Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
Getting off-topic here...
I heard the pilot who ejected at Lethbridge a few weeks interviewed on the radio this week. He claimed Canada's fleet of CF-18s have all recently been through a modernization upgrade program and spoke very highly of their capabilities. That's not to say we can keep using them forever, but they're hardly past their "best before date" in the same way as our Sea Kings.
Are they a match for the most modern American (F-22) or Russian (PAK FA) fighters? Of course not, but they're certainly capable of facing any threats Canada could conceivably encounter in the short-medium term.
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That was the same argument the Liberals made when they canceled the original MHP contract in 1993.
Because of Chrétien's stubbornness, it took until Paul Martin became the PM before there was any real movement on replacing the SeaKings. The new MHP contract was eventually signed in 2004, and the first delivery is expected to come in November, with final delivery in 2012.
That's a 20 year delay from when the original contract to replace the SeaKings was signed.
Canada isn't scheduled to take delivery of the new f-35s until 2016, and military contracts don't always deliver on schedule (the first of the new Sikorsky helicopters were supposed to be delivered in 2009, for example). Even under the best-case scenario, the CF-18s are going to still be in service for the better part of another decade.
If the Liberals come to power and follow through on their threats to do to the new fighter jet contract what they did to the MHP contract, who knows how long we'll be struggling to keep the CF-18s in the air.