Mc Donnell Douglas F/A-18A The F/A-18 was developed from Northrop's YF-17
which came out second best against the F-16 in
the USAF light weight fighter competition of the
mid 70's. Australia signed a contract in October 1981 for a
total of 75 Hornets of which 18 where two
seaters. The first two Hornets where completed at
St Louis in the USA and ferried to Williamtown in
May 1985 the remainder being assembled in
Melbourne by Aerospace Technologies of Australia
with the engines provided by Hawker De Havilland
Victoria and the radar by Philip's in Sydney. The
first locally assembled Hornet had its first
flight on the 26 February 1985 and the final
one was delivered in May 1990.
The main differences between the Australian and
US Navy's standard F/A-18A/B are the deletion of
the nose wheel tie bar (used to engage the steam
catapults on aircraft carriers. The arrester hook
remains),the addition of a HF radio, an
Australian fatigue data analysis system, an
improved video & voice recorder, the
introduction of Martin Baker seat harness, the
clearance of RAAF practice bombs and the use of
ILS/VOR instead of the Carrier landing system. As
well 23 of the Australian Hornets have Wiring for
a reconnaissance pod that replaces the gun pack
in the front fuselage of the plane.
In the early 1990's all Australian Hornets
underwent a modest upgrade to the avionics system
architecture bringing them up to the standard of
the US Navy's F/A-18C/D's except for the colour
multi function displays and digital moving map in
the cockpit. 
BAe Systems Hawk 127 is the aircraft selected by
the RAAF to replace the Macchi as Australia's
lead-in fighter(LIF) trainer.
The RAAF have placed an order for 33 Hawk's, of
which the first 12 are to be built in the UK with
the remainder to be assembled in a new purpose
built facility at Williamtown. This new center is
where the overall management of the program as
well as final assembly and deeper maintenance
activities will take place.
The Hawk was developed by British Aerospace
(now BAe Systems) as an advanced two seat weapons
system trainer with a ground attack capability the
first prototype took to the air in 1974 with the
RAF (Royal air force) receiving there first in 1976
British Aerospace has continued to develop this
aircraft with several different variants being
available including the Hawk 60 a development of
the original export version , the Hawk 100 from
which the Australian Hawk 127 LIF was developed
and is now being offered by BAe Systems to other
countries as the Hawk LIFT and the Hawk 200 a single seat multi
mode radar equipped lightweight multi role combat
aircraft.
There is also a carrier version developed and
built by Boeing in the United States for the
US Navy and Marines called a T-45A Goshawk.
The Hawk has been selected by 17 Nations to
equip their air forces with over 750 aircraft
having been delivered or on order.
A number of Australian companies are supplying
components for the Australian Hawks including
Hawker de Havilland in Melbourne who are
manufacturing tailplanes, (of a new design unique
to the Aust Hawks) airbrakes, wing flaps and
under wing pylons. While Qantas have the contract
for final assemble and through life support of the
Hawks Turbomeca Adour Mk 871 (Rolls-Royce) engines.
The Hawk represents a large leap forward in
technology from the Macchi with features like its
glass cockpit Especially designed to closely represent
the cockpit of the F/A-18 , greatly reducing the learning
curve from trainer to fast jet, its improved
reliability and lower maintenance requirements
being a great plus for the RAAF.
Pilatus of Switzerland developed the advanced turbo prop trainer the PC-9 from their PC-7 first flown in 1966. The PC-7 was in turn a development of the 1950's advanced piston trainer the Ordered in the mid 80's to fill a gap in the RAAF's training program between the CT-4A's and
the Aermacchi. The two seat PC-9 was selected over an Australian built and designed turbo prop trainer
the A-10B ending the controversial history of the Australian Aircraft Consortium. The RAAF's Flying Training
School (2FTS) at Pearce started their advanced training course with the PC-9 in 1989. The RAAF's display
team the Roulettes has also traded their Macchi's for the In 1997 77 squadron at Williamtown received a flight of four PC-9/A(F) aircraft and adopted the role of
training all of Australia's Forward Air Controllers. To aid the Pilatus in this new role of spotting and
designating targets for other ADF aircraft the PC-9 is equipped with two underwing smoke grenade
dispensers and two 240ltr underwing external fuel tanks. All four airframes are painted in gun ship grey
with low vis (light grey) roundel's and squadron markings.
Boeing & Northrop Grumman have been announced the winners of the RAAF Air 5077 Wedgetail program. Their winning proposal uses Boeing's Next-Generation 737-700 airframe which features state of the art avionics, navigation equipment and flight deck. It has a maximum speed of 0.78 Mach and an operational ceiling of 41,000 feet with an evolved variant of the Northrop Grumman Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar which uses four fixed radar arrays fitted above the rear fuselage of the aircraft in a T shape to give a full 360 degree coverage (It takes less than 10 seconds to complete one 360 degree sweep and can track both air and sea targets simultaneously). The Wedgetail mission system also includes an electronic support measures (ESM) subsystem, open system architecture, an extensive communications suite, aerial refuelling capability and an electronic warfare self protection (EWSP) subsystem. This set up was the most technologically advanced out of the three final contenders for this contract and shows how serious the RAAF is about these well overdue aircraft. Boeing have completed over 1,300 hours of
wind tunnel testing to demonstrated the compatibility
of the aircraft and the radar. All modification work
to the airframes is to be done in the US by Boeing
with all the aircraft ordered to be home based at Williamtown.
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