Canada plans to buy NEW Fighter Jets - F-35 reported chosen

[Stealth22]

Originally Posted by Azure

If it is truly a stop gap approach, I think its worth it.

Just reading about the state of military procurement in Canada gives me a headache.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I moved from headache to exploding head syndrome a long time ago.

I went through both of the above...now I'm just like...

[btimbit]

Problem is they have a habit of trying to make stopgaps last 2-3 decades

[Locke]

I dont know about this, have we consulted Quebec and the NDP?

I mean, fighter jets are very energy intense to construct and they do consume quite a bit of fuel, do we know what their Carbon footprint is?

Does our Liberal PM know about this? Because these things emit a lot of pollution even during easy training exercises.

And if you think about it, 'training' by flying one these things would be like taking a Hummer out on a leisure cruise, you can do it, but is it really necessary?

Do they come with Energy Saver stickers like my washer and dryer?

And even then, how 'green' are these particular fighters when compared with various other aerial combat craft? Are we buying the right kind of war weaponry that really represents us as Canadians and our environmental values?

Are they flexfuel? Can they burn ethanol blended fuel? Is there not a hybrid Fighter Jet? If not should we not become World Leaders in the Hybrid Fighter Jet market? I feel that we as environmentally conscious Canadians should really consider all of the ramifications about the purchase and use of these massive pollutants.

[White Out 403]

Billions of dollars on fighter jets, because, why?

I mean, clearly our air force was vital in the great invasion of... oh.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Locke

I dont know about this, have we consulted Quebec and the NDP?

I mean, fighter jets are very energy intense to construct and they do consume quite a bit of fuel, do we know what their Carbon footprint is?

Does our Liberal PM know about this? Because these things emit a lot of pollution even during easy training exercises.

And if you think about it, 'training' by flying one these things would be like taking a Hummer out on a leisure cruise, you can do it, but is it really necessary?

Do they come with Energy Saver stickers like my washer and dryer?

And even then, how 'green' are these particular fighters when compared with various other aerial combat craft? Are we buying the right kind of war weaponry that really represents us as Canadians and our environmental values?

Are they flexfuel? Can they burn ethanol blended fuel? Is there not a hybrid Fighter Jet? If not should we not become World Leaders in the Hybrid Fighter Jet market? I feel that we as environmentally conscious Canadians should really consider all of the ramifications about the purchase and use of these massive pollutants.

We should also consider the upstream emissions of the fighter jets. Where are the parts constructed? Are each of those factories carbon neutral? How about the fuel? Are they sourced from local, artisianal, hand crafted, organic sources?

Also have we held public consultations for such a project? Have we acquired the necessary social license for acquiring these fighter jets? I personally believe that in a democratic society, buy-in from every single citizen is required prior to any sort of action.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Locke

I dont know about this, have we consulted Quebec and the NDP?

I mean, fighter jets are very energy intense to construct and they do consume quite a bit of fuel, do we know what their Carbon footprint is?

Does our Liberal PM know about this? Because these things emit a lot of pollution even during easy training exercises.

And if you think about it, 'training' by flying one these things would be like taking a Hummer out on a leisure cruise, you can do it, but is it really necessary?

Do they come with Energy Saver stickers like my washer and dryer?

And even then, how 'green' are these particular fighters when compared with various other aerial combat craft? Are we buying the right kind of war weaponry that really represents us as Canadians and our environmental values?

Are they flexfuel? Can they burn ethanol blended fuel? Is there not a hybrid Fighter Jet? If not should we not become World Leaders in the Hybrid Fighter Jet market? I feel that we as environmentally conscious Canadians should really consider all of the ramifications about the purchase and use of these massive pollutants.

This post is so edgy I'm going to shave with it.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Billions of dollars on fighter jets, because, why?

I mean, clearly our air force was vital in the great invasion of... oh.

Arctic and NATO responsibilities.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Billions of dollars on fighter jets, because, why?

I mean, clearly our air force was vital in the great invasion of... oh.

What a Trumpesque grasp of the world.

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Billions of dollars on fighter jets, because, why?

I mean, clearly our air force was vital in the great invasion of... oh.

To be able to fulfill our long-standing commitments to NORAD/NATO.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Regorium

We should also consider the upstream emissions of the fighter jets. Where are the parts constructed? Are each of those factories carbon neutral? How about the fuel? Are they sourced from local, artisianal, hand crafted, organic sources?

Also have we held public consultations for such a project? Have we acquired the necessary social license for acquiring these fighter jets? I personally believe that in a democratic society, buy-in from every single citizen is required prior to any sort of action.

Agreed, and whats more, where does the purchase of Fighter Jets fit in the LEAP Manifesto? I've been leafing through it but I must have missed it.

Did you realize that most communal agrarian societies dont even have fighter jets?

I was shocked to learn that.

For me though, I dont feel that we should be condoning 'Big Business' profiting off of Government contracts.

I want the Government to assure me that these new fighter jets will be 100% Hand-Made in Canada by Aboriginals using only All-Canadian pieces, parts and materials and that the fuel they consume will be 100% Emission Free Bio-Diesel grown on Canadian Farms

Further, I demand that their armament is guaranteed to not damage or injure any part of any Environment, no damage to the landscape or natural flora and fauna, ideally weapons such as these should only kill people.

[CaptainCrunch]

I figured it out

The Super hornet is bigger, longer and thicker then the normal F-18, I knew that Justin was jealous of Stephen Harper's rugged manliness, so he wants to whip out a bigger hornet then the former PM.

[automaton 3]

Originally Posted by btimbit

Problem is they have a habit of trying to make stopgaps last 2-3 decades

This is the problem I see. Hopefully we will try to model what the Australians have done - Super Hornets and Growlers to supplement their classic Hornets, plus an eventual F-35 buy (or F/A-XX buy for that matter).

[underGRADFlame]

Maybe with this "temporary" solution the snow birds will get upgraded to CF-18's.

[Fuzz]

I'm OK with this. Given the teething problems of the F-35 it could be a decade before we have a functioning fleet of them. This helps us much sooner. It's a platform that actually works, and flies right now. Could we end up with them 20 or 30 years down the road? A good chance. But maybe we go with those and a handful of F-35 to supplement when the price is more reasonable.

The point is, the F-18's are dying and the F-35 is still along way of from being a reliable go-to aircraft. We need to do something. And probably should have 5 years ago when the F-35 problems first started to surface.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I'm OK with this. Given the teething problems of the F-35 it could be a decade before we have a functioning fleet of them. This helps us much sooner. It's a platform that actually works, and flies right now. Could we end up with them 20 or 30 years down the road? A good chance. But maybe we go with those and a handful of F-35 to supplement when the price is more reasonable.

The point is, the F-18's are dying and the F-35 is still along way of from being a reliable go-to aircraft. We need to do something. And probably should have 5 years ago when the F-35 problems first started to surface.

A mixed fighter force of F-35's and F/A-18 Super Hornets makes no real sense for an airforce of our size, that's why the F-35 is such an elegant solution, especially in the guise of a shrinking airforce going from 130 to 80 to 60 fighters.

It becomes really expensive to maintain two different planes and their logistical requirements and two different pilot pools when you basically have 4 to 5 squadrons across country.

I firmly believe that the Cons were on the right track. You invest in less planes, but you spend a lot more per plane and get an absolute leading edge platform that you can have an extended life span on.

If you do the math from the original purchases of the CF-18's to the F-35 the original dollar figures are a pretty close match when you adjust the dollars spent on the F-18's to today's buck.

But the capabilities of the F-35 compared to the F-18's are astronomical. On top of that going to the single engine of the F-25 and ease of engine pulling and replacements for example have a massive effect on long term costs and stores.

The wrinkle in the plan though is that the F-35 has some significant problems, however people are also confusing F-35's when talking about problems. The engine problems in the F-35B don't relate to the CF-35, some of the avionics and flight issues of the F-35C don't relate to the CF-35 for example.

So when people were talking about the problems with lightning strikes and fuel tank problems. The F-35B had those problems due to a fuel tank redesign, but those problems don't carry across the the A or C of CF-35's for example. The F-35B also had significant problems in terms of flight controls, however these problems aren't common in the A or C or CF-35's.

The helmet display issue is previlant on the F-35C but not the other models from what I've seen.

But at the backbone of the problems list is the software that runs the plane, and that's where the common issues lie with this model.

The ALIS software is supposed to monitor the plane to help the pilot interpret the health of the craft and also alert ground crews and flight ops as well, this piece of software is ummm problematic at best and misrepresents the aircrafts health.

The block 2b software that allows the fighter to fight is way behind schedule and affects the ability to deliver weapons accurately and fight the aircraft.

The biggest concern though is the interoperability software that creates the superior situational awareness of the F-35, its biggest advantage over other fighters. It basically not only allows the pilot to operate as if he wasn't surrounded by an aircraft but gives him a 360 degree long range battlefield awareness, but the real prize which is sharing that information out is far from working, without that working, this becomes just an individual aircraft.

This ability was one of the biggest reasons why Canada was fired up to buy the F-35, and is especially important to the future of a 60 plane fleet.

So Canada has a choice, which is to stop gap, fully replace the dying Cf-18 fleet with the super hornet which is a end of life fighter, and nurse maid things through for 10 to 15 years and revisit something like the F-35 then.

Or buy something more permanent but inferior to the vision of a small data linked airforce and find yourself at the bottom of the technology ladder as other airforces leap ahead into 5th and 6th generation fighters?

[Fuzz]

As a small country(air force wise) I'm not sure we NEED to be on the bleeding edge. What is the last honest assessment of when we could have our fleet of F-35's fully delivered, operational, and not grounded by software bugs and other issues?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

As a small country(air force wise) I'm not sure we NEED to be on the bleeding edge. What is the last honest assessment of when we could have our fleet of F-35's fully delivered, operational, and not grounded by software bugs and other issues?

To me when you have a small airforce, you need bleeding edge planes that have a effective edge on the battlefield because every loss is huge and so is every successful kill or ground attack in support of troops.

The F-35's interoperability and ability to sucker punch the enemy to me is huge. If the F-35 does get functional it has a massive force multiplier that other planes don't have and technology wise would only be surpassed by 4 or 5 planes in the world, most of those that are still on the drawing board and not in production.

If for example and I'm not sure that its a great example you had a small army of 50 men facing a large army, wouldn't you want your 50 men to be equipt exceptionally well and have a higher survivability rate.

In other words I would want my army to be armed with high rate of fire super accurate machine guns and artillery when I'm going up against a large army armed with flintlock rifles.

[Fuzz]

When was the last time a Canadian jet was shot down? Aren't they far more likely to go down through pilot error or a technical failure?

An idea on an ETA for delivery as per my other comment?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

When was the last time a Canadian jet was shot down? Aren't they far more likely to go down through pilot error or a technical failure?

An idea on an ETA for delivery as per my other comment?

We've been more then fortunate in terms of shootdowns and taking fire, but that's because we've been mainly doing air to ground against groups like ISIS or in other areas, but we don't know when that is going to change. The Russians had command of the air in Afghanistan and look how quickly that changed.

In terms of things like home defense and arctic sovereignty we have to show an interest and a strategy in terms of the defense of those areas that we claim as ours.

ETA on delivery, right now we're talking probably 2026 now, but that's not in writing, Canada does need to explore other long term strategies and not a bandaid like the Super Hornet, we need a strategy that is longer then a decade because we basically fly the wheels off of our equipment and have a generational concept ie 30 years for fighters or 20 years for armored vehicles or 40 years for in theater weapons systems.

Canada needs to actually start fixing the rust out of the forces and not just delaying it.

We're dealing with peoples lives, we should be spending money on safe guarding them as well.

[firebug]

Still a lot of criticism of the F-35 platform

https://warisboring.com/denmarks-f-3...0ad#.3qv2an967

In other words — everybody else is buying the F-35, so Denmark should, too. But that assumes that everybody else isn’t also making a huge mistake.