Southern Eagles
In 1968 the RAAF commenced the process of finding a replacement for its Dassault Mirage III fighters. The plan was for in the new fighter to start phasing out the Mirage IIIs in 1980. In 1973, a team of RAAF personnel inspected the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, Northrop YF-17, Saab 37 Viggen and Dassault Mirage F.1 programs. Initially the favourite was viewed to be the Mirage F.1 in its Mirage F.1-M53 variant. Indeed, Dassault’s offer associated with this was extremely attractive with generous co-production on the table.
Concurrent to this, things were changing in Australia’s closest asian neighbour, Indonesia. In March 1968, General Suharto was formally appointed president in March 1968 following an earlier coup against President Sukarno. In the aftermath of Suharto's rise, hundreds of thousands of people were killed or imprisoned by the military and religious groups in a backlash against alleged communist supporters, with direct support from the United States.
At first Australia was hopeful that this would prove to be a positive development after the years of the Konfrontasi and for a couple of years things seemed to be improving. That said, the Indonesian annexation of West New Guinea (soon renamed Irwin Jaya following a questionable referendum held in 1969) started to concern Canberra.
Australia was also dismayed at persistent reports over the coming years that the US Government was reportedly considering selling not only the Northrop F-5E/F Tiger II and Douglas A-4E Skyhawks to Indonesia, but more concerning, the McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II. Such developments, if proven true, would totally change the balance of power in the region and potentially complicate Australia’s position, including in relation to its obligations under the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA).
Then in late 1975, things came to a head when Indonesian forces invaded and occupied East Timor. This quickly drove a new set of priorities for the Australian Defence Force. Very quickly the favourite for a Mirage replacement started to turn from the Mirage F.1-M53 to something more potent. By March 1977 the project office had chosen to focus on the F-15 Eagle. And later that same year, it was announced that the RAAF would acquire 75 F-15s comprising of 57 single-seat A variant fighters and 18 two-seat B variants. The production contract would later be changed to the same number of the newer C/D developments. The first of the new fighters would be delivered in 1982.
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Above: One of the first RAAF F-15Cs, this being assigned to No.2 Operation Conversion Unit (OCU)
Despite the impressive performance of the new F-15 fighters, the quantity being procured would not be enough to cover the entirety of the Australian North. Various options were considered to help maximize the potential of the new fighters and in essence these revolved around various ways to ensure the Eagles were able to be in the right place at the right time. This would eventually result in multiple new capabilities being adopted by the RAAf and ADF including:
· Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN)
· Aerial Refuelling Tankers – Initially the RAAF looked at modified Boeing 707s but as the F-15s used a boom refueling system, the eventual decision was to purchase six KC-135E tankers
· Development of Bare bases – These would eventually become RAAF Bases Curtin, Learmonth and Scherger and were scatter across the North of Australia
Despite all of this it was felt that there was still a need for more. As such, it was decided to compliment the new fighters with Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft. The first choice here was the relatively new Boeing E-3 Sentry platform but this was soon discovered to not be viable as all production was allotted to USAF needs for the foreseeable future. Attention then turned to the Grumman E-2 Hawkeye or a development of either the Lockheed P-3 Orion or C-130 Hercules fitted with the same system as the Hawkeye. All of these designs were felt to be insufficient in terms or performance to support the fighters and the distances involved. At this point the British Government stepped in to offer Australia participation in a joint project centred around their own need for a new AEW&C platform. For the British/RAF, this would result in the British Aerospace Nimrod AEW3. For the Australian requirement though it was decided to repackage the Marconi radar system and avionics package into a different platform. The Boeing 737-200 was the platform of choice and a total of 6 airframes were acquired from the Frontier Airlines airline. These being selected as they were already fitted with the "Unpaved Strip Kit" desired by the RAAF. In addition to these, the aircraft were also fitted with the bulbous nose and tail radomes common to the Nimrod as well as an additional APU and engine mounted generators. The first of these aircraft was modified by British Aerospace in the UK with remaining aircraft modified in the Government Aircraft Factory (GAF) facility in Avalon Australia. The first of the new 737 Wedgetail (named after the Australian Wedgetail Eagle) AEW&C aircraft would enter RAAF service in 1985.
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Above: RAAF 737 Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft. The top shows a standard version serving with No. 2 Squadron while the lower image is of one of the prototype aircraft during development.
Over the coming decade, the combination of Eagles (F-15 and 737) would form the backbone of the RAAF’s air defence capabilities. In 1992 the RAAF was considering both the acquisition of additional attrition replacement aircraft for their F-111C strike aircraft as well as undertaking an extensive Avionics Upgrade Program for the aircraft. As these investments were considered though, the McDonnell Douglas, with the support of the USAF, made an unsolicited offer to the RAAF to entirely replace their F-111 fleet with new F-15E Strike Eagles. This offer found receptive ears and in 1997 the first of 24 new F-15Es entered RAAF service.
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Above: RAAF F-15E of No. 1 shown carrying both LANTRIN pods and AGM-84 Harpoon anti shipping missile.
In the years following the Strike Eagle service entry, the RAAF’s earlier F-15C/D Eagles were given a comprehensive upgrade (officially referred to has the “Comprehensive Eagle Upgrade Program (CEUP)”) mainly aimed at introducing commonality across the entire Eagle fleet and to reduce costs and improve reliability (although the fact that performance improvements resulted was not lost on the RAAF). The core of this upgrade was the replacement of the earlier AN/APG-63 with the newer AN/APG-70 from the Strike Eagle along with the replacement of the earlier F100-PW-100 engines with the more powerful, more reliable F100-PW-229 engines, along with numerous other subsystem upgrades including the ability to carry the LANTRIN targeting/navigation pods. The resulting aircraft were now referred to as F/A-15C+/D+s and also allowed the carriage/use of the AGM-84 Harpoon and SLAM missiles commonly used with the Strike Eagles.