LONDON—A missing piece in Australia’s fighter inventory will be filled in the short term by extending the life of the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet for at least another decade and then afterward will be opened up for competition as a new generation of air combat aircraft are scheduled to arrive in service, the head of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) told Aerospace DAILY July 13.

The new plan means the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II is no longer guaranteed to win a follow-on order for 28 more fighters to replace the RAAF’s only F/A-18E/F squadron, which would have joined 72 previously ordered F-35As for Australia’s three other fighter squadrons. 

The RAAF originally decided to buy 24 F/A-18E/Fs in 2007 as an interim replacement for the retiring General Dynamics F-111. The latter were supposed to be replaced solely by the F-35A, but delays to the program by 2007 meant that the RAAF needed a single squadron of Super Hornets. The Boeing-supplied fighters, however, were meant to be replaced by F-35As, but that is no longer guaranteed. 

“We’re looking at the Super Hornet capability now thinking that actually there’s a lot of value in keeping that out to sort of midway through the next decade,” Air Marshal Robert Chipman, the RAAF chief, said on the sidelines of the Global Air and Space Chiefs Conference here.

The extension plan will likely require the RAAF to perform a midlife update, raising the Super Hornet squadron to Boeing’s Block III standard.

The decision also pushes a replacement order for the F/A-18E/F fleet until the mid-2030s. The F-35A is expected by the Pentagon to still be in production at that time, but several other fighter designs and approaches to air combat also may be available by then.

“What the fourth squadron of F-35s has become is the Super Hornet replacement, not just [a plan to buy] the fourth squadron of F-35s,” Chipman said. 

The F-35 remains a candidate for the Super Hornet replacement, but the RAAF will consider alternatives. In the mid-2030s, those might include collaborative combat aircraft such as the Australian-built Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat, and next generation fighters produced by the U.S., a British-Japanese-Italian consortium and a French-German-Spanish group.

“We will look at the F-35 and we’re very, very comfortable and very happy with the capability of the F-35,” Chipman said. “But it would be remiss of me not to look at what else is available for us to replace our Super Hornets in the future.”