Australian Defence is hush-hush about future fighter jet noise

If Australia is crazy enough to sign on for the gold-plated U.S.-made Lockheed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in an era of global economic meltdown, Defence will have a lot of explaining to do.

Let's forget for a moment some of the more obvious facts that the jet will be Australia's most expensive Defence purchase in history at $16 billion dollars for less than 75 aircraft. Let's also forget that this aircraft has very little flight testing done on it and is yet to prove that all of its fancy high-tech war gadgets will work. Let's forget that costs on the program keep climbing and schedules keep slipping. Let's forget that this aircraft is not a total air-superiority machine and is mostly a tactical bomber designed to hang around and plink ground targets from middle to low altitudes. Let's forget that Australia is being led like sheep to the slaughter by an arms industry that has the main goal of making the sale. Let's forget that the Taliban, Australia's current enemy, doesn't even have an air force. Let's forget all that and more.

If the F-35 does manage to squeak by all of those challenges and get deployed by the RAAF, remember the following: a recent US study states that the F-35 is twice as loud as current fighter aircraft designs.

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