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Originally Posted by btimbit
I actually have to give the liberals credit for this one. They said they wouldn't buy them, held an open competition, then were willing to admit they were wrong when they won the competition.
Delaying also meant we're getting much upgraded planes than if we bought them 7 years ago. That's more of an accidental benefit but I'll count it
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The open competition was pretty laughable actually.
They didn't change any of the requirements that came from the Conservative study.
Dassault pulled out early with the Rafale because they knew the Rafale couldn't meet the five eyes interoperability requirements.
Boeing was bounced because of conflicts between the Government and Boeing and the Super Hornet wouldn't have a long lifespan.
The JAS 39E is a nice fighter, but in a side by side comparison of a 4th generation fighter to a 5th generation fighter, the sliding costs of the F35. It wasn't going to win.
This was a bunch of years of wasted dollars in time and studies, and it was done because the Liberals viewed this as a spiteful political excercise instead of doing what was right for the CAF. And in the end it cost of billions of dollars that could have been spent elsewhere.
If you look at the history of the Canadian Forces and procurement. The Airforce isn't a big air force so when you but a replacement plane it has to have a long future and a long upgrade path. The F-18's were bought 40 years ago. The expectation is that the F-35s are going to have a similar lifepan.
Though that could change as the first world airforces are rushing in their development of 6th generation air frames. So the whole, but a leading edge aircraft and hope it lasts that long might have to change.
I mean the whole opinion of the mature aircraft argument by the defense minister is a little bit misleading.
There haven't been any generational technology changes to the F-35 since the Cons decided on the F-35. Mainly the changes have been bug squashes. And by the time that we receive our first F-35's there will still be bug squashes happening.
I'm more concerned now about the armed forces having the pilots to man a relatively small air force. We're struggling with that now, just like the struggle to man the new future surface combatants.
I think the Liberals wasted a tremendous amount of time and money on the aircraft replacement.
Now the next battles will be around needed upgrades to the ground forces including air defense, and on the replacement program for the Navy's submarines.