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Canada Poised To Buy 65 Lockheed Martin F-35 JSFs
Freshly Exhumed (105597) writes 'Canada is poised to buy 65 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, sources familiar with the process told Reuters. A detailed, 18-month review of Canada's fighter jet needs has concluded that the government should skip a new competition and proceed with the C$9 billion ($8.22 billion) purchase, three sources said. When the F-35 purchase was first proposed, Canadians were alarmed by the colossal price tag, and also that no fly-off competition had been conducted or was planned. This latest news is sure to rekindle criticism that the RCAF's requirements seem to have been written after the fact to match the F-35's capabilities (or lack thereof)."
Suckers
Brought to you by the fiscal conservative party of Canada.
My opinion, the F-35 will always be in beta. The design and procurement process is fundamentally broken. That being the case, they might as well buy now; it's not gonna get any better.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Yes, let's absolutely buy the jets that can't stay up in the air and cost ridiculous amounts to purchase and maintain when they do manage not to crash!
In rougher climates than they're designed for! Instead of something cheaper and more rugged that would be just fine for our purposes!
This is the greatest idea ever!
What's wrong with a few SuperHornets? Extra survivability in case of an engine failure; both interception and ground attack (unlike the attack-only F35); easier to maintain; larger fuel capacity than the original Hornet; they actually FLY.
Only recently in Australia did the government suggest that it was going to purchase the F-35 as well. This all became clear in the same budget that suggested raising the pension age to 70 and an increase in taxes, and prompted much outrage.
Despite the flaws in the F-35, this purchase seems to be more of a five-eyes strategic thing, than it is any burning need to buy these planes.
READY.
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While Harper's cock, pushed by his corporate puppet masters, goes deeper into the average Joe's rectum, I'm super happy that my taxes are going to China via tar sands AND corporate welfare in the USA.
OHHH!!! CANADAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!
Palin will see them coming.
Canada doesn't have nuclear weapons due to our own internal laws. Nothing to do with the US, and at the time when Canada decided not to house nuclear weapons in Canada, the United States was not too pleased.
Buy drones instead. They are rapidly making aircraft obsolete.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
If Russia wants a piece of northern Canada, they're taking it, 65 jets or no. The US presence there might keep them away, but otherwise Canada isn't winning any wars.
That's not really the point. Having advanced weaponry also allows Canada to have the ability project their force and affect peacekeeping missions or global security.
If they were worried about Russia invading, they would develop nuclear weapons. Fortunately, Canada is under the nuclear umbrella of the US and does not need to do this. Much like North Korea is under the nuclear umbrella of China.
My opinion, the F-35 will always be in beta. The design and procurement process is fundamentally broken. That being the case, they might as well buy now; it's not gonna get any better.
So, beta as in Slashdot beta as opposed to beta as in Google beta.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Buy drones instead. They are rapidly making aircraft obsolete.
Where do you live? Iran? Drones have a long way to go before they can replace a supersonic air superiority fighter.
But then again, so does the F-35.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If Russia wants a piece of northern Canada, they're taking it, 65 jets or no.
Umm, are you trolling or completely naive about geopolitics? Canada is a NATO member. An attack against one is an attack against all. There are three nuclear armed NATO states, and all three of them share common languages and cultural heritages with Canada. They aren't likely to look kindly upon any attempt to violate her sovereignty.
More to the point, Russia's MO isn't to invade her neighbors. It's to destabilize them, using restless minorities. That strategy works in poor countries with disparate ethic groups that share no common history. It isn't likely to bear fruit if applied to a rich developed country and I doubt that Moscow would try.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Buy drones instead. They are rapidly making aircraft obsolete.
Unfortunately drones aren't quite there yet. This will probably be the last manned fighter purchased by Canada, but we're not quite ready to go drones-only at this point.
That's actually been one of the only really solid objections to this purchase ... it can be persuasively argued that it makes much more sense to try and extend the lifespan of the current CF-18 fleet (or purchase new CF-18s with a much lower price tag than the F-35s) and wait 10-15 years for drone technology to further mature. I'm undecided on the issue. We do need new fighters in the interim, and the F35 is a fantastic piece of technology, but I'm not convinced it's the wisest decision at this point.
I think a lot of people here are misunderstanding what the F-35 is doing and where the 'can't fly' comments are coming from. Basically, your average current F-16 and F/A-18 are still very maneuverable jets. They're relatively light when flown clean and so they are still competitive in this configuration. In order for these planes to go to war effectively, you need to hang a whole pile of mission equipment off of them. IR and laser designator pods, weapons, extra fuel. This makes them heavy, draggy, and slow.
F-35s carry a lot of fuel and all of their mission equipment internally to preserve stealth. It also means it is less heavy, draggy and slow because the jet is aerodynamically clean when it is flown operationally.
For a very narrow suite of missions, this means you are carrying some stuff you don't need. For America, these missions will typically be F-15/F-22 territory. For every other set of missions it is much more efficient than any other strike fighter out there because it won't have as much reliance on external tanks or airborne tankers.
I'm not saying it doesn't have it's problems. It's stealth is only refined in the forward hemisphere. It is expensive and I feel it is forcing countries to adopt smaller fleet sizes to buy it. It does IMO feature design compromises that are forced upon it from being a close to common a tri-service, VTOL capable jet. But, the politicians did that, not the designers.
Buy drones instead. They are rapidly making aircraft obsolete.
Where do you live? Iran? Drones have a long way to go before they can replace a supersonic air superiority fighter.
But then again, so does the F-35.
Fighter Jets became useless 20yrs ago. They're only still around because the current generals running the US military grew up whacking off to topgun.
It is probably better than the crap the Canadians got after scrapping the Avro Arrow. Of course the F35 is very expensive as well... Oh, well...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
I think you are confusing creating a military defence force with a vassal state making a tributary payment.
For those various vassal states like Canada and Australia, that money would be far better spent on turning infantry and armoured units into mechanised combat engineers with full infrastructure building skills. Basically as a part of the extended training doing full trades apprenticeships. Of course you shouldn't let that training go to waste. So when the Federal government sponsors infrastructure spending they send in the combat engineers to do the labour, as they are already paid for and it applies their training honing it in a most useful fashion. Then all the government then has to pay for is materials creating huge savings on infrastructure spending. Of course the military are then useful beyond the service employment and easily go into construction careers. Even that ever demanding corporate US military industrial state should consider making that switch in order to repair it's deteriorating infrastructure.
Seriously, the reality, you want to defend you country, just look at North Korea vs Iraq. Just a handful of nukes is all you need. So forget tributary payments to the US in the form of buying tanks and planes just make your own long range stealth cruise missiles and arm the with nukes. No matter how big that invasion force one or two nukes and they are gone, just like they were never there. Never there being the normal outcome of the threat of tactical nukes.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Sometimes a new thing looks like a disaster for a while, but in the long run proves itself. The M-16 rifle is a tremendously successful design, but there were issues with the first models that made it look like a huge mistake.
So I am watching the F-35 and I am wondering: will this be as big a disaster as the nay-sayers claim, or will this work out in the long run?
I'm guessing it will limp along as a middle-of-the-road thing: not a complete horrible disaster, just a really expensive airplane that doesn't live up to its expectations.
Also, I have read that it is intended that a bunch of F-35s will share data with each other, and help each other detect and deal with threats; but the giant costs of the program have made it much less likely that enough F-35s will fly together at one time for this to work out.
One thing I am certain about: It's a mistake to try to replace the A-10 Warthog with F-35s. I don't even understand how the F-35 is supposed to do the same mission.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/01/a-10-f-35-air-force-budget
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Claiming them is all fun and games. Whats the plan to put troops on them, and how do you intend to deal with the largest navy in the world (Canada's good buddy) dropping by to say hi?
NATO doesnt need to nuke them. It can just plant an aircraft carrier near Greenland, and let that say "No" in lieu of any nukes.
YOU'VE been playing too much Command and Conquer. Russia attacking Canada would be suicide.
Just a handful of nukes is all you need.
North Korea has Seoul in artillery range and a Chinese protector. They didn't need nukes from 1953 through 2009, and they weren't invaded even when it was well-known that they were developing nukes. See also: Iran.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The Russian and Chinese generals must have watched the same movies because both countries are developing and fielding their own new (5th generation) fighters. No one yet is fielding drones or defenses to match the 5th gen manned aircraft. Maybe the drone replacements will work, maybe they will have their own huge development problems.
We do need new fighters in the interim, and the F35 is a fantastic piece of technology, but I'm not convinced it's the wisest decision at this point.
While I'm sure you had other one in your mind, I don't think "because it's a fantastic piece of technology" is the best argument to bring to justify a 9 billion dollar purchase
Elok
Fighter jets became obsolete 54 years ago !! :-(
That's what we were told when the Regressive Preservative Party scrapped the Avro Arrow !!!!
But Canada hos no problem with US nuclear armed ships and aircraft being in Canada.
While it has no more permanently stationed nuclear weapons as of 1984, Canada continues to cooperate with the United States and its nuclear weapons program. Canada allows testing of nuclear weapon delivery systems; nuclear weapon carrying vessels are permitted to visit Canadian ports; and aircraft carrying nuclear warheads are permitted to fly in Canadian airspace with the permission of the Canadian government. There is, however, popular objection to this federal policy. Over 60% of Canadians live in cities or areas designated “Nuclear Weapons Free”, reflecting a contemporary disinclination towards nuclear weapons in Canada. Canada also continues to remain under the NATO 'nuclear umbrella'; even after disarming itself in 1984, Canada has maintained support for nuclear armed nations as doing otherwise would be counter to Canadian NATO commitments.
The cost of these F-35s are 124m/ea. The cost of a previous generation Super Hornet is almost 70m/ea, with older electronics packages and no stealth.
Where you are going from 65->250, I have no idea.
Now, the F-16 is much cheaper and still in use, so maybe you are confusing the F/A-18 with that?
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
I don't care if the F-35 works as planned. It's just another totally corrupt vile thing the Harper government of Canada is doing to lower the nation down to the likes of the USA. (I'm American and I realize we are not #1 at anything. except perhaps the number of literate creationists and global warming deniers.)
Canada could have spent all that $$$$ on robotics and then they could lead the world in the field... plus they could hire China to make a million dumb drones then put in their robotic brains... then maybe we'd have many good robots to battle against Skynet when the USA eventually builds it (which will be tiny because it'll cost 1000x what a robotic overlord should.)
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The population of Canada is 35,105,000 people according to a google search.
Canada's planned purchase is the 6th-largest by a country and would further safeguard the $399 billion program.
If that "program" were instead just given to the people (it's their money after all), they'd *EACH* have $11,365 or basically a free car.
Imagine how much the country would change if every single person's tax dollars provided a voucher for $11,365 off of a vehicle purchase.
Talk about world change......
Yes but technically Russia would have to go through the United States ticket to Canada, so the US would probably be on top of any incursion before got to Canada.
Where do you live? Iran? Drones have a long way to go before they can replace a supersonic air superiority fighter.
Let's see what happens when the fighter is swarmed by dozens of them. Paging Van Riper...
So let me see if I get what you're trying to say. Russia, the single largest country in the world, that has exactly one problem with oil and other resources - it lacks people and investment to actually get those resources out of the ground will care about Canadian resources enough to go and grab them? The Russia that sold Alaska to US because it simply could not use its resources and needed investment just to put what it has on the Eurasian continent to some use?
I'm not sure how many hits to the head it takes to be that stupid, but it must be quite a lot.
Don't buy peacetime designs - they are never great. The urgency of war forces designers and engineers to act quickly, with well-defined briefs and no extraneous "nice to have"s; peacetime designs are the opposite - bloated, every Tom Dick and Harry involved wants his pet add-on, and no pressure to get it out the door.
All the great military aircraft ever built have been produced in wartime for the jobs needed doing right then. And I include Vietnam and the Cold War among them. The post-soviet skirmished the west has got involved in don't seem to need fighter planes at all, and in the meantime, the bloated F-35 slithers along, as unpopular as Jabba the Hut.
It is best to look at this as an economic stimulus for Ontario. The $9B price tag is for the whole package, including the new air force bases, repair facilities, training facilities, spares production, and so on, over the next ten years. An existing programme such as the CF18 will always seem cheaper, since a lot of that already exists. Ontario's economy is in the gutter and they need something to get them going again. It is a Federal way to force Alberta to bail out Ontario, without stepping up the transfer payments.
The actual planes are not particularly useful at defending Canada against the occasional rogue polar bear or dead bloated whale...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It's like the old WWII joke: "Vun German panzer can beat 5 American panzers." "Ja wohl... but ze Americans sent 6!"
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Canada probably has a few bomb kits stashed away somewhere deep down, but nuclear weapons are obsolete. Precision guided bombs are far more useful and cost effective.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
You don't really need to fight in the far north. All you need to do, is keep warm and wait for the other guys to starve and freeze. Both Russia and Canada know that very well.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Ah... so many errors.... Where do I begin?
a)
Sweden and Finland has nuclear reactors. Neither has nuclear weapons.
c)
I would hardly say that Russia has fixed anything. Just recently they invaded the Ukraine.
d)
See above. What in that event was rescuing?
e)
Very true! And it goes both ways......
f)
True as well! But that doesn't mean that there is no blame on Russia. (Well, I do mean the government, not all the people)
Buy drones instead. They are rapidly making aircraft obsolete.
Not to be pedantic, but drones are aircraft.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Russia has never invaded Western Europe or North America. It is always the other way around. Russia is an ally, not an enemy. Go and read your neglected high school history books. They are Slavs and they take care of other Slavs, whether the other Slavs like it or not...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
There isn't anything fantastic about the technology in the F35, especially not for the price, but not even when ignoring the economical aspect.
Modern block designs of F16 and F/A18 have comparable avionics to the F35. The Silent Eagle F15 is just as good at avoiding enemy aircraft radar as the F35, and there is no reason the same technology could not be applied to F/A18's except lack of demand.
There is nothing wise about the F35 except throwing a bone to the US government. Which of course is a big part of any decision to buy fighter aircraft.
No-one is willing to risk using drones that could be interfered with by the enemy over manned aircraft. If the drone needs a data link to a remote pilot it can be jammed or taken over and turned around. If it is autonomous it still has to rely on things like GPS or other navigation aids, and is vulnerable to all kinds of attacks from the air and ground. Drones don't have enough intelligence deal with what a technologically advanced enemy can throw at them yet. Even the Taliban are developing some effective techniques to counter them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Canada's number one rival in the North isn't Russia. It's another country called the USA. There is a conflict over a part of the sea near the boundary between Alaska and Yukon. Canada's number two rival isn't Russia either. It's Denmark. Canada and Denmark both claim a tiny island which is on the border between the two countries. Russia does not claim any territory claimed by Canada.
Fighter Jets became useless 20yrs ago. They're only still around because the current generals running the US military grew up whacking off to topgun.
That's a common misunderstanding. A fighter jet is not an offensive weapon. It doesn't serve to win the war. It serves to dominate the skies so that the rest (ground troops, bombers, helicopters, battle ships...) win the war.
So... does having a good fighter jet make you win the war? No. But not having them sure as hell makes you loosing it!
Without the protection of the jets any tank, ground operation, battle ship can be jumped at any time by an enemy jet and turned to ash.
Which brings us neatly to the F-35: it is meant and conceived as a stealth bomber but not as an air dominance fighter. So will it enable the US and it's allies to dominate the skies? For me that is the real question.
US military bases in Canadian territory? That would be news to me and, I suspect, to our government and military. There are certainly joint exercises here, and US military personnel working with Canadians, and occasional visits by US ships and planes, but no permanent facilities.
Im not sure what world you live in where our response to Russia destroying a $5 billion military asset would be to quietly retreat.
Im also not sure what world you live in where they have the capability to destroy one of our carriers. We have 10 carriers and 62 destroyers. Russia has 1 carrier and 13 destroyers. We could go into nuclear weaponry but I dont think Russia is that dumb, even in a scenario where they decide to attack northern Canada.
As a Slav I would like to request Russia to stop taking care of other Slavs.
$8B Jet Purchase / 35M People = $228.57/Person
I agree that the costs are out of proportion to what Canada should be spending, but it's no where near the number you suggest.
Maybe you can provide a bicycle voucher instead of a car voucher. :)
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Like they "took care" of Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Chechens, Tatars, Hungarians, Germans, Poles, lots of other people who weren't slavs but weren't liked by Stalin. Millions of them ended up dead in Siberia.
Be glad that Russia never reached as far as Western Europe. Not for the lack of trying though... They planned to "bring the communism to Europe on the tips of bayonets" since 1920s, but their hands were too short. Oh, and then there was this guy Hitler who got 20 million of them killed... And then there were nukes.
I agree, do go and read some history books
--Coder