Thats my one big problem with the whole thing. However I temper it with the fact that this is a whole new type of plane, designed basically by computers using completely different materials and far far more sophisticated software.
They were also too ambitious in making or designing three different vairants at one time.
To me LM is going to run into a major problem with the spiraling costs, they're either going to have to accept far fewer orders, or they're going to have to create an incentive for all of the buyers to be patient (monetary)
However I firmly believe that the Canadian Government and the Military can't repeat the mistakes in the past where we become completely cost focused. Especially when you consider that with the F35 the plan was to buy a superior aircraft for a shrinking airforce.
When we bought the F18's iirc the idea was to have an airforce of up to 100 aircraft. Now the idea is to have an aircraft of about 64 aircraft.
We also don't need to buy equipment at the start of their obsolences cycle, we need to buy something that we're sure is going to remain cutting edge enough so we don't get left behind due to the technological juimp forwards that are going to happen in the next 30 years.
The Chinese allegations is disturbing, they've certainly taken hacking and cyber intelligence gathering to the next level.
I don't think that there's any argument about where the Japanese got their ideas from for their fifth generation fighter
The J20 vs
The F22
