Canada's new fighter jets thread v2.0

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

^^^ So with that said, what would it cost to just build our own?

*I'm sure we don't have anything in development, so a crapton but humor me.

Well lets see, we don't have an existing fighter aerospace industry, we don't have a design in place, most of the good military aero engineers aren't in this country, we don't have the procurement in place for the exotic parts.

It would probably take 10 to 15 years to just go from concept to drawing board to do a limited production run of 60 planes. It would probably cost a billion dollars to build and subsidize the industry. So we would probably have a sticker cost of about 160 million per plane. On top of that the argument of building for export wouldn't carry water since we would be squashed by the major european and American Military aircraft manufacturers.

The day and age of Canada self building military fighters is over and dead.

We'd have better luck in building and exporting naval ships or armored personal carriers or even transport planes.

Just as an addon the Avro Arrow had a per plane estimated cost of 12,500,000 in 1959. Using a inflation calculation that plane would be costed at about 100,000,000 per plane today.

[Bindair Dundat]

The first thing we need from our NFA ("New Fighter Aircraft"; this will ring a bell to the old timers around here!) is the ability to operate with the USAF's existing (and evolving)
NORAD infrastructure.
This is looked upon as a given. In this regard, there is only one "fly away" machine that will be able to "talk" to the F-22's, the AWACS, and to Colorado Springs...and that is the
F-35. Canada has spent about $2.5 B upgrading our low time CF-18A's, so as to be able to operate effectively in this environment; this is seen as a "stop-gap" maneuver in light of
the delays with the replacement aircraft that we are going to buy.

It's not even practical to think about another machine for this role. Mods to any of the "Euro-stuff" would end up costing us way more in the long run when you look at the lifetime
of the service we are expecting from this acquisition.

What we REALLY NEED is to cut the F-35 purchase down to 50 aircraft (with support and "purchase options" (attrition replacements) and buy a small fleet of KAI's TA-50
Golden Eagles to serve as both a low cost proficiency trainer (cheap hours for the guys in the 35's) and as a light-weight "mud mover", if we are called into another
"irregular warfare" situation where you don't want to deploy F-35's to the theatre but still want/need to have an air presence.

This would be the best of both worlds for us although it opens up the spectre of two different machines... with two different roles to play.
Given the situation we face, this will always be the case due to our association with the NORAD agreement.
Look back to the late '70's and the manner in which we dealt with the varied taskings. A fleet for Norad (CF-101B/F's) and a fleet of "Mud Movers" (CF104's); PLUS a fleet of
"econo jets" (CF-116A/D) that could eat up the hours required to train pilots for both of these roles.
What we should have done is pushed HARD for a small fleet of F-22's, back when they were still in production. The US would have sold them to us and the $2.5B we spent on
the Hornet upgrades could have been applied to offset the cost.
NORAD is set with 45-50 of these. And NOW we have options.
I.E.:? Take the "best" 40-50 CF-18A's and dump the money into them for avionics and a new seat. Sell the rest of the viable ones off to some third world warlord that want's
to impress his enemies and use that money to support funding for the upgrades to the ones we're going to keep.
It's all water under the bridge at this point anyways, but my primary point is?

No matter how "sexy" those Euro's look?

They are unsuitable for our airforce's requirements due to the avionics/weapons suite requirements we need for the above noted "interoperability" .

[Hack&Lube]

I think that the age of jet fighters is over and we don't need a large fleet of them.

I think Canada should buy a fleet of good AWACs planes, and develop a good drone industry for ourselves and export. That's orders of magnitude cheaper than building 4th/5th generation jets and probably much more cost-effective for patrolling our borders. I think we even have pilot shortage right now. It also takes advantage of Canada's smaller scale but high quality engineering and robotics industries. We've got two generations of kids raised on video games. Drones are the future.

We can have a wide drone spread (more fuel efficient, easier to repair/replace, longer range, more maneuverable without human limitations, etc.) and a smaller number of AWACs in the sky with a greatly reduced number of jets for escort.

[Bindair Dundat]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I think that the age of jet fighters is over and we don't need a large fleet of them.

I think Canada should buy a fleet of good AWACs planes, and develop a good drone industry for ourselves and export. That's orders of magnitude cheaper than building 4th/5th generation jets and probably much more cost-effective for patrolling our borders. I think we even have pilot shortage right now. It also takes advantage of Canada's smaller scale but high quality engineering and robotics industries. We've got two generations of kids raised on video games. Drones are the future.

We can have a wide drone spread (more fuel efficient, easier to repair/replace, longer range, more maneuverable without human limitations, etc.) and a smaller number of AWACs in the sky with a greatly reduced number of jets for escort.

The NORAD mission cannot be properly fulfilled by a drone;
that is the short and simpler answer.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Bindair Dundat

The NORAD mission cannot be properly fulfilled by a drone;
that is the short and simpler answer.

I know nothing about this but I still think it's cool... What's the NORAD mission? Sorry to be a noob about this.

[Badgers Nose]

Mirages or Viggens in Canada?

When I was a kid this would have given me a woody!

[Julio]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

I know nothing about this but I still think it's cool... What's the NORAD mission? Sorry to be a noob about this.

Protect North American airspace from incursions, traditionally From the USSR/Russia

[Badgers Nose]

Cpt Crunch is right:

We don't have world class carbon manufacturing. Even the carbon bicycles produced by CDN companies are outsourced to Taiwan and China.

We don't have world class Ti manufacturing.

All the avionics and systems would be imported too.

The design and math is something CDN science could not do either. Modern fly by wire planes require serious math, the computers act like an abstraction layer between pilot and the control surfaces. Without that 'layer' the planes would be unpilotable.

And then there are the weapon systems...

It would be easier to sketch it out and send it to the xerox factories on china to produce. Maybe Canada should just send Shenyang a photo of the F35 and haggle them down to the price of a Super Hornet. LOL

Or Canada should just put its eggs into remote and AI piloted drones - i.e. the future.

This has applications for space too.

[Badgers Nose]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I think that the age of jet fighters is over and we don't need a large fleet of them.

I think Canada should buy a fleet of good AWACs planes, and develop a good drone industry for ourselves and export. That's orders of magnitude cheaper than building 4th/5th generation jets and probably much more cost-effective for patrolling our borders. I think we even have pilot shortage right now. It also takes advantage of Canada's smaller scale but high quality engineering and robotics industries. We've got two generations of kids raised on video games. Drones are the future.

We can have a wide drone spread (more fuel efficient, easier to repair/replace, longer range, more maneuverable without human limitations, etc.) and a smaller number of AWACs in the sky with a greatly reduced number of jets for escort.

This.

We are 10 years away from $1 million drones that will have 100% kill rates and which you will be able to ram into $45 million dollar jets killing extremely valuable pilots.

If you lose a drone, a remote pilot could take over a second wave drone already scrambled and on-route in a second. Likewise when munitions are spent (because AI will get you to/from the battlefield).

Modern warfare is leaving ancient minds like ours behind.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I think that the age of jet fighters is over and we don't need a large fleet of them.

I think Canada should buy a fleet of good AWACs planes, and develop a good drone industry for ourselves and export. That's orders of magnitude cheaper than building 4th/5th generation jets and probably much more cost-effective for patrolling our borders. I think we even have pilot shortage right now. It also takes advantage of Canada's smaller scale but high quality engineering and robotics industries. We've got two generations of kids raised on video games. Drones are the future.

We can have a wide drone spread (more fuel efficient, easier to repair/replace, longer range, more maneuverable without human limitations, etc.) and a smaller number of AWACs in the sky with a greatly reduced number of jets for escort.

I don't believe that this is a viable solution.

1) If you look at what the Chinese and other powers like America and Russia are concentrating on its communications disruption and hacking command and control systems. You could knock out an airforce of Drones simply with next generation jamming or destroying the source.

2) I'm not convinced that an AI will outfly a human being, a computer can react quickly and you could probably store all of the minds of the past 100 years of combat flight into a chip and a human will still eventually beat it due to the unpredictable nature of the human mind.

3) I talked to a gentleman who used to fly drones for a living. He even said that air to air combat in a fast environment is unrealistic. While a human controlled plane can react in an instant and has superior situational awareness. A drone pilot is basically stick wait 2 minutes for the turn or punch in pre determined course changes.

4) You can argue that drones are good for air to ground, however I would argue that drones have failed in air to ground due to incidences where again you don't have situational awareness and you have distance control. While you do have a incidences with a human controlled fighter bomber at least you have the ability to instantly evaluate the situation in theatre.

5) I don't know if I would really trust a pilot or a computer a few thousand miles away for close air support if I'm an infantry trooper in a hairy situation.

The only way that I would think that a drone would work in an air to air situation is if you had a hyper computer with all pilot knowledge from the last 100 years, combined with an ability to think creatively and go off track.

Maybe down the road.

Drones work well against third world countries, I have my doubts that they would work well against a modern military that prepared to face drones.

Even reading up on the C-47b stealth naval drone prototype, they have fears of data assurance and its survivability in a modern combat zone. Its designed to work in conjunction with modern fighter more as a scout component that can utilize the data links with the f35 and f22 and not to work as a stand alone air to air component.

I mean the movies show drones as these amazing things. Look at the A-Team when they have these drones in air to air mode. The technology isn't there yet.

I would also bet because of the next gen crash programs in the US (f35) Russia (su-T50) India (AMCA) and China (j31) these nations are more comfortable with drones and unmanned combat vehicles as secondary and dedicated intelligence gathering ground suppression options and not their primary air strategy.

[speede5]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Well lets see, we don't have an existing fighter aerospace industry, we don't have a design in place, most of the good military aero engineers aren't in this country, we don't have the procurement in place for the exotic parts.

It would probably take 10 to 15 years to just go from concept to drawing board to do a limited production run of 60 planes. It would probably cost a billion dollars to build and subsidize the industry. So we would probably have a sticker cost of about 160 million per plane. On top of that the argument of building for export wouldn't carry water since we would be squashed by the major european and American Military aircraft manufacturers.

The day and age of Canada self building military fighters is over and dead.

We'd have better luck in building and exporting naval ships or armored personal carriers or even transport planes.

Just as an addon the Avro Arrow had a per plane estimated cost of 12,500,000 in 1959. Using a inflation calculation that plane would be costed at about 100,000,000 per plane today.

What he said^

I do think there is potential for us to assemble in Canada, you really don't need special assembly lines to build an aircraft, and it could have been a condition of sale, however it is easier for them to offset that in like trade. We are in no position to design and build, and unfortunately it's not an industry that is worth pursuing.

[speede5]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

All that and why would be buy from our enemy?

I was only comenting on the hypothetical. Allies and Enemies change all the time. After all, we are training German pilots right here in Moose Jaw.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by speede5

I was only comenting on the hypothetical. Allies and Enemies change all the time. After all, we are training German pilots right here in Moose Jaw.

I only had half my tongue in my cheek........

Agreed thou you can't trust those Germans either.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't believe that this is a viable solution.

1) If you look at what the Chinese and other powers like America and Russia are concentrating on its communications disruption and hacking command and control systems. You could knock out an airforce of Drones simply with next generation jamming or destroying the source.

2) I'm not convinced that an AI will outfly a human being, a computer can react quickly and you could probably store all of the minds of the past 100 years of combat flight into a chip and a human will still eventually beat it due to the unpredictable nature of the human mind.

3) I talked to a gentleman who used to fly drones for a living. He even said that air to air combat in a fast environment is unrealistic. While a human controlled plane can react in an instant and has superior situational awareness. A drone pilot is basically stick wait 2 minutes for the turn or punch in pre determined course changes.

4) You can argue that drones are good for air to ground, however I would argue that drones have failed in air to ground due to incidences where again you don't have situational awareness and you have distance control. While you do have a incidences with a human controlled fighter bomber at least you have the ability to instantly evaluate the situation in theatre.

5) I don't know if I would really trust a pilot or a computer a few thousand miles away for close air support if I'm an infantry trooper in a hairy situation.

The only way that I would think that a drone would work in an air to air situation is if you had a hyper computer with all pilot knowledge from the last 100 years, combined with an ability to think creatively and go off track.

Maybe down the road.

Drones work well against third world countries, I have my doubts that they would work well against a modern military that prepared to face drones.

Even reading up on the C-47b stealth naval drone prototype, they have fears of data assurance and its survivability in a modern combat zone. Its designed to work in conjunction with modern fighter more as a scout component that can utilize the data links with the f35 and f22 and not to work as a stand alone air to air component.

I mean the movies show drones as these amazing things. Look at the A-Team when they have these drones in air to air mode. The technology isn't there yet.

I would also bet because of the next gen crash programs in the US (f35) Russia (su-T50) India (AMCA) and China (j31) these nations are more comfortable with drones and unmanned combat vehicles as secondary and dedicated intelligence gathering ground suppression options and not their primary air strategy.

I think Drones would be nice in the Arctic as Canada's Mall Cop, observe and report. At which point Fighters can be scrambled.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by nik-

I think Drones would be nice in the Arctic as Canada's Mall Cop, observe and report. At which point Fighters can be scrambled.

Yeah, I get what your saying with that, but I would argue that drones wouldn't be the best use for that since they're limited to patrol areas.

Undersea sonar and personally submarine surveillance combined with radar pickets and satellite intelligence would be the best way to information gather and gain intentions.

If the enemy has troops on the ground and you know where they are then drones work great for counting boots and weapons.

I don't know how good a drone would work against an aircraft breaking into your airspace.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The only way that I would think that a drone would work in an air to air situation is if you had a hyper computer with all pilot knowledge from the last 100 years, combined with an ability to think creatively and go off track..

If I can afford to put 10 drones into the air for every 1 jet pilot you can field, it doesn't matter how much better the pilot is at fighting air-to-air. You don't need to be as good, you only need to be good enough. Further, a drone can do acrobatics that no pilot could ever do, because the limitations of the human body are no longer an issue.

Ten years from now, air-to-air will be dominated by the nation with the best drones and support planes. Already air-to-air combat is determined more by who can see the other first with superior electronics, and who has the weaponry to strike from further away rather than pilot skill, and it's been that way for decades now. This is just the obvious next step.

[speede5]

Air to air combat hardly resembles what was happening in previous wars. With the range and acuracy of missiles these days you rarely make visual with your target. That's why stealth and tech are so important in this selection.

Our 18's have been used as bombers way more than they have been used for a2a.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by speede5

I was only comenting on the hypothetical. Allies and Enemies change all the time. After all, we are training German pilots right here in Moose Jaw.

True enough, geopolitics shift. But with the Russians and especially under Putin they are spending a ton of money on upgrading their naval forces and frontal naval aviation forces.

The Russians are bringing their new class of Borei ballistic missile boats on line which is a bit frightening because it might actually have an edge in quieting over their former classes and be able to evade the American SSN's. This class of subs named the black hole class by the U.S. navy is incredibly quiet can dive to 1200 meters and can launch up to 20 long range cruise missiles.

the Russian's have also launched the Sevordvinsk SSN class of boat which is a generational leap forward in Russian sub technology, which takes the best of the very good Akula boat and marries it to advanced quieting newer sonar and computer technology and a deep diving capable hub. This boat is possibly more capable then the American 688i class that the American's still lean on. That's a frightening prospect for the U.S. navy that has had a wide technology edge til now.

the American's were really hoping for more Seawolf subs then the three that they got, the less capable but still very good Virginia Class boat is the expected replacement for that, but the American's really don't have the next generation design of boats happening until 2025.

On the aviation side the Russian's have been doing a upgrade on their naval bomber side replacing the venerable Bear and Backfire with the TU-160 Blackjack. A very good bomber based on a bigger version of the B-1B bomber.

The Russians are also working on the PAK DA a next generation strategic bomber that is rumored to be built around what the Russian's are calling hypersonic weapons systems.

These are expected to start coming on line in 2019. will have extreme range and be able to carry 120,000 kg of weapons.

The Soviet Navy is also becoming more aggressive and moving away from being considered a coastal defense force and into being a blue water navy the new Gorshkov class frigate which replaces the terrible Krivak class frigate is the first multirole frigate that the Russians have designed in a long time capable of ASW, AAW and long strike capability.

While I am not saying there will be war, the Canadian's and Russians are at odds over the arctic resource areas and the Russians are developing their military strategy around protecting their interests.

When you build submaries and cold weather long range naval bombers while dropping sonar bouys into the arctic water your goal is simple, its denial of area.

Militarily the Russians are as close to a enemy of ours as it can get. While you could class diplomatic relations between Russia on one side and Canada and the U.S. on the other as cold but corrrect.

And Putin is not the type to negotiate.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by jammies

If I can afford to put 10 drones into the air for every 1 jet pilot you can field, it doesn't matter how much better the pilot is at fighting air-to-air. You don't need to be as good, you only need to be good enough. Further, a drone can do acrobatics that no pilot could ever do, because the limitations of the human body are no longer an issue.

Ten years from now, air-to-air will be dominated by the nation with the best drones and support planes. Already air-to-air combat is determined more by who can see the other first with superior electronics, and who has the weaponry to strike from further away rather than pilot skill, and it's been that way for decades now. This is just the obvious next step.

I don't agree with your viewpoint on this. and we'll probably have to leave it at that. Acrobatic ability is great and looks pretty, but the human pilot is capable of being unpredictable.

Missile technology is great but not perfect and you have to be able to lock on first.

Also with a lot of the focus being on denial of communication, there a risk that I can drop your 10 drones out of the sky by pushing the enter button on a keyboard. Its one of the biggest worries in the American military right now and why they don't see Drones as a viable air defense strategy.

Plus maneuverability doesn't matter as much in the missile age since a missile is just a drone.

I don't buy that drones are the next immediate natural progression for air forces as a primary weapons bed. That day might come but not for another generation or 2

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by speede5

Air to air combat hardly resembles what was happening in previous wars. With the range and acuracy of missiles these days you rarely make visual with your target. That's why stealth and tech are so important in this selection.

Our 18's have been used as bombers way more than they have been used for a2a.

to add on that's why interoperability has become huge and the concept of the glass top battle field is the one of the key focuses of modern military technology.

If I know everything that's happening on the battlefield over thousands of miles due to datalinks it aids the decision making process and makes everyone aware.