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F-111 Avionics Upgrade Approved
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Haaf Planning for 21st Century Operations via Updated F-111 Force
A planned $200m avionics update of the RAAF F-111C force will see this unique strike aircraft remain in service through till the year 2010.
A Request For Tender was issued at press time for the long awaited upgrade which will essentially convert the aircraft’s 1960s designed avionics systems from analog to digital. All USAF F-111 aircraft are being upgraded under a similar programme aimed at greatly increasing the capability of the basic aircraft in addition to enhancing its reliability as a functioning weapons system. At present, the complex and labour intensive analog systems require an above average quota of maintenance man-hours per flight hour to maintain but will also be insupporta able by the mid nineties due to the unique and outdated nature of their design. The upgrade is expected to greatly reduce the overall maintenance requirement of the F-111 force while ensuring a greater number of aircraft are available on a week to week basis on the flight line.
Two consortiums are bidding to win the upgrade contract. Hawker de Havilland has teamed with Rockwell while Aerospace Technologies of Australia have teamed with General Dynamics. Both consortiums have excellent track records for the updating and integration of complex systems within aircraft. Rockwell already supply the IFF and tactical navigation equipment for the RAAFs F-18s in addition to the ATC system at the Richmond air force base. HdH integrated(as then CAC) the complex AQS-901 avionics suite in the P-3 update programme and are also responsible for converting four of the RAAF’s Boeing 707s to tankers in conjunction with Israel Aircraft Industries. ASTA of course tiave been busy integrating surveillance systems in Nomad airframes for the best part of a decade and more recently have increased their capabilities in this area through their association with the US Customs Service and Brookland Aerospace in the UK via the Scoutmaster. General Dynamics, their project team-mates, were of course the original builders of the F-111(as Convair) and in recent years have been involved in the wide ranging USAF F-111 update programme which will closely parallel our own requirement.
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