Quote:
Originally Posted by schteve_d
Real question, not being sarcastic.
The two fleet sounds like a terrible idea.
Also, I don't think we want to just eat the six billion or so that we already paid. Is it at all realistic to "sublet" our purchase to another country, take a much smaller loss, and move on? Mitigate our losses and sell our current investment to another country that is interested. Not sure who.
Would the US allow that to happen? I guess that depends on who is standing at the front of the line.
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Having two different jets causes an increase in training costs. Canada doesn't have a robust pilot pool to really get max value from a two fleet system either. So they have to spend a ton of money recruiting and training for two different systems.
I don't think for a small force like Canada it's justifiable two try and make two jets work.
Like in a perfect scenario, the U.S cures it's insanity and Canada goes ahead with the entire 88 plane order. Unfortunately, they now have to figure things out in a hurry because they're going to need some big time assurances from the U.S to keep the F-35 the only option for Canada.
Plus I think with Canada trying to diversify more into Europe, grabbing one of their planes is a good olive branch to extend while the U.S breaks ours.
It's not ideal to flip flop on the biggest procurement deal, but this time it's not Canada's fault if they do change up.