Defence has stood behind plans to spend $1.5 billion converting 12 Super Hornets into electronic warfare Growlers, despite claims their ALQ-99 pods are unreliable, based on 1970s technology and will be obsolete around 2020.
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Australia's Growlers won't come into service until 2018 at the earliest.
A Defence spokesman told The Canberra Times: ''Advice from the United States Navy is that JSF is not planned to be operational with the Next Generation Jammer pod.
''The NGJ pod is being developed for Growler [not JSF].''
However, it has been widely reported the next generation jammer, a US Navy program designed to replace the ALQ-99 electronic warfare pods is intended to be compatible with both the Super Hornet and the Joint Strike Fighter.
Because of reliability problems with the ALQ-99 pods, work on the NGJ has been accelerated with vendor selection now expected next year, not in 2015 as originally planned.
Speaking in 2010, Captain John Green of the US Navy said the NGJ was being developed to work with both the Growler and the JSF.
''Initial operating capability [of the NGJ] should happen in 2020,'' he predicted.
While development of an electronic warfare variant of the F-35 has been put on hold due to the US Defence budget cuts, work on ensuring the Lockheed Martin-designed stealth fighter will be compatible with the NGJ is understood to be continuing.
Australia is buying ''more than 12 ALQ-99 pods'' in order to cover a range of frequency bands and expects to be able to field up to six Growlers at any one time, the defence spokesman said.
The pods account for at least half the cost of the $1.5 billion-plus Growler conversion which was provisionally costed at $300 million without pods in 2009.
Australia's Growler purchase has been endorsed by specialty air capability think tank, The Sir Richard Williams Foundation.
''Growler missions include passive operations, such as enemy order of battle analysis, kill chain analysis and active operations such as suppression of enemy air defences, force protection and maritime support,'' chairman and former chief of air force Errol McCormack said.
''Some commentators have asserted the Growler's electronic warfare suite will become superseded in five year's time. This misses the point. Once the initial capability has been acquired, the ADF will be able to update the Growler as and when necessary.''
Super Hornets fitted with the ALQ-99 pods will become subsonic aircraft when they are in use, even though the planes are capable of speeds of up to Mach 1.8 in normal configuration.
The same is expected to be true of Super Hornets and JSFs fitted with the NGJ, with the pods currently under development expected to be ''optimised for subsonic speeds around Mach 0.9 or below'' according to a Flight Global report.
Another option under consideration for the NGJ is fitting it to unmanned aerial vehicles; a more economical option than using either the Super Hornet or the JSF as mounting platforms.
