BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

For those of you who think the RAAF F-35 purchase is going off rather smoothly, this video proves the contrary. Australian Senator Scott Ludlam asks all the right questions about the F-35:  How much will it cost?  Where is the money to pay for it?  What about the buggy software? Australia's Chief Air Marshall and his cronies dismiss most of his questions, using the usual platitudes like "military development is always late" and "everybody else is buying it".  They use a lot of words like "should be" and "It depends".  Ludlam questions the use of all these vague statements regarding the multibillion dollar fighter acquisition. "We are not here to take stuff for granted" At about 21:00, the Senator gets dismissed by the RAAF staffer with the usual "you are not an expert, what do you know?"  To his credit, Ludlam keeps his cool and simply continues to ask the hard questions. "We will be flying this aircra...

Boeing has been on a bit of a bad luck run lately.  After winning South Korea's F-XIII competition by default, its F-15SE Silent Eagle was unceremoniously booted out of the running for not being stealthy enough. It gets worse. After word got out that the USN might be ordering a 36 more Super Hornets, the Pentagon quickly kiboshed the rumor.   Now it looks like Boeing will have to shut down production of F-18E/F if it doesn't find orders soon. Things don't look promising.  The Super Hornet is being pushed as a likely alternative to the F-35 for Canada's next fighter, but that decision looks like it going to be put off until 2015, at the earliest.  That may be too late to keep the Rhino assembly line open.  It currently only has enough orders to stay open until 2016. What else is there? Australia is a small victory, but they are only ordering few dozen Super Hornets to tide them over until the F-35 is ready. There's Brazil, but they seem to b...