a shockingly short life-expectancy.

The Spirit for Australia: why Canberra should pursue the B-2 bomber

China’s recent naval circumnavigation of Australia has highlighted a pressing need to defend Australia’s air and sea approaches more effectively. Potent as nuclear submarines are, the first Australian boats under AUKUS are at least seven years away. Air power is well-positioned to fill the gap in Australia’s long-range strike capability: it has clear advantages over submarines and ships in terms of its responsiveness in the maritime strike role.

But the F-35A Lightning and F/A-18F Super Hornet lack the necessary range, and Australia has not fielded a bomber since the F-111 was retired in 2010. No new candidate aircraft has been identified as available for purchase on a timeline that is relevant or on a budget within Australia’s means.

Solving this problem requires imagination from Australia as well as its key ally, the United States. Fortunately, there is a solution at hand, but, like the aircraft itself, it is not easy to detect. As unlikely as it sounds, Australia should pursue acquisition of US B-2A Spirit bombers, and it has a narrow opportunity to do so.

Australia, to be clear, would be acquiring the B-2A as a fully sovereign capability, to boost its deterrent and war-fighting capabilities, with China’s strategic challenge primarily in mind. The US would also gain by further enabling a close ally to make a stabilising contribution to the regional balance of power, through a significant augmentation to its air power, alongside the development of undersea and other capabilities via AUKUS.

The B-2A is well suited to meet Australia’s capability requirements in terms of range, payload and stand-alone platform survivability. There are indications that the B-2A is already transitioning to a long-range precision strike role—delivering such weapons as the AGM-158B JASSM-ER, with which it was integrated in 2022. Maritime strike was a particular focus of the B-2A’s participation in last year’s RIMPAC exercises, when it demonstrated the use of modified JDAM gravity bombs as low-cost ship-sinkers. These are capabilities the Royal Australian Air Force already fields.

Obviously, Australia would need to clear some major obstacles to acquire the B-2A.

First, the US has never before entertained exporting the Spirit, given its limited numbers (only 18 remain) and proprietary technology. Second, Australia would be concentrating a multi-billion-dollar investment into very few platforms, just when the Australian Defence Force arguably needs to pivot away from exquisite capabilities and inject greater mass, depth and risk-worthiness into its order of battle. Third, the B-2A serves the US Air Force in a nuclear as well as conventional delivery role, which would have to be reconciled with Australia’s prohibition on possessing nuclear weapons. Finally, Australian critics of the Trump administration would pillory such an acquisition as foolhardy, at a time when doubts about Washington’s political reliability as an ally are peaking.

Without dismissing these drawbacks, there is a pathway for Australia to acquire a viable B-2A bomber capability and on a timeline that is relevant to its strategic needs. And the window of opportunity is relatively slim—requiring decisive action by Canberra within the next couple of years.

Why Not Other Aircraft?

What about other options? There are really only three other avenues, all with significant downsides: buying into the US’s future B-21 Raider program, acquiring B-1B Lancer bombers as they are retired from the USAF, or trying to tie into the British-Italian-Japanese GCAP fighter effort.

While it would provide a capability for the long term, the problem with the B-21 option for Australia is that it conflicts with the USAF’s overriding need to recapitalise its own bomber force. It would therefore not be available until well into the 2030s—if at all. Cost is another factor, at an estimated US$16-18 billion for a squadron of 12. And while the B-21 remains laudably on track, indeed under-budget in the FY25 appropriations request, the potential for cost overruns and delays remains.

The main advantage of pressing used USAF B-1Bs into Australian service is that the Lancers are flying now and are already configured for anti-ship missions. The major downside is that the RAAF would have to assume the full burden for the B-1B’s sustainment while the USAF pivots resources to the B-21. Designed for an operational lifespan of 8,000-10,000 flying hours, the B-1Bs now average above 12,000 hours because of the aircraft’s extensive use as a loitering close air-support platform in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the USAF has retired them from all but short-duration missions. While statistics on flying hours aren’t publicly available for the B-2A, the USAF has been much more sparing with them than the B-1B. Australia would be investing in the B-1B at the point of sharply diminishing returns.

The GCAP joint venture aircraft, while not strictly a bomber is likely to be large enough to be considered in the long-range strike role. Australian interest in the program is rising and GCAP is likely to be more affordable than the B-21. But it may not be available on a significantly more favorable timeline, and there is a constant concern that the multi-national nature of the program could lead to delays or spiraling costs.

Meanwhile, the Spirit is already on borrowed time in USAF service, as it will be retired (along with the B-1B) in the early 2030s in order to accommodate the transition to the B-21 without expanding the overall size of Global Strike Command. Although a precise date is difficult to identify, provided the B-21 rollout proceeds smoothly, the USAF could potentially start retiring B-2As at the end of this decade without reducing its overall bomber fleet. (While the USAF has previously stated it could keep the B-2As flying into the 2040s, Northrop Grumman’s $7 billion contract for B-2A maintenance and support concludes at the end of 2029.)

Retiring the B-1B and B-2A in parallel (the venerable B-52 will be retained in service) creates an expensive and burdensome disposal problem for the USAF. Framed in this context, an Australian pitch to buy eight or more B-2As could be well received by both the USAF and the Trump administration, which has emphasized the need for stepped-up burden sharing from allies.

How This Could Work

Make no mistake, this would be a costly effort, one that would have to come as part of a significant uplift in defense spending, to closer to 3 percent of GDP, from roughly 2 percent GDP today. But if the government is willing to do that, then there are mutual benefits for both Canberra and Washington.

Australia has upgraded several air bases to support regular deployments of USAF bombers and other combat aircraft, and B-2As have already operated from Australia, albeit on short-term detachments. An Australian base in the Northern Territory was used to support a B-2A strike mission against Houthi targets in Yemen last October, most likely for refueling.

Future B-2A deployments to Australia could be scaled up, to further explore the practical challenges of maintaining and sustaining these aircraft here. Deep maintenance might still have to be done in the US, and Australia would need to support that part of any agreement. But as the USAF transitions towards the B-21, Australia could incrementally take on more of the funding for B-2A maintenance, easing the cost on American taxpayers. Assuming some overlap in the sustainment footprint between the B-2A and B-21, the RAAF and USAF could also develop shared support facilities in Australia for Spirits transferring into Australian service as sovereign assets as well as for B-21s which the USAF could begin to forward deploy to Australia around the same time. This promises economies of scale within an alliance framework.

While the B-2A would be a stopgap capability for Australia, a further advantage of operating it is that it would provide the RAAF with a pathway to transitioning to the B-21, if it eventually becomes available in sufficient numbers for the US to consider exporting it to Canberra.

To assuage anti-nuclear concerns in Australia, the systems that allow the B-2A to carry nuclear weapons could be disabled through software changes that conform to RAAF standards. Similarly, adapting the B-2A for anti-ship weapons, such as the AGM-158C LRASM, could be done without insurmountable delays.

All this would require a major Australian diplomatic effort to persuade Washington that it can be trusted to safeguard such highly prized stealth and other technologies via a foreign military sale. But the precedent created by AUKUS, Australia’s subsequent ITAR carve-outs and the existing, close relationship between the RAAF and USAF would do much to make this transfer practicable.

Yes, it’s wildly ambitious. Yes, the hurdles to making this happen may simply be too many to overcome. But now is the time for Canberra to be contemplating bold moves, and convincing the US to sell the B-2A would transform Australia’s defense posture on a significantly faster timeline—an effort worth pursuing to meet the gathering threats.

US allies must band together in weapons development

Let’s assume, as prudence demands we assume, that the United States will not at any predictable time go back to being its old, reliable self. This means its allies must be prepared indefinitely to lean on it far less than they have.

They will have to lean on each other, and one of the most difficult areas for doing that will be weapons acquisitions, where the US has long been the main supplier of systems that use the most difficult technology.

An unwritten clause in the US’s alliances has been that Washington’s big spending included the development and mass procurement of big-ticket defence items that could then be exported, so foreign defence budgets helped employ US workers. Indeed, in many market segments, including combat aircraft, the most lucrative segment of all, the past 70 years has been a story of allies trying to resist the formation of a US monopoly.

Reversing that course may be hard, but it won’t be impossible. The democracies of Europe, North America and the Pacific together have money, national resources and human capital. They have competitive defence industries, and in some sectors (such as surface warships combatants and land vehicles) they clearly outperform the US.

The problem is not resources but making the best use of them. There was no need for the US to exercise divide-and-rule in the times before Donald Trump’s second presidency: US allies divided themselves. They still do, as Franco-German squabbles over the share of work and the technical leadership in their Future Combat Air System program show.

That’s not sustainable: military development and production in a world without a reliable US cannot be a pot-luck meal where everyone turns up with a casserole, two hot dogs, a brownie and a shrimp. Specialisation will be needed, and each country, while attending to its own specialties, will have to rely on those of others.

The leaders in a non-US world: British aircraft engines, largely French space launch, Franco-German and British-Italian rotorcraft, German and Finnish armoured vehicles, Swedish airborne early warning and electronic warfare, South Korean and Japanese warships.

Stop screaming in the back, please. I’m not advocating for a global defence acquisition agency, the sort of thing that Europeans see as another vast jobs program and trebles-all-round for the Belgian economy. What is needed is a set of rules and protocols that enable development of a new tech-defence web.

There are several factors, within defence and peripheral to it, that should make it possible to expand international cooperation by incentive instead of bureaucratic fiat.

Urgency is the biggest of those factors. Once it was clear that World War II was a serious issue, Britain’s aircraft industry—fragmented, conniving and thinking of itself as aristocratic—was willing to be run by the right-wing Canadian upstart Lord Beaverbrook and the far-left Stafford Cripps.

Next, change is easier in a growing business, and there is a lot of growth to be had if the US’s export customers take their business to each other.

There are many unknowns in defence technology, but there is broad agreement that cheap autonomy and affordable zero-miss-distance guidance, based on commercial hardware, will be important for a wide range of weapons. These run from battlefield drones to smallish cruise missiles that weigh under a ton and cost much less than today’s $1 million plus. Warships are changing radically to become crewless or have crew numbers in double, not triple, digits. A newly expanded defence industry can focus on such new concepts.

The same goes for manufacturing industry. Materials and processes designed for automation, repetition and high quality are very applicable to unmanned systems and advanced munitions because production lines can be set up with minimal staff and surged to high rate in a crisis. Anduril is developing this in the US, but the technology to do it is commercial and available elsewhere.

One overlooked aspect of the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) is its achievement bringing Japan into cooperation with Britain and Italy. A generation ago, it was enough of a challenge to design the Eurofighter Typhoon in four European countries with languages that were at least related and used a common alphabet. Yet, GCAP appears to have incorporated Japan with little drama. Auto-translate exists today, as does video conferencing, and engineers across the world can work together on the same digital mockup.

Another connected link is emerging between Italy and Turkey, the latter emerging as a hub for unmanned systems. Italy’s Leonardo and Turkey’s Baykar announced a joint venture in early March and talked about the latter’s Kizilelma unmanned combat aircraft as a potential element of GCAP. That came a few months after Baykar agreed to acquire the Italian company Piaggio Aerospace, which had been on the market since 2018: Piaggio’s Avanti commercial aircraft has been a slow seller, but the maritime patrol variant, with Baykar’s mission systems, is an attractive option for coast guard users.

A US-free industry can, should and will avoid the US’s stifling bureaucracy, which includes an export-control system that can involve three government departments.

And could the new alliance gain from a brain drain, particularly to Canada but also to Australia and Britain as some in the US industry are repelled by the administration’s social policies? Acquiring talent from the US might not be too hard.

One good starting point would be to develop an open set of common governance principles for international programs, alongside a study of what the best potential pilot programs could be, and the potential for a multi-national accelerator for new technology.

Should we call it ‘Project Beaverbrook’?

Bolt from the blue: what we know (and don’t know) about the US’s powerful F-47 fighter

When the F-47 enters service, at a date to be disclosed, it will be a new factor in US air warfare.

A decision to proceed with development, deferred since July, was unexpectedly announced on 21 March. Boeing will be the prime contractor.

The design will have much more range than earlier fighters, both at supersonic and subsonic speed. But it is not even a fighter as it is generally understood. It will be more stealthy. It will be larger, trading dogfight manoeuvrability for reach, and it will be designed to work within a family of systems, many of them unmanned.

Range and speed are defensive attributes, allowing the aircraft to be based farther from Chinese air and missile bases and keeping tankers at a greater distance from interceptors: the air force has backed away from trying to make a more survivable tanker. But range and speed are offensive characteristics, too: while no aircraft can be in two places at once, fast and long-range aircraft can cover a wide area and sustain high sortie rates.

The F-47 is the centrepiece of the US Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) effort. The intended fighter design, now the F-47, has also been called NGAD. And the name Penetrating Counter-Air has been attached to it, too.

Former secretary of the air force Frank Kendall characterised NGAD as large and costly, and the F-47 will have retained these attributes. Although Kendall and USAF chief of staff General Dave Allvin raised the idea of a less costly NGAD last year, it never got near the stage of an amendment to the initial request for proposals that was issued in 2023.

Stealth: the F-22 and F-35 are classic applications of bowtie stealth design, their vertical tails causing stronger radar reflections when viewed from the side than from in front or behind. (A graph of this looks like a bowtie.) The problem in the Western Pacific is China’s numerous long-range airborne radars and air-warfare destroyers, which make it next to impossible to avoid being illuminated from all angles.

Expanding the envelope of tailless flight in terms of speed and manoeuvrability was almost certainly a focus of the classified Aerospace Innovation Initiative (AII) demonstration program that led to Boeing and Lockheed Martin AII-X prototypes. (AII was run by the Aerospace Projects Office, specially established within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.)

The USAF sees a program for fighter-like drones, the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), as an integral part of NGAD, with two or more uncrewed aircraft teamed with each F-47. The Increment 1 CCAs (the General Atomics YFQ-42 and Anduril YFQ-44) are being used to evaluate their role as air-to-air missile carriers, augmenting the F-47’s weapon capability and taking close-range shots; Increment 2 will be designed to target surface emitters—making it an unmanned and attritable wild weasel, a traditional category of aircraft assigned to dealing with air defences. As reported earlier, simulation tests are showing that pilots can manage more than two CCAs.

USAF Lieutenant General Alex ‘Grinch’ Grynkewich, in 2015 and 2016 led the service’s Air Superiority 2030 study that defined NGAD as what was called a Penetrating Counter-Air aircraft. He discussed the reasoning behind Penetrating Counter Air (what’s become the F-47) in a public essay in 2017, by which time AII had been under way for two years.

Grynkewich’s team had started with a range of options, including reliance on standoff weapons and what he termed a ‘Gen6’ concept with F-22-like fighter attributes—which turned out to be far too expensive. The Penetrating Counter Air identity, Grynkewich wrote, avoided both ‘Gen6’ and ‘fighter’ which presupposed ‘a short-range, highly manoeuvrable, supersonic, manned aircraft, typically armed with a limited number of missiles and a gun’.

We know something about the F-47’s size from open-source discussion of its engines.  A 2018 presentation includes a slide outlining the goals of the USAF’s variable-cycle engine program, and it makes a clear distinction between engines of the 200 kilonewton (45,000 lb) thrust class (the General Electric XA100 and Pratt & Whitney XA101) sized for the F-35, smaller ‘scaled core’ engines for what has become the F-47—engines now known as GE XA102 and P&W XA103—and a derivative for retrofit to F-15s and F-16s.

That implies a maximum thrust around 160 kilonewtons (35,000 lb) for the F-47 engine. Given a requirement for less manoeuvre and more range, that points to an aircraft with a loaded weight of about 45 tonnes (much like an F-111, which will please some Australian readers.) But the importance of the adaptive engine is that it allows a supersonic-cruise aircraft to minimise the use of afterburning, even for transonic acceleration, while still being efficient in subsonic flight.

Legions of would-be R. V. Joneses have spent the weekend poring over the F-47 artwork released by the Pentagon. I would advise caution: what we don’t know about its shape is still more important than what we do know, even before we take account of what we do know for certain but ain’t so.

But there are aspects of the artwork that call to mind the work of the late Alan Wiechman, who joined McDonnell Douglas from the Lockheed Skunk Works in the mid-1980s and headed the company’s stealth work until his retirement in 2014. His work included the X-36 tailless prototype, and the Bird Of Prey, demonstrating optical and radar stealth. His obituary in 2023 noted that he had ‘most recently’ been an adviser on stealth to the USAF Rapid Capabilities Office.

As with anything in the United States these days, there is much uncertainty ahead for the F-47. Boeing’s bid was submitted well before new CEO Kelly Ortberg joined, and the company has a painful history of low bidding and poor performance. The requirement may be sound and the technology may be good, but the F-47 is another pull on an overstressed air force budget, and by the time it enters service (not in Trump’s second term) it will face challenges, including whatever F-35X ideas emerge from Fort Worth.

But let’s get back to that surprise announcement on Friday by   President Donald Trump. It came as a surprise for good reasons.

Defying decades of practice, the F-47 was launched by an empty Pentagon C-suite: nominees for the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), Air Force secretary, and undersecretaries for acquisition, and research and engineering, are all awaiting confirmation. Defense secretary, infantry major and TV host Pete Hegseth was the sole source selection authority.

Air force leaders had lobbied Trump personally to get his approval for the project, which Kendall put on hold in July. With no CJCS, the lead defense adviser to Hegseth is the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appointed last May: Grynkewich, the author of that NGAD-defining Air Superiority 2030 study.

Was this a Machiavellian plan by Kendall? Delaying the NGAD decision last year looks like a coup, allowing the air force to dazzle the president with secret technology, while talking up the threat of China’s new J-36 to inspire a sense of urgency, permitting Trump to present it as his own idea and calling it F-47. Conveniently, the sceptical Elon Musk, usually omnipresent at big occasions, was busy at a briefing at the Pentagon.

Sidewinders on P-8s and MH-60Rs: deterring Chinese attacks on Australian aircraft

China’s continued attacks on aircraft patrolling the East Asian waters, including Australian aircraft, are unacceptable. But they’re encouraged by the targeted countries’ failure to equip their aircraft for self-defence.

Australia should rapidly equip its key maritime aircraft with Raytheon AIM‑9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. This would make Beijing think twice. Moreover, integrating the AIM-9X should be relatively straightforward and could bring Australia opportunities to help its friends in doing the same.

At least four times since 2022, Australian and Canadian aircraft operating legally in international airspace have been attacked by Chinese fighters. Each time, the fighters dropped projectiles—chaff or flares—close in front of the targeted aircraft, once within 30 metres. The drops were against Australia and Canada’s primary maritime patrol aircraft and naval helicopter types: Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidons in 2022 and 2025, a Royal Australian Navy MH-60R Seahawk in 2023 and a Royal Canadian Air Force CH‑148 Cyclone in 2024.

Make no mistake: such tactics are attacks. They are air-to-air bombing that can severely damage or destroy the target if their projectiles hit. Flares burn hot enough to melt aluminium aircraft skin if embedded in the skin. And if an engine ingests flares or chaff, as happened in 2022, it may fail or catch fire, forcing a mission abort or even a crash.

China uses such aggressive tactics to drive away other nations’ aircraft from where they’re entitled to be but where it wishes they weren’t—such as the South China and Yellow Seas, where the four incidents occurred. Even where the projectiles don’t hit the target aircraft, its crew must take evasive action or go home. Then China has achieved its aim of disrupting foreign operations.

Beijing knows it can get away with it because there is minimal political and operational risk.

Because China hasn’t used normal weapons, such as guns and air-to-air missiles, it can pretend it has made no attack, which would be a severe escalation and risk open conflict. The Australian Department of Defence conforms to China’s pretence with media releases merely describing Chinese fighter pilots’ actions as ‘unsafe and unprofessional’.

Operationally, such attacks bring essentially no risk to Chinese pilots and their valuable aircraft. The fighters are far faster and more manoeuvrable than their targets—which also have no dedicated means of defence against other aircraft. The Chinese pilots need no more caution than is necessary for avoiding collisions. And their government has no reason to desist.

What’s needed is to add risk into Chinese calculations. A prompt, technically promising means of doing so is to undertake basic integration of an air-to-air missile, most obviously the AIM-9X, onto the Poseidon and Seahawk designs.

Even the most limited integration of any air-to-air missile—just enough so it can simply fire forwards from its host aircraft—would dramatically raise the stakes for Beijing. Chinese fighter pilots could not come close enough to bomb the target without knowing they are exposing themselves to being shot down. Their alternative would be to use weapons such as guns or missiles to attack the target from a distance, but thus clearly showing China as the escalatory aggressor.

No other Poseidon or Seahawk users are known to be integrating air-to-air missiles on those types. Canberra going alone might seem foolish given Australia’s poor record in such projects. Yet integrating the AIM-9X should not be unusually difficult.

Electronically, the missile is largely self-contained, with an infrared seeker that can independently find targets. So, a host aircraft needs only basic communications with it to confirm the target and to fire. The AIM-9X is smaller and lighter than various weapons that P‑8As and MH-60Rs already carry externally, suggesting physical factors such as weight and drag would present no great problems.

Moreover, basically the same thing has been done before. Britain rapidly fitted Nimrod maritime patrollers with Sidewinders during the Falkland’s War. And the United States has integrated the AIM-9X onto AH-1Z helicopters, which are smaller and less powerful than the Seahawk.

Finally, the AIM-9X serves with the RAAF and armed forces of 26 other countries. If Australia gains expertise in fitting it to P-8As and MH-60Rs, it can offer the knowhow to friends, including the United States, and maybe do the modification work.

Arming Poseidons and Seahawks cannot be guaranteed to make China back off. But it would at least force it to think twice.

Something old, something new: the very practical rules of Chinese aircraft development

Year-end revelations of two new Chinese combat aircraft designs, the Chengdu J-36 and the Shenyang J-XX, should have put an end to the idea that China’s aerospace and defense industry just copies the West.

Yet sometimes China does produce copies, for good practical reasons. At other times it just does its best with the technology it happens to have available.

Here are some principles that Chinese military aeronautics development follows.

Copy if possible and necessary. The Xi’an KJ-600 configuration copies the Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye’s, down to details. As on the E-2, one of the inboard fins of the four-fin tail has a moving rudder and the other doesn’t. That works on the Hawkeye, so why do it any other way? There’s a reason that the Hawkeye is still in production after 66 years.

KJ-600. Original image source unknown.

Good enough. The Xi’an H-6 bomber is the Soviet Tu-16, 12 days younger than the B-52. But at the age of 55, the design got a complete makeover from the Chinese industry: a new forward fuselage housing a three-member crew, all with ejection seats and glass displays, and a multi-mode radar. 1970s Russian engines replaced the 1950s originals.

The H-6K update and later versions provide the Chinese air force and naval aviation force with a heavy weapons platform with some features that even the forthcoming B-52J (a B-52 update with new engines) cannot match: the Chinese bomber has six wing pylons and an ability to carry an outsize store on its centerline.

Innovate to meet urgent needs. Those stores include not only an air-launched boost-glide weapon but the AVIC WZ-8, one of a group of very innovative Chinese military drones that represent a much more creative culture than what we see in Western aerospace.

WZ-8. Image: Wikipedia.

The WZ-8 is an air-launched, runway-recoverable drone with a blended-delta shape and rocket propulsion. It has (by US intelligence estimates) a speed of Mach 3 at 30,000 metres altitude and a range around 500 nautical miles (900km) including a long gliding descent.

In most respects, it could have been designed and built in the 1950s. But a remarkable feature of the WZ-8, visible on the website of a company specialising in additive manufacturing, is that the entire center-section box, the structural heart of the aircraft, is 3D printed in titanium.

The WZ-8 is the definition of a point design—an inflexible one intended for a single purpose. China regards the ability to attack US aircraft carriers as a strategic goal. And it’s well known that the US Navy relies on its carriers’ ability to move fast and far in the time between when they’re detected and when an attack on them arrives. Jamming and decoys help. The WZ-8’s job is a last-minute reconnaissance sortie to locate the carrier.

Borrowing technology that the West has ignored. The Guizhou WZ-7 Soaring Dragon drone, in service in small numbers, resembles a Northrop Grumman Global Hawk in size and body shape. But it has a four-surface joined wing.

Advantages claimed for the joined wing include combining a skinny wing shape (high aspect ratio, to the aerodynamicists), thinness and sweep. The result is an unusual combination of high speed and low drag.

The joined wing was invented in the US and has been studied by NASA several times, but the space-fixated agency never found budget to demonstrate it in flight. The Chinese designers would have found plenty of open-source data to work from.

 

WZ-7. Image: Wikipedia.

But another drone, Shenyang’s WZ-9 Divine Eagle, has no parallel. It is a high-altitude carrier for two large-aperture radar arrays. Its status is uncertain. It was first seen in 2015 and reappeared on video in late December. The two radar antennas occupy separate fuselages, connected at their front and rear extremities by a wing and canard, with a single engine above the wing. With no crew and high-aspect-ratio wings, the drone can fly higher than a big-cabin crewed platform and has a longer radar horizon.

The WZ-9’s unique shape indicates something about China’s electronics technology. The designers must believe that their radars are so efficient that the cost in weight of carrying two separate units, each with its own power supply, is acceptable. The concept also shows that China can rely on using datalinks alone to operate a complex radar system.

The WZ-9 and WZ-8 typify another trend in China’s technology: firing weapons from one platform (a ship, submarine, aircraft or ground vehicle) by using targeting data from another source. Western experts already believe that China’s growing, diverse fleet of airborne radar systems can be used for direct weapon guidance. The WZ-9 allows weapon-quality guidance to be extended farther without endangering a large crew on an aircraft that cannot defend itself.

Viewed as a group, alongside new combat aircraft like the J-36 and J-XX (J-XDS, according to some sources), these programs also illustrate another, hugely important feature of Chinese aerospace development: the sheer number of new and unique projects.

An engineer who started at Chinese fighter specialist Chengdu Aircraft in the late 1990s could have successively joined new development programs for four combat-aircraft types—the JF-17, J-10, J-20 and J-36. That engineer could also have worked on major upgrades and engine changes for the first three of those. All have entered service or are on track to do so. Working at rival Shenyang Aircraft would provide a similar experience level, with Xi’an Aircraft not far behind.

That engineer’s US counterpart might have worked on one new program from inception to service entry—if he or she had chosen the right company to start with.

It is that growing experience gap, rather than individual systems, that should worry us more than it does.

Air and maritime defence, not ground combat, should be Indonesia’s priorities

Indonesia isn’t doing enough in acquiring advanced naval and air systems. Too much money and focus are still being spent on the army, the traditionally dominant service—yet the country hardly faces a risk of a ground war.

The greater concern would be a threat from China, which can only come by sea and air. This is seen in Beijing’s increasing provocations against its neighbours, particularly Taiwan and the Philippines.

Indonesia’s main military shortcomings are its lack of airborne-early-warning, land-based anti-ship and surface-to-air capabilities. Establishing or strengthening them would mean reallocating funds from the army.

The risk of military escalation between Indonesia and China cannot be taken lightly despite their close diplomatic and economic relations. One of the main reasons for taking it seriously is that China already has ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea with some other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, particularly Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

While Jakarta is not a claimant in the territorial disputes, Chinese incursions into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone have become increasingly frequent. In October and November 2024 alone, the China Coast Guard made multiple infringements in the North Natuna Sea, off Borneo, prompting Indonesia’s Maritime Security Agency to dispatch vessels in response.

Yet, the head of the agency, Vice Admiral Irvansyah, has highlighted the stark inadequacy of Indonesia’s maritime patrol capabilities. With only 10 ships distributed across three operational areas, the agency falls far short of its ideal fleet of 90 ships needed to patrol Indonesian waters effectively. This inadequacy reflects the broader imbalance in Indonesia’s defence priorities.

Jakarta continues to favour the modernisation of the army, while the navy and air force fall behind.

Of the approved 155 trillion rupiah ($15.1 billion) for the 2025 defence budget, 54 trillion rupiah ($5.3 billion) is allocated to the army, while the navy and air force receive just 20 trillion ($1.9 billion) rupiah and 18 trillion rupiah ($1.8 billion), respectively.

As an archipelagic nation, Indonesia’s security depends on a strong navy to protect its vast waters and a capable air force to secure its skies.

History has shown the importance of maritime power, as demonstrated by the might of the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires, which both originated from Indonesia. Today, Indonesia must adopt a similarly maritime-focused strategy, supported by modern technology.

Airborne early warning aircraft, coastal-defence batteries and air-defence missile systems are particularly needed for monitoring and deterring potential threats.

Indonesia has only a weak ability to see what is going on in its own airspace. Foreign aircraft or even cruise missiles may fly into that airspace without the armed forces knowing, or if they are discovered the Indonesian response could be far too late. A group of airborne early warning aircraft would go a long way towards remedying the problem. Options are the SAAB GlobalEye and Boeing E-7.

Lack of a coastal-defence missile batteries leaves Indonesia vulnerable to maritime incursions. The government has made progress in modernising the navy through the procurement of Scorpene submarines, FREMM frigates and indigenous patrol vessels. But these efforts must be complemented by anti-ship missile systems on shore, which would be easy to hide and hard for an enemy to deal with.

Options include the BrahMos missile developed and manufactured by Russia and India, the US Harpoon, the French Exocet, the Turkish Atmaca and even the Chinese YJ-12E. Media last year reported plans to buy YJ-12Es, but Jakarta should carefully consider geopolitical implications of such a deal and whether weapons that China offers for export would be as effective as competitors’.

Indonesia has also shown interest in acquire the BrahMos missiles. This would make Indonesia the second ASEAN country to acquire such technology after the Philippines. The deal would include versions for launch from ships and the shore.

Buying BrahMos missiles would help diversify Indonesia’s sources of weapons and make it less vulnerable to arms embargoes or other interruptions of supply. The French and Turkish missiles would still be good alternatives, however.

Such weapons might be operated by the army, but the navy is the service that has expressed interest in acquiring them.

Finally, Indonesia’s spending on modern air-defence systems must also be expanded. While the acquisition of Turkish Hisar batteries, firing anti-aircraft missiles of short to medium range, is a step in the right direction, more systems are needed to cover key strategic areas. Only with a robust air-defence network can Jakarta counter potential sorties and incursions by adversaries.

Since the Ministry of Defence allocated the NASAMs surface-to-air batteries to the air force, that service would be the likely operator of any air-defence systems of medium or long range from future acquisitions.

Indonesia’s defence strategy must evolve to reflect changing geopolitical circumstances. As a maritime nation, its security depends on a strong navy and air force equipped with modern technology. It needs to reallocate defence spending before it is too late.

China’s other new combat aircraft: a crewed fighter, maybe for aircraft carriers

Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group’s J-36 scooped up most of the publicity around China’s late-December revelations, but a second combat type, one from Shenyang Aircraft and referred to for now as J-XX, was revealed at the same time.

It was smaller, and the pictures of it were less clear, so it got some attention. But it deserves plenty, as the other half of an unprecedented double revelation and a complementary part of China’s future air combat system.

Observation of the design reveals that it’s very much a standard-size fighter with a pilot. There are good hints that it’s intended for shipboard operation, though that would not stop it from also equipping the air force.

Since China already has a new naval fighter in the works, the J-XX may be at a very early stage of development. What we saw could have been not a prototype, an aircraft close in design to the intended production version, but a technology demonstrator, which would look like the real thing but lack many features.

The content and style of the two disclosures is no accident, because there are no such accidents in China. There were more and better pictures of the J-36, suggesting that the authorities want more attention for the Chengdu aircraft from their target audiences. One of the audiences is the Chinese population, to be reassured that China is disputing the lead with the United States; another may be the US itself, with a new administration that might be tempted to respond with disclosures of its own, to China’s benefit.

The J-XX appears to be closer to a classic large-fighter size—25 tonnes gross weight, similar to the Eurofighter Typhoon—than the J-36, which has the size of a medium bomber. The J-XX certainly cannot accommodate anything like the J-36’s impressively large main weapon bay and respectably large secondary bays. It is not a competitor or alternative to the J-36.

The J-XX has no vertical tails. Some observers saw, in the first pictures to appear, articulated V-tails that could fold flat in straight and level flight and move into a raised position for takeoff and landing and maneuvering flight; later images, however, showed a tailless lambda wing shape, with a highly swept and blended inner section and less swept, tapered outer panels. The planform resembles many notional designs for next-generation fighters seen in the US and elsewhere since the 2010s.

As on the J-36, the trailing edge incorporates multiple moving control surface panels, and the outer segments are likely split in the same way to act as rudders and speedbrakes. The inner half of the trailing edge is swept sharply forward, moving the control surface further aft to make it more effective in pitch. The exhaust nozzles are laterally separated and extend beyond the structure (unlike the J-36’s nozzles), so full vectoring is both possible and likely, and can add to control in pitch, roll, and yaw.

The engines are apparently separated by a narrow tunnel—a very unusual design feature. Unlike the widely separated engines on the MiG-29 and the Sukhoi Flanker family, they are too close together to accommodate stores between them. The narrow passage is a mystery because it seems to make little sense in terms of aerodynamics, signatures or vehicle packaging: it would appear more logical to fill the space in and use it for fuel.

The undersides of the engine housings are flattened, suggesting that a future version might have shallow weapon bays there. The rest of the shape does not offer any obvious bay locations: the main landing gear bays occupy the strategic terrain on the body sides.

The canopy seems to have a low profile, so low that some people thought the J-XX was uncrewed. But it does have a pilot, at least: there is very little logic to building a drone with two engines, adding weight and complication when there is no concern about losing someone onboard due to an engine failure.

What does this add up to? The tell-tale features may be the large pitch control surfaces and the location of the break line on the trailing edge. The first provides the pitch control authority needed for carrier landings and the second accommodates a wing fold.

Shenyang has been responsible for both of China’s carrier fighters—the Sukhoi-derived J-15 family and the new J-35—and therefore owns China’s expertise in this specialised and challenging area.

The J-35 is still under development, so if the J-XX is a follow-on carrier fighter, production may be some years off. If the aircraft is an early-stage technology demonstrator, that might explain some of the design details.

One is intriguing if this is a carrier jet: the nose is quite long and, as noted, the cockpit is low. As a near-delta with no canard wings, the J-XX will point high when flying slowly for landing. So the pilot will see little of the flight deck that he or she is approaching. But Northrop Grumman demonstrated fully automatic carrier landing in 2013 with the X-47B, which achieved much better consistency in touchdown point than is normal for navy fighters.

Applied to a crewed combat aircraft, autoland would eliminate many training cycles and reduce the number of heavy landings, allowing a lighter airframe and landing gear and reducing operational costs. The Chinese navy, too, would not face the same cultural challenges in making that change that would inhibit the US Navy. The idea is speculative, but it would help explain an early start to a demonstration program.

India’s defence industry is benefiting from cooperation with France

India’s defence industry is benefiting from the country’s switch away from Russia and towards France for weapons acquisition.

India and France have cooperated on several key defence projects, such as Kalvari-class submarines, the Chetak and Cheetah helicopters and the Shakti helicopter engine. These projects involved technology transfer to India under licensed production from French companies.

Since the 1960s, Russia has been India’s primary defence partner and weapons supplier. However, India’s arms imports from Russia have fallen to a historic low. According to a Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report, India’s defence imports from Russia fell from 76 percent during the 2009–13 period to 36 percent during the 2019–23 period. It marks the first time since the 1960s that less than half of India’s arms imports came from Russia.

The Russia–Ukraine war, ensuing Western sanctions on Russian entities and growing camaraderie between Russia and China have further prompted India to reduce its reliance on Russian defence exports. Additionally, India has faced significant delays in the delivery for several orders from Russia, such as the S-400 surface-to-air missile system and T-90S tanks. All of this has led to India placing no fresh orders with Russia since the beginning of the Russia–Ukraine war.

Instead, it has increased arms imports from Western countries, mainly France and the United States. France emerged as India’s second-largest defence supplier during the 2019–23 period, when 33 percent of Indian imported arms originated from France. (The US supplied 13 percent of India’s defence imports in the same period.)

Now that France has become a significant arms supplier, the Indian government is looking for possible opportunities for collaboration with it on advanced defence technologies.

French aerospace maker Safran and India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation are negotiating to manufacture an engine for India’s fifth-generation fighter jet, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft Mk 2. Moreover, Safran is willing to engage in 100 percent technology transfer across various project phases, including design development, certification and production.

The project involves not only the transfer of technology to develop jet engines—usually the most technically challenging part of an aircraft—but also allows the firms to work together on advanced materials and metallurgy, which are important for making aircraft engines.

Such a partnership will give India access to technologies and industrial processes necessary for making the engines. The ability to domestically manufacture fighter engines may help the Indian Air Force to address its extreme shortage of combat squadrons.

Safran will also collaborate with India to develop helicopters that are likely to be the mainstay of the Indian Armed Forces rotorcraft fleet. The company is supporting the propulsion side of the Indian Multi-Role Helicopter program. The program aims to develop medium-lift helicopters to replace India’s Mi-17 helicopters. Safran has also agreed with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to transfer forging and casting technology for the Shakti engine, which powers the Indian state company’s Dhruv, Rudra, Light Utility and Prachand helicopters.

On the naval front, India’s Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers have signed a memorandum of understanding with France’s Naval Group to collaborate on surface ships. The collaboration will support a ship design based on the Naval Group’s Gowind class for the Indian market and friendly foreign countries.

Political reliability and longstanding defence ties make France a dependable defence partner for India. Its emergence as a significant weapons supplier is benefiting India’s defence industry by equipping it with the technology and expertise to manufacture defence products domestically.

A doubtful military revolution: replacing choppers with multirotor electric aircraft

Supposedly, something big happened in the defence world on 12 December. Upstart startup Anduril announced a joint venture with Archer Aviation, one of the leading companies in the industry for making electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

To eVTOL backers, the announcement pointed to replacement of many military helicopters by electrically powered, multi-rotor aircraft, which in cruise would fly as aeroplanes.

But we have every reason to be sceptical. The eVTOL craze has generated an awful lot of talk and minimal achievement even in its original, civilian market.

Archer said that its new defence division was targeting a ‘potential program of record’ from the Department of Defense (DoD). Never mind that there is no such thing: a program of record is not ‘potential’, because, by definition, it is an approved requirement backed by money.

The association with Anduril allowed Archer to raise money that it can use to fund the development of the Midnight, its civilian eVTOL product. Archer and its competitors are spending a lot of cash on building factories and testing prototypes, while working with the Federal Aviation Administration and other authorities to earn safety certification without which they cannot make revenue.

Bulls in the eVTOL business say that the sky is the limit. In a LinkedIn post, Mark Moore—eVTOL guru, long-time personal aviation advocate at NASA and now chief executive of Whisper Aero, developing electric aviation propulsion—notes that ‘Anduril’s deep pockets and DoD positioning enables Archer to have a clear path to impressive DoD products. … Archer will have a clear path to a dual-use military-civil market strategy that directly competes with helicopters in these markets.’

The eVTOL craze started with 2013 remark about Twitter by the entrepreneur Peter Thiel: ‘We wanted flying cars; instead they gave us 140 characters.’ But it was really got underway by Moore as co-founder of Uber Elevate and by the company’s 2016 report that was the first of many to predict that eVTOLs in their thousands would provide zero-emission point-to-point urban air travel at a price comparable with a ground limo.

Not so fast.

You can read eVTOL media all day without running across one awkward fact: after six years and billions spent, no eVTOL has performed a basic VTOL mission, flying 40km out, landing, taking off and returning, all while carrying a representative payload on one charge. The best available batteries are not up to the job.

Archer and Anduril mitigate this problem for defence users by switching to hybrid power, with both batteries and a turbo-generator onboard. But that adds complexity to a system that’s already complex, because the philosophy behind eVTOL aircraft is safety through redundancy. The Midnight ties the 95-year-old record for most engines installed on one aircraft, with 12 motor-prop units in tandem pairs on the wing. A Midnight should be able to lose two engines and land safely.

But six fixed-pitch lift-only rotors and six variable-pitch tilting rotors, generating high energy airflow streams that interact and change with airspeed and tilt angle, add up to a flight control challenge.

Crewed eVTOLs depend on a level of automation that goes beyond the common fly-by-wire technology through which pilots control modern aircraft. Pros from the traditional rotorcraft world point to the long time it takes to get certification for even a conventional helicopter with fly-by-wire. They doubt eVTOL leaders can achieve certification by their 2026-27 target dates.

Still, defence customers might accept a higher level of risk.

But, even so, what will a hybrid eVTOL bring to defence missions?

Designed for very short flights, the Midnight has a cruising speed, 240km/h, no better than that of a helicopter. Multi-rotor advocates claim higher efficiency than a helicopter in cruise, but any such benefits will be offset by a heavier propulsion system.

There are more technical reasons for doubting the military value of eVTOLs. The Midnight’s rotors are about 2 metres in diameter—but, even with 12 of them, the discs they form when rotating have well under half the area of the Airbus H135 helicopter, which has about the same gross weight (2900kg). Higher disc loading means more power is needed to hover (1 to 1.2MW for the Midnight, versus 940kW for the H135) and consequently a powerful, complex downwash field that will kick up much more debris. Who wants that in a military operation?

The Midnight spans 15 metres tip-to-tip, compared with the H135’s 10-metre rotor diameter. That is hardly an advantage in most tactical operations and distinctly not great for operating on warships.

Scaling multi-rotor eVTOL designs up, perhaps to act as airborne 2-tonne trucks, will exacerbate all these issues. Enlarging rotorcraft increases disk loading unless you change the configuration, which is why the CH-47 with its two 18.3-metre rotors rules the heavy-lift helicopter segment.

Going lighter and unmanned? Well, another company, Griffon Aerospace, is already there, with the neat and simple (only four motors) Valiant drone.

It’s early days, and neither sceptics nor boosters are infallible. Let’s see what the mystery ‘program of record’ turns out to be.

Tag Archive for: air capability

Australia should talk to Washington about buying B-2 stealth bombers

China’s recent naval circumnavigation of Australia has highlighted a pressing need to defend Australia’s air and sea approaches more effectively. Potent as nuclear submarines are, the first Australian boats under AUKUS are at least seven years away. Air power is well-positioned to fill the gap in Australia’s long-range strike capability: It has clear advantages over submarines and ships in terms of its responsiveness in the maritime strike role.

But the F-35A and F/A-18F lack the necessary range, and Australia has not fielded a bomber since the F-111 was retired in 2010. No new candidate aircraft has been identified as available for purchase, on a timeline that is relevant, or on a budget within Australia’s means.

Solving this problem requires imagination from Australia as well as its key ally, the US. Fortunately, there is a solution at hand but, like the aircraft itself, it is not easy to detect. As unlikely as it sounds, Australia should pursue America’s B-2A Spirit bomber, and has a narrow opportunity to do so.

Australia, to be clear, would be acquiring the B-2A as a fully sovereign capability, to boost its deterrent and war-fighting capabilities, with China’s strategic challenge primarily in mind. America would also gain by further enabling a close ally to make a stabilizing contribution to the regional balance of power, through a significant augmentation to its air power, alongside the development of undersea and other capabilities via AUKUS.

The B-2A is well suited to meet Australia’s capability requirements in terms of range, payload and stand-alone platform survivability. There are indications that the B-2A is already transitioning to a long-range precision strike role — delivering such weapons as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Extended Range) with which it was integrated in 2022. Maritime strike was a particular focus of the B-2A’s participation in last year’s RIMPAC exercises, when it demonstrated the use of modified JDAM gravity bombs as low-cost ship-sinkers. These are capabilities the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) already fields.

Obviously, Australia would need to clear some major obstacles to acquire the B-2A.

First, the US has never before entertained exporting the Spirit, given its limited numbers (only 18 remain) and proprietary technology. Second, Australia would be concentrating a multibillion-dollar investment into very few platforms, just when the Australian Defence Force arguably needs to pivot away from ”exquisite” capabilities and inject greater mass, depth and risk-worthiness into its order of battle. Third, the B-2A serves the USAF in a nuclear as well as conventional delivery role, which would have to be reconciled with Australia’s prohibition on possessing nuclear weapons. Finally, Australian critics of the Trump administration would pillory such an acquisition as foolhardy, at a time when doubts about Washington’s political reliability as an ally are peaking.

Without dismissing these drawbacks, there is a pathway for Australia to acquire a viable B-2A bomber capability, on a timeline that is relevant to its strategic needs. And the window of opportunity is relatively slim— requiring decisive action by Canberra within the next couple of years.

Why Not Other Aircraft?

What about other options? There are really only three other avenues, all with significant downsides: buying into the US’s future B-21 Raider program, acquiring B-1B Lancer bombers as they are retired from the USAF, or trying to tie into the British-Italian-Japanese GCAP effort.

While it would provide a capability for the long term, the problem with the B-21 option for Australia is that it conflicts with the USAF’s overriding need to recapitalize its own bomber force. It would therefore not be available until well into the 2030s — if at all. Cost is another factor, at an estimated $16-18 billion USD for a squadron of twelve. And while the B-21 remains laudably on track, indeed under-budget in the FY25 appropriations request, the potential for cost overruns and delays remains.

The main advantage of pressing used USAF B-1Bs into Australian service is that the Lancers are flying now and are already configured for anti-ship missions. The major downside is that the RAAF would have to assume the full burden for the B-1B’s sustainment while the USAF pivots resources to the B-21. Designed for an operational lifespan of 8,000-10,000 flying hours, the B-1Bs now average above 12,000 hours because of the aircraft’s extensive use as a loitering close air-support platform in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the USAF has retired them from all but short-duration missions. While statistics on flying hours aren’t publicly available for the B-2A, the USAF has been much more sparing with them than the B-1B. Australia would be investing at the point of sharply diminishing returns.

The GCAP joint venture aircraft, while not a bomber per se, is likely to be large enough to be considered in the long-range strike role. Australian interest in the program is rising and GCAP is likely to be more affordable than the B-21. But it may not be available on a significantly more favorable timeline, and there is a constant concern that the multi-national nature of the program could lead to delays or spiraling costs.

Meanwhile, the Spirit is already on borrowed time in USAF service, as it will be retired (along with the B-1B) in the early 2030s in order to accommodate the transition to the B-21, without expanding the overall size of Global Strike Command. Although a precise date is difficult to identify, provided the B-21 rollout proceeds smoothly, the USAF could potentially start retiring B-2As at the end of this decade without reducing its overall bomber fleet. (While the USAF has previously stated it could keep the B-2As flying into the 2040s, Northrop Grumman’s $7 billion contract for B-2A maintenance and support concludes at the end of 2029.)

Retiring the B-1B and B-2A in parallel (the venerable B-52 will be retained in service) creates an expensive and burdensome disposal problem for the USAF. Framed in this context, an Australian pitch to buy eight or more B-2As could be well received by both the USAF and the Trump administration, which has emphasized the need for stepped-up burden sharing from allies.

How This Could Work

Make no mistake, this would be a costly effort, one that would have to come as part of a significant uplift in defense spending, closer to 3 percent of GDP, up from roughly 2 percent GDP today. But if the government is willing to do that, then there are mutual benefits for both Canberra and Washington.

Australia has upgraded several air bases to support regular deployments of USAF bombers and other combat aircraft, and B-2As have already operated from Australia, albeit on short-term detachments. An Australian base in the Northern Territory was used to support a B-2A strike mission against Houthi targets in Yemen last October, most likely for refueling.

Future B-2A deployments to Australia could be scaled up, to further explore the practical challenges of maintaining and sustaining these aircraft here. Deep maintenance might still have to be done in the US, and Australia would need to support that part of any agreement. But as the USAF transitions towards B-21, Australia could incrementally take on more of the funding for B-2A maintenance, easing the cost on American taxpayers. Assuming some overlap in the sustainment footprint between the B-2A and B-21, the RAAF and USAF could also develop shared support facilities, in Australia, for Spirits transferring into Australian service as sovereign assets, as well as B-21s which the USAF could begin to forward deploy to Australia around the same time. This promises economies of scale, within an alliance framework.

While the B-2A would be a stopgap capability for Australia, a further advantage of operating it is that it would provide the RAAF with a pathway to transitioning to the B-21, if it eventually becomes available in sufficient numbers for the US to consider exporting it to Canberra.

To assuage anti-nuclear concerns in Australia, the systems that allow the B-2A to carry nuclear weapons could be disabled through software changes that conform to RAAF standards. Similarly, adapting the B-2A for anti-ship weapons, like LRASM, could be done without insurmountable delays.

All this would require a major Australian diplomatic effort to persuade Washington that it can be trusted to safeguard such highly prized stealth and other technologies via a foreign military sale. But the precedent created by AUKUS, Australia’s subsequent ITAR carve-outs and the existing, close relationship between the RAAF and USAF would do much to make this transfer practicable.

Yes, it’s wildly ambitious. Yes, the hurdles to making this happen may simply be too many to overcome. But now is the time for Canberra to be contemplating bold moves, and convincing the US to sell the B-2A would transform Australia’s defense posture on a significantly faster timeline — an effort worth pursuing to meet the gathering threats.