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Comment by SloopJon | Hacker News Reader

I'm amazed that this is even possible. I seem to recall that there are countries with unusable fighter jets, because the U.S. will no longer supply parts and expertise for maintenance. The article indeed states: "the purchase does include all of the RAAF's F/A-18 spare parts inventory and test equipment, valued at over a billion dollars alone."

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I too am amazed that this is even possible, but for different reasons. Do other first world countries allow non-government companies to hold this much sophisticated military hardware? Maybe so, I just haven't heard of it.

The other day I was reading about some Saudi prince's half a billion (!!!) dollar yacht.

Sometimes I wonder if I live in the same planet as these people. It is hard for me to imagine such wealth and power

This company is a US military contractor so they're effectively part of the government.

Still I believe there were laws forbidding private purchases of military planes. Weird if export buybacks didn’t count.

> Do other first world countries allow non-government companies to hold this much sophisticated military hardware?

No, they don't. And neither does the US.

The F18 is now nearly 40 years old. Typically the advanced and sophisticated aspects of airframes are not allowed for sale, to private entities, or even non-us government ones.

The advanced avionics, weapons systems, etc, are all tightly controlled.

The article claims that the configuration will not change from what the RAAF had been flying, and that the planes have been more or less fitted with the most modern upgrades available.

So, nothing rivaling next generation hardware but also nothing to sneeze at either.

Also no munitions. Unless you are worried about info leaks to China (who else is sophisticated enough to take advantage of it?) I’m not seeing your concern.

The munitions come from the US. They can be fitted if desired.

I don't believe that pertains to software and advanced flight control systems.

Instead things like larger displays, munition mount points, and radar cross sections, etc.

The avionics provided are a modern variant of legacy systems, where the "cutting edge" is classified and held under strict expert control.

Exactly, the sale of these aircraft has to be approved by the US Govt. The sale of a squadron to Canada was also approved by the US. It is only because of the close AU-US relationship that these are supplied with electronics -- everything about them still being classifed TS.

USAF is also looking to award a large contract for operating tanker aircraft for supporting training exercises of the USAF. Private companies will be operating aircraft to offer mid air refuelling for USAF training activities.

Why not? As a civ you can buy even a decommed tank if you got the money and stomach for beurocracy.

The trick is buying ammunition for them and also undoing some decomm work that requires expertise and equipment.

At one point Pepsi had the sixth biggest Navy in the world.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the...

The Knights [edit:] Hospitaller briefly had a decently sized bomber fleet after WWII, as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...

Note, Knights Hospitaller, not Templar.

Whoops, got 'em mixed up. You're right.

True, but the whole reason this worked is that they were a sovereign international personality separate from Italy, not just a private Italian organization.

They needed that Navy for the Cola Wars.

The East India Company probably also had a big Navy

> I seem to recall that there are countries with unusable fighter jets, because the U.S. will no longer supply parts and expertise for maintenance.

Fighter jets are heavily dependent on spares and expertise, but Iranian F-14 Tomcats managed to score something like 50 or 60 kills during the Iran-Iraq war, which happened after the US stopped playing nice with them. They're still flying a few of them today.

If this makes you wonder how they're doing this if everyone is playing by the export rules involving selling arms to Iran, you wouldn't be the first. They have some native production capacity, but...

> I seem to recall that there are countries with unusable fighter jets, because the U.S. will no longer supply parts and expertise for maintenance.

Turns out the US has this problem as well... my brother is a Harrier pilot, and it seems to me like the US has mostly run out of spare parts for them. They bought a number of RAF Harriers for parts, but even so, it's a question of whether the F-35 will actually be ready in time to replace those squadrons.

His company is a US Air Force contractor, so I'm sure they don't have a problem giving him parts and maintenance help.

Is this another example of the DoD contracting out something that would cost half as much for them to do themselves?

From the article he is saving the DoD some money on JTAC training operations. I'd imagine their role here would also save some money.

Maybe. The text hints that they also maintain their own adversary fleet in addition to hiring contracting firms like the one in the article.

> These Israeli-designed pods are pretty much the world standard in modular self-protection jamming systems and are used on the Pentagon's own aggressor fleet...

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