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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)."
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.
PRINT ""+-0
Buy drones instead. They are rapidly making aircraft obsolete.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.