This past long weekend I was in Palmdale, California which is the home of the F-35 development project, Virgin Galactic, and etc.

We were there to meet family but an added bonus was that on Saturday night I got to meet an Aussie who was drinking hard and we had a great conversation. He was in town working at BAE Systems and at Boeing but he didn't say what he was working on.

The most important thing I discovered was that I don't get a hangover from Scoresby Scotch.

The fun bits from our alcohol fueled conversation:

1. Both Australia and Canada are talking about a joint purchase of the next generation US fast attack nuclear boat. Yes: Nuclear. The discussion is for the US to share information on maintenance with Oz and Canada but that the primary maintenance will take place in Hawaii, Guam, Bremerton, and New London.

2. The F-35 is not a very good fighter and it doesn't have to be. The weapons systems on it can 'see' and engage targets at an absurd distance of over 500Km so it was never really intended to be a dogfighter. Now here's the fun part is Lockheed-Martin/Boeing is working up a new generation of the F-22 but loaded with the avionics and weapons kit for the F-35. Be cool if this bit of chatter bears fruit.

3. The USAF at Davis-Monthan AFB is remounting engines on their serviceable B-52 fleet and they're raising the readiness of the serviceable F-18 fleet to where they can be returned to service in less than four days.

I've no idea if any of this is true but I'm passing it along anyway.

   

Interesting stuff!

I like the sub idea. Time we got some capable and working boats, just in time to wave goodbye to our destroyers.

   

The Aussies are enamored of a naval strategy in which they forego major surface combatants in favor of a strong submarine force. The intent is that all they need to do to protect Oz is to kill the enemy surface fleet to prevent an invasion. And that's their #1 concern is an invasion by China, Indonesia, or (to a far lesser extent) India.

Perhaps that could be an economical strategy for Canada. Let the US support a surface fleet and then Canada can focus on capable ship killers.

   

I am not confident about the F-35 numbers. Short of cruise missles, nothing in the US inventory goes 500km. Even the AIM-54, which the F-35 could never carry anyway, can't go that far.

   

The Phoenix used to have a variant with a booster stage that could reach out to ~250Km so it's not beyond reason that something's been developed forty years later than can double that range.

   

That would be a clever and interesting stopgap for the shortcoming of the F-35. It's the superior handling aircraft and if it were equipped the avionics of the F-35 that would quite the plane. It might even make the F-22's exorbitant unit cost somewhat justifiable.

   

I understand that, but any missle that could fly that far would still be massive. It would have to be externally mounted, probably on the centerline. Bye bye stealth.

   

That's for solid fuel rockets. The newer toys are liquid fueled and rumor has it some of the long range stuff is using ramjet technology for speed and distance advantages.