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F-35 Fighter Jet Purchase

afransen said:
I hear we're also buying some second hand f18s from Australia.
Click to expand...
We already bought the Aussie Hornets. A billion dollar boondoggle so the Liberals could save face on their made up capability gap.

nationalpost.com

Budget officer says used Australian fighter jets will cost Canada over $1 billion — far more than DND claimed

The costing included weapons, upgrades, annual maintenance fees and the fuel that would be needed over the years of flying the aircraft
nationalpost.com nationalpost.com

afransen said:
I think there is going to be plenty of Skynet with the F35. I guess there are thoughts that 6th gen fighters will be bigger to support crews of two, with the second operator managing various unmanned platforms. One would think that it will be easier to make very stealthy unmanned ordinance carrying platforms.
Click to expand...

Sixth gen is still very much evolving. And unlikely to be very relevant to us over the next 30-40 years since we don't really lead much in coalition operations.
 
kEiThZ said:
We already bought the Aussie Hornets. A billion dollar boondoggle so the Liberals could save face on their made up capability gap.

nationalpost.com

Budget officer says used Australian fighter jets will cost Canada over $1 billion — far more than DND claimed

The costing included weapons, upgrades, annual maintenance fees and the fuel that would be needed over the years of flying the aircraft
nationalpost.com nationalpost.com



Sixth gen is still very much evolving. And unlikely to be very relevant to us over the next 30-40 years since we don't really lead much in coalition operations.
Click to expand...
$1B vs $70B for the F35 fleet? I'm not really that flapped by that cost.
 
afransen said:
$1B vs $70B for the F35 fleet? I'm not really that flapped by that cost.
Click to expand...

Not an even comparison. The $70B is total lifecycle cost for 88 F-35s operating them for 30+ years. The $1B for the Super Hornets was just to baseline 18 of them to an obsolete Canadian configuration and fly them for about a decade. No increase in capability. No major infrastructure upgrades included.

And the point I was making is that the entire Aussie jet purchase was entirely unnecessary to begin with. The government came up with a capability gap by insisting that the RCAF meet multiple requirements simultaneously for years out. This isn't a demand imposed on other services or even all of the RCAF. This is something they insisted on for just the fighter fleet. And it was BS. A number of experts called them on it. And RCAF leadership testified to Parliament how flimsy the case was.


They did it so they could justify the sole source purchase of the Super Hornets. Then the Boeing-Bombardier C-Series spat happened and it became politically untenable to buy the Super Hornets. They couldn't admit to making up the whole capability gap nonsense. So they bought the Aussie jets as a face saving exercise.
 
I note that in today's Star article, the Defence Minister said that "The ones Canada will receive will include capabilities specific to the demands of the North". It wasn't posted as a direct quote. Other than issues of navigation/communications, the only 'arcticification' I can think of is the addition of a drag chute Norway was developing with LM. Maybe they want to add the identification spotlight like they have done on previous aircraft. 😄.

I'm wonder as well if the funding envelope includes upgrading our tanker fleet. I tend to doubt it. There was talk of modifying the A-model we are getting to accept a Navy-style probe for re-fueling but that strikes me as a costly one-off waste of money (then again, we're really good at that).
 
lenaitch said:
Other than issues of navigation/communications, the only 'arcticification' I can think of is the addition of a drag chute Norway was developing with LM.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Our Arctic mythologizing has always been dumb. As though the US, the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians don't operate in the Arctic.

lenaitch said:
I'm wonder as well if the funding envelope includes upgrading our tanker fleet. I tend to doubt it.
Click to expand...

Tanker acquisition was already announced.

Canada moves forward with the acquisition of aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force - Canada.ca

Today, Defence Minister Anita Anand announced that Canada has finalized a contract to acquire the first two aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) that will replace and renew the capability currently fulfilled by the CC-150 Polaris fleet and later become part of the Strategic Tanker...
www.canada.ca www.canada.ca

lenaitch said:
There was talk of modifying the A-model we are getting to accept a Navy-style probe for re-fueling but that strikes me as a costly one-off waste of money (then again, we're really good at that).
Click to expand...

The probe retrofit was decided against. Too much work and cost. We'll get standard A models. The replacement tankers will have booms.
 
i dont know why spend so much money on a stupid figther jet that keeps falling and i dont know why Canada needs fancy jets, when was the last time Canada bombed another country. we could just order F16s for half that money. they are 100 times more reliable than the f35 and they stay in sky instead of falling.
 
ushahid said:
i dont know why spend so much money on a stupid figther jet that keeps falling and i dont know why Canada needs fancy jets, when was the last time Canada bombed another country. we could just order F16s for half that money. they are 100 times more reliable than the f35 and they stay in sky instead of falling.
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Because leaving our allies to do everything for us makes us a client state.
 
afransen said:
Because leaving our allies to do everything for us makes us a client state.
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To be fair, we have people in the forum arguing that is literally what Canada should be. Although it's debatable whether those who advocate for such policies understand the implication.
 
ushahid said:
i dont know why Canada needs fancy jets, when was the last time Canada bombed another country.
Click to expand...
Plenty of times. Here’s a bomb-armed CF-18 over Iraq in 2015, where several bombing strikes were made by Canada.

800px-Operation_Inherent_Resolve_150304-F-MG591-297.jpg
 
Admiral Beez said:
Plenty of times. Here’s a bomb-armed CF-18 over Iraq in 2015, where several bombing strikes were made by Canada.
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The usual Canadian naivete of expecting all the world's respect without contributing at all to allied commitments or the maintenance of the international order. Also, of course, expecting the US to provide security for us without at all expecting to pay any price in return.
 
afransen said:
Because leaving our allies to do everything for us makes us a client state.
Click to expand...
With presumably Chinese or Russian UFOs flying over Alaska, the US won’t tolerate Canada shirking its air defence responsibilities.


We need to give a serious think to Pacific and Arctic defence. It’s only a matter of time before a PLAN nuclear attack submarine transits across the north of Canada, if not already. Unlike Canada, China has the capability.

 
And now UFO over Canada, with us asking the USAF to enter our airspace to shoot it down, I can just imagine the surprised RCAF ground crews, armourers and pilots at Cold Lake scrambling to find their kit and get rolling. I bet it’s 30 mins from the scramble call to takeoff with long range tanks and AAMs. From there it’s another 90-120 mins subsonic to get to the target.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I bet it’s 30 mins from the scramble call to takeoff with long range tanks and AAMs.
Click to expand...
Not even close. NORAD posture is substantially shorter than that. Can't post exact figures for obvious reasons. But those jets are fueled, armed and ready to jump in and go at a moment's notice 24/7/365.

Admiral Beez said:
From there it’s another 90-120 mins subsonic to get to the target.
Click to expand...

You assume they didn't previously track and move jets closer earlier in the day. If threats are up, our forward operating locations are manned. We're not guarding the pole from Cold Lake.
 

All of Canada's F-35s will be Block 4. The new radar, adaptive cycle engines and new onboard processors basically make a Block 4 F-35, a mini F-22. With the caveat that we don't yet know if the Yanks will let us have all those things, Canada will have one of the most advanced fighter fleets in the world in 2032. Ironically, even more advanced than some allies like the UK who are foregoing the Block 4 upgrades.

Canadian F-35s…Finally – Canadian Naval Review

By Dr. Timothy Choi, 11 January 2023 On 9 January 2023, Minister of National Defence Anita Anand finally marked the end of the beginning of Canada's Future Fighter Capability Project (FFCP) by announcing Canada's agreement with the United States government and Lockheed Martin to procure 88 F-35A...
www.navalreview.ca www.navalreview.ca
 
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