BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

The familiar Boeing 707 A comment on my last post got me thinking...  "Just what constitutes an 'all new' aircraft design?" When it comes down to it, an aircraft's purpose dictates its shape.  Passenger airliners are all designed with efficiency in mind.  This leads to the almost identical shape of a long tube for carrying passengers in pressurized comfort, swept wings to provide a quick cruising speed, and engines mounted in nacelles for easy maintenance.  This general shape originated on the first really successful airliner, the Boeing 707, first flown almost 60 years ago. Different sizes, but familiar design.  Airbus A380 (top) and Embraer E-170 While over 50 years of development has brought us new construction techniques, new engine technology, and new materials, modern airliners still resemble the classic 707.  They might be of a different size, with fewer engines, but the layout is still pretty much the same, whether it's a massive 5...

the CF-18 Hornet really the best aircraft for Canada over the last 30-odd years?  It's hard to imagine the RCAF without it, but the F/A-18 might not have been the best choice at the time.  The truth is that the F/A-18 was merely the "last fighter standing" after several others were dismissed as being unsuitable or too expensive.  Looking back one wonders how things might  have been. Canada's "new fighter aircraft" (NFA) was developed to find a single airframe to replace both the CF-101B used for interceptor duties and the CF-104 used for ground attack (despite the F-104's intended use as an interceptor) and nuclear deterrence in Western Europe.  138 aircraft were planned, with provisions to order more if needed.  Plans to replace the CF-116 (CF-5) Freedom Fighter with the same aircraft was postponed indefinitely. Panavia Tornados in CFB Goose Bay. In 1965, Canada had joined up with Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands to ...