BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

With Airbus officially withdrawing the Eurofighter Typhoon from Canada's Future Fighter Capability Project (FFCP), the next obvious question is:  "What about Saab?" A fair question.  After all, what chance does a scrappy little fighter manufacturer like Saab have when a consortium consisting of aerospace giants Airbus, BAE, and Leonardo  decides that Canada's FFCP is not worth the effort?  With Eurofighter and Dassault now gone, the Gripen is now the sole "Eurocanard" left to compete with the American entries sold by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. How in the world can Saab possibly compete against these heavyweights?  The word "heavyweight" here cannot be stressed enough.  Both Boeing and LockMart enjoy a MASSIVE budgetary and geopolitical advantage over Saab.  Not only that, but their fighters are much larger as well. In this case, both Saab and its fighter's relative size can be used as an advantage. As per the Canadian government...

Block III Super Hornet The Boeing/Bombardier brouhaha can now be delegated to the annals of history.  The C Series is alive and well , thank you very much. After encouraging the Trump administration to impose stiff tariffs on the Canadian-designed airliner, Bombardier fought back with an Airbus partnership .  That partnership would render those tariffs moot by building C Series in the USA.  If that was not enough, the U.S. International Trade Commission unanimously voted to overturn those tariffs .  After suffering that one-two punch, Boeing has decided to drop its case against Bombardier . In its zeal to smother the C Series in its crib, Boeing stepped on toes and made enemies .  First, it raised the ire of the Canadian government.  This resulted in Boeing losing a $6 billion Super Hornet order which otherwise would have been a sure thing.  Not only that, but Boeing also ticked off Great Britain (which builds part of the C Series) and Del...

Brothers from different mothers? For those of you whom have been living under a rock the last 24 hours, Bombardier has now partnered with Airbus in order to save the C-Series. No actual money has exchanged hands, but Airbus now owns 50.01% of the C-Series program.  This gives Airbus controlling interest in the jetliner moving forward.  While this may seem like a blow to Bombardier to see its pride and joy become the property of someone else, this partnership all but assures the future of the C-Series and Bombardier as a whole. Under this new partnership, C-Series headquarters will remain in Montreal and production will continue in Bombardier's Mirabel assembly plant.  Airbus will expand C-Series production by utilizing its pre-existing plant in Mobile, Alabama.  This will allow the C-Series to circumvent the U.S. Department of Commerce's crippling 300% import tariffs.  Airbus will also contribute its considerable marketing and supply chain prowess. ...

It sure doesn't look scary... [Note:  Sorry to dwell on the Boeing/Bombardier dispute instead of jet fighters...  But what is happening with the C-Series will have lasting repercussions to Canada's aerospace industry.  The Federal government's response to cancel its plans for an interim Super Hornet not only shakes up Canada's upcoming fighter competition, it puts the entire thing in a blender.  This point in history will be remembered as a pivotal moment for Canadians, right up there with the cancellation of the Avro Arrow.] Bombardier got hit with another  tariff this past week.  The US Commerce Department imposed an 80% anti-dumping tariff on the CS100.  This is in addition to the 220% "countervailing" tariffs imposed the week before by the same office .  These tariffs come at the behest of Boeing; which accuses Bombardier of both receiving unfair government subsidies and selling the CS100 at below market prices in order to gain ma...

Well...  Shit. The U.S. Department of Commerce sided with Boeing and imposed a whopping 220% tariff on all Bombardier C-Series airliners sold to American-based airlines .  Needless to say that effectively  tripling the cost of the C-Series seriously jeopardizes the plan to sell 125 units to Delta airlines. This was very much a make-or-break moment for the the troubled C-Series.  Delta would have been considered the aircraft's first major sale; encouraging other prospective buyers to get on board. Boeing claimed that Bombardier was "dumping" C-Series airliners on the US market.  The argument was that since Bombardier was the recipient of government assistance during development of the C-Series, it is able to sell the aircraft at below market value. The sheer hypocrisy of all this is mind-blowing.  Boeing, America's largest recipient of corporate welfare  accused Bombardier of an unfair advantage for doing the exact same thing that Boein...

Almost had it... In late 2016, Canada's fighter jet saga seemed to finally be reaching a resolution (at least in the short-term) after Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced that Canada would be purchasing 18 Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets as an "interim" fighter.  These fighters would fill a "capability gap" whilst Canada pursued a permanent CF-18 replacement. The move made sense .  The Super Hornet is readily available, affordable, and similar to our current fleet.  Some questioned that the move would give Boeing an unfair advantage going in to a full competition, but whomever said defence acquisitions were fair?  At the very least, the RCAF would finally have some new fighters. Of course, this being a story of Canadian military procurement, a plot twist was inevitable.  That plot twist came from Canada's own Bombardier. All this over a little airliner... To say Bombardier has a controversial history is an understatement.  At any given ...

Bombardier C-Series:  Savior or a curse? Any Canadian reading the business news lately knows that Bombardier is in trouble . Layoffs, less-than-hoped demand for the C-Series , and requests for bailouts have made headlines for the Canadian aerospace company.  Some of the blame for this is directed at Bombardier's management practices.  Bombardier utilized a two-tiered investment structure, in which shares owned by its two founding families (Bombardier and Beaudoin) are worth far more than shares available to the general public.  Thanks to this, 13% of the shareholders enjoy a 54% of the voting power.  Combined with Bombardier's niche position in the marketplace, investors are likely to think twice . The question is:  Do we let Bombardier fail? Some may be tempted to let natural selection take its course.  "Darwinism" and all that.  Doing so would pretty much devastate Canada's aerospace industry, however.  Canada would still have pl...