“They have made up their minds and are working on the right narrative to support it.”
I’m not tied to the F-35 by any stretch, but come on, can’t any gov’t just give the real reasons for buying the jets instead of making up narratives?
“They have made up their minds and are working on the right narrative to support it.”
I’m not tied to the F-35 by any stretch, but come on, can’t any gov’t just give the real reasons for buying the jets instead of making up narratives?
can’t any gov’t just give the real reasons for buying the jets instead of making up narratives?
No, because a Liberal government believes it is so much smarter than the electorate and that the people need to be lied to for their own good.
Good for the Liberals! Damn good idea. From Wikipedia, “The Super Hornet is considered a contender to replace the CF-18 Hornet, a version of the F/A-18A and B models, operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force. Like the older Hornet, the Super Hornet’s carrier-capable design would be well-suited to the rugged airfields of Northern Canada, while the Super Hornet’s extended range would remove its predecessor’s main deficiencies. Due to design commonalities, training and integration would be straightforward in transitioning to the Super Hornet.”
the USMC seem to like the Super Hornet, anyway.
Maybe we could pick up some used A-10s as well. The F-35 might possibly eventually be useful as a stealth fighter, but it is a very bad joke for ground support.
If the Liberals have to concoct a scenario to justify dropping the F-35 and avoiding a multi-billion dollar lawsuit, good!!! Put their devious sneaky underhandedness to good use.
John, there are very few, if any, design commonalities between the old Hornet and the new one. The new one roughly approximates the shape of the old one but every thing else is different.
At least it’s done,we ‘ll have some airworthy fighters instead of patched up 1980 vintage F-18’s.
Harper pissed around on this file for years and we still had no replacement,so why not do as the Aussies and USMC,and buy the Super Hornet. We sure as hell couldn’t trust the Euros to provide us with a decent product at a good price,and can you imagine the Caliphate of France or Sweden furnishing us with planes that we might use on their brethren in the ME?
Now, I hope the maintenance contract is going to Bombardier,a small Mom ‘n Pop company, from…..I’m not sure where, that just need to provide jobs for their workers.
Maybe we can help them out a little if they need it.
why doesn’t pride minister selfy just buy some avro arrows?
The USMC is buying F-35s, like we would be if didn’t have a banana republic run by a fundamentally-unserious gang of inbred Marxists.
But yeah, throw away money on an obsolescent airframe, and then buy what we should have all along later down the road.
Utter stupidity and waste. That’s the Liberal way.
What a load of bovine excrement. Sure lets buy a twenty year old design that came into being only because A-12 was scrapped and USN needed something (anything) until F-35 becomes available.
The F-35 may well turn out to be a white elephant. I’ve heard rumours of all sorts of problems, particularly with the software. The bug hunters are kept busy finding things wrong in the code, which is somewhere around a million lines.
Ah, but since this is the 21st century, we should use 21st century methods (according to Maryam Monsef). Scrap the RCAF and use drones instead.
(sarcasm off)
Don’t forget that Diefenbaker ordered that the Arrow prototypes were to be destroyed along with the drawings and tooling. Putting one of them into the air again would require doing everything from scratch.
Actually there is at least one Arrow out there. Probably two. A trusted friend of mine who was AirForce has seen one. It’s in pieces but it’s all there. Another friend of mine had a father who was one of the people who worked on the Arrow. He says they took one out before it was destroyed. It could be the same plane. My AirForce friend is in my opinion 100% reliable.
“From Wikipedia”
At least you’ve done exhaustive research on the subject.
The cockpit of one of them was kept and is on display at a museum in Ottawa. Except for, perhaps, a few other bits and pieces, that section is the only authentic Arrow artifact left.
As for the one that was flown out before being cut up, rumours about that have been in circulation for years and it may well be an urban legend. One would think that in the 57 years since the cancellation of the program, there would have been confirmation one way or the other of the existence of that plane.
Then again, none of the government papers relating to it have been released, so maybe…..
The Arrow is like the car market. Package a new model every year with incremental improvements. Have a look at avro pics and some Russian aircraft used in Syria. Serious similarities with wings and engine air intakes….?
“…the Super Hornet’s carrier-capable design would be well-suited to the rugged airfields of Northern Canada, …”
Which airfields of “Northern” Canada are particularly rugged?
Prime minister dumbass refuses to use the jets we have where they are needed most (provide air support for our troops). It takes a special kind of idiot to send our troops into a theater of war and pull out the air support!
Why buy new planes you don’t intend to use?
I think you will find that the USMC is buying Super Hornets. As well as F-35s, which they probably can’t avoid, considering that one version was developed specially for them.
Look, the F-35 is not the F-22, a genuinely superior aircraft. If we could buy F-22s I would never mention Super Hornets. Oh yes – ground support. The F-22 supposedly can’t do it, but neither can the F-35. Ground support is mostly VFR, remember, and F-35 is not agile. One soldier with a manpad, one less F-35.
B, I was being sarcastic. Even if the prints and all the tooling were still in tact I wouldn’t support “getting” them, wrong aircraft it todays world. The supper hornet is a good choice, for the same reason that the Israelis want to buy a lot of new 15s instead of 35s. Most is here talking about good or bad choices are uninformed and/or partisan. The super is a proven unit, the 35 still has a lot of bugs, but, Canada would have complete control of the super, not so with the 35, the USA controls the avionics, and that is why the Israelis are putting off buying them . The Saudis, Jordanians, and the Jews have found out in recent times that when you have an idiot like Obungles at the switch you are in a fools hands.
I have no comment to make on which plane we should buy.
The Canadian defence budget is nothing more that a political slush fund. It always has been and it always will be. If we get good kit it’s by accident rather than design. When we got the F5’s, it was because Canadair needed work. They went from the factory to storage until the air force could figure out a use for them. When we got airbus to replace 707’s it was because Air Canada needed a bailout, so we bought some second hand aircraft off them. When we got the Griffon, it was to keep people employed.
I was posted to NDHQ in Ottawa in about 1994 and worked in weapons acquisition in a project management office. One of the guys who we shared an office with worked for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. His sole job was to make sure as much of our money got spent in the maritimes as possible. I became friends with a pilot who was posted to Ottawa at the same time I was. His job was as a test pilot for the New Shipborne Aircraft Project, the aircraft we still haven’t got twenty two years later. It must have been a great few years for him. None of this will ever change.
The F-35 is what you get when you let accountants design an airplane.
More or less. In regard to the TSR-2 Sir Sydney Camm said that there were four dimensions to an aircraft – length, wingspan, height, – – and politics. He continued that TSR-2 got the first three right. Hence no TSR-2s. So far as I can see, the F-35 gets the politics right, by very numerous subcontracts. Which is why the Conservative government said that it couldn’t be cancelled.
And how old is the F-35, oh Colon? And how old will it be when finally it is debugged?
That sounds right.
When a certain military hardware system was out for bid a long time ago, work on many of the smaller components and subsystems was to be farmed out to a variety of regions across the country. It wasn’t as if companies in those areas had unique capabilities or expertise available nowhere else. It was likely to buy political favours in the ridings where those firms were located.
oh I have also read articles in Duffleblog about it!!! And background articles, of a more serious nature. And compared and contrasted with the genuinely superior F-22.
So far as I can see, the F-35 was concocted to get money from us colonials, while the real goods, the F-22, went to the real warriors. i don’t think the USAF intended for F-22 production to end after 180 airframes. Things happen.
Hasn’t the F-35 been beaten by the F-15 and the F-16? But-but-but; but the F-22 needs no excuses to be made for it..
Liberals planning to buy Super Hornet fighter jets before making final decision on F-35s
Finally some common sense prevails, absolutely amazing.
Super Hornet F-18s, maybe some F-22s would be good too, and a squadron of A-10s would give us some useful fighter power for the sorts of sandbox wars/peacekeeping Canada is likely to be involved in.
There’s no advantage for Canada to get sucked into the F-35 scam.
Just out of curiosity what can SuperBug do that a Strike Eagle cannot do better? Or for that matter what can it do that Typhoon or Rafale or even JAS 39 cannot do better? They are buying the least capable currently marketed western fighter and you are cheering because you got your fantasy of dumping F-35 fulfilled.
“… and F-35 is not agile. One soldier with a manpad, one less F-35.”
Wow, just wow, first rule of holes and all that.
From what I’ve been reading, the Super hornet will do the job. The F-35 is the Bricklin of fighter aircraft. For once, Trudeau was thinking.
Just as a monkey banging away on a keyboard can, by chance, type out a Shakesperean sonnet, so can a moronic moonbat make the right decision about F35.
In my readings about F35 haven’t run into anything good about it and it appears to be a massively overpriced POS which serves primarily to enrich the MIC. The super Hornet is likely better for Canada’s needs. Given the performance of Russian aircraft in Syria and the ability of the Russians to produce aircraft far more cheaply than the US bankster welfare program, it might be worthwhile looking at Russian aircraft. The Russian “smart bomb” is sheer genius: by computing optimum release time in the aircraft for a dumb bomb to precisely hit a target without a huge expense of throwing away the guidance computer and bomb steering mechanism away with every “smart bomb” dropped. Even though the guidance computer is cheap nowadays, the markup on US military electronics is much higher than on medical electronics.
For ground support, the A10 is still highly capable and survivable in a battlefield environment. That would be an ideal aircraft for Canada to buy for this role and makes much more sense than a $100+ million aircraft.
If Trump gets in as POTUS, he plans on scrapping NAFTA and this would eliminate thrests of a lawsuit by greedy MIC plutocrats who would make way less money if governments choose not to deal with this kleptocracy.
Another ace:
“Finally some common sense prevails, absolutely amazing.”
Yeah let’s see what constitutes commonsense in that parallel universe of yours.
“Super Hornet F-18s, maybe some F-22s would be good too, and a squadron of A-10s would give us some useful fighter power ”
First one will already be borderline obsolete at the time of purchase and generally inferior to all alternatives. The production line for the second was closed and so far no export orders were allowed. It would be the single most capable choice but they are not selling is. It would also be more expensive than even f-35. And finally the third, one for which tooling was destroyed decades ago. So “commonsense” requires three different types spanning five decades of development to be operated by Canada. Right, no logistical and training nightmare for an air force our size at all.
On the other hand, Denmark has recently chosen the F35A over the Super Hornet.
Deadliest Aircraft in the US Air Force
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93kGCTOwmow
The basic aircraft design entered service with the U.S. in the 1950s, and remains the longest continuously produced military aircraft at over 60 years.
The basic airframe has proven to be one of the most versatile in the U. S. arsenal. It was originally a transport aircraft, which, as far as I know, still is. It’s also been used as an air tanker. If I remember correctly, the AC-130 first saw service during the war in Viet Nam.
During one of the last air shows held at the old CFB Namao, just north of Edmonton, a C-130 was on display. I went inside and was startled as to how small it seemed. The cockpit was even more cramped. I guess I watched too many movies and TV shows as I got the impression that there was much more room.
If I remember correctly, there was also an AN-124 Antonov and a C-5 Galaxy there as well and I went through those as well. Quite a difference!
Same with the North American Vigilante.
No comment on this thread has asked or answered the question – what capability does the RCAF require over the next 30 years (the reasonable lifespan)? Against whom will these aircraft contest airspace? Which airforces that are potential threats are currently operating aircraft equivalent to F18E or better, and how likely is it that we will have to engage them? What is Canada’s capacity to keep up with the pace of USAF technological development?
But none of those questions is truly germaine, since the question is more about the mental pretaels that this government will twist itself into to find a ‘narrative’.
cheers
Our pretty boy commander -in-chief can now whip out his F35 because it’s 2016.
“First one will already be borderline obsolete”
now there is an example of my “uninformed”,
other than lacking stealth, it is “state of the art”, almost complete redesign, a progression of a proven air frame. Not every situation requires a battleship galactic. Canada needs to meet her needs, not play one upmanship.
Great comment.
While I expect that there is likely little chance, especially under a Liberal regime, that Canada will again become involved in wars such as the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, and we certainly will not confront the Russians or Chinese other than some Chihuahua form of sabre rattling. The main future threat to Canada will come from within.
For international appearances sake and to give our military forces some meaningful secondary support role equipment, I would opt for the Super Hornet, no point in trying to compete with top-of-the-line Russian or Chinese aircraft. I also like the idea of some A-10 Warthogs for ground support, as well as attack helicopters and transport helicopters to move troops around our large land base.
I hear the uniforms have a lifetime cost of $200,000 if you include the wages of the soldier in it.
Most people would take the cost of an asset to be the initial outlay. Others would take it to be the initial cost plus a lifetime of repairs. Then others would take it to be the initial cost plus a lifetime of repairs plus hemorrhoid cream for the pilot and any cost associated with a lifetime of operation. The only reason for extending the cost over greater time covering more items being to embarrass the decision maker.
Whatever, if not the CF35, then buy off the shelf, existing airframes and save money. As for ground support, I always like the CF5.
Fine go with the Super Hornet. No biggie, just stay away from the “modern” 4th generation fighters out there. Then we can handle sovereignty very nicely, which may come handy as other powers eye our north. But, we would be out of the collective defense end of air power with 10 to 15 years.
If the Grits get this right, it will be an accident.
I feel dumb for having to ask but did anybody replace the helecopters Cretien cancelled at a cost of half a billion?
How about we ‘Contract out’ our Air Force needs? The technology at this point is changing daily and a small country like Canada is incapable of keeping up.
Besides, look north – wayyyy north until you have to look south. That landmass is our neighbour and I don’t trust them.
We started looking for a replacement for the Sea King in 1983 – that would be 33 years ago. They have boon flying since 1963 – that would be 53 years ago. I think we are still using them. Apparently in 1915 they ordered a replacement.
been and 2015
“How about we ‘Contract out’ our Air Force needs?”
How would politicians looking after their friends save money? Bombardier already runs the Airforce – the training end. I am not sure how much money is saved?
What difference does it make?
The Liberals will surrender at first opportunity, so whatever planes we have will be useless deck furniture.
The F35 was a simple decision,whatever the USA has, we need to buy.
Otherwise we would need to buy our own spare parts on time and have adequate ordinance on hand, instead of our normal habit of borrowing from our allies(Begging).
Shame the USA allowed the politicians to design the future plane.
It has become a genuine turkey designed by a committee of turkeys.
Canada has been a military joke for decades.
Our only true defence has been our cousins to the southAnd the Arctic.
We are one of those “Allies” Trump wants to hand the true bill too.
Simple observation, could Canada defend its territory,without the help of the USA?
For how many days?
Anyone remember operation ??Nanook? Where our finest were forbidden to fly, too dangerous, while Borek Air continued scheduled flights into the same airport?
Course this lack of capacity will not be a problem in Ottawa.
Where the standard question is where is the Arctic?
Oh, don’t worry–our Warrior Prince has promised that he’ll stare ’em down. I betcha that Vlady’s just shaking in his boots at the thought.
And how are those used submarines working out?
Ugh sure why don’t you go back to bashing bible thumpers and leave this discussion for those who have a clue? Super Bug is inferior to what all major NATO allies are flying already or will be flying in the near future. It is also most likely inferior to modern Chicom or ruskie designs. It has little room for growth especially after F-35 will corner the market in a few years and nobody will be interested in developing upgrades for it anymore. It is slow, slower than our existing CF-18s, it cannot supercruise and makes a lousy interceptor for our North. It is an aircraft that nobody bought because they wanted to but they bought it as a stopgap because what they counted on was canceled or delayed.
stupid does not cover it. There are several factors that make a aircraft wot it is. The air frame, motivation, cost, the pilot, AND the avionics. The last being second only to the pilot in importance. Tho the 15 was marginally superior to “enemy” crafts, it’s avionics set it miles ahead. The super 18 has improved airframe, and vastly improved avionics, and that is why it is a good choice. I don’t care how good a plane can fly, if the damn thing is in montreal and the enemy enters from Vancouver it’s useless. A cheaper plane allows for more planes, and guess wot, you don’t have to place all of them in one place. Also, and this applies to commercial craft as well, buying the same, or similar always has a possibility of savings, thus leaving more money on the table for other expenditures. Acquiring any military equipment has several components, cost, need, training requirements, maintenance, and life expectancy. The analysis for these acquisitions is basically the same as industrial acquisitions. And as to nobody wants, just more of your bullshit, USN is happy to fly them. Also we need craft that meet our needs, not fancy units to brag about. The A10 if fine example of specific mission design that works real good at what it was intended for, YOUR 35 would suck at those missions.
“Bombardier already runs the Airforce – the training end.”
I missed that they sold the operation to CAE Inc., also from Quebec.