BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

After more than a year of speculation, the Liberal government has announced its plan to replace the RCAF's aging fleet of CF-18 Hornets.  An election promise to walk away from the F-35, combined with promise to hold an open and fair competition meant there was going to be some sort of a shake-up. Things were shaken up even more when Harjit Sajjan, Canada's newly appointed Minister of Defence, announced that the RCAF's current CF-18 fleet was in worse condition then initially thought and that Canada was faced with a " capability gap ". Rumors circulated during the summer that Canada would announce the sole-source procurement of a small number of Super Hornets to be used as an interim solution.  This week, the Federal Government announced exactly that .  Canada will procure 18 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, followed shortly by a full and open fighter competition that will last approximately five years.  Canada will continue to act as a JSF industrial partner duri...

Mmmm...  Fudge. The Pentagon's Director Operational Testing and Evaluation (DOT&E) report was released this week allowing us to take a peek at how well the JSF's testing has been going over the last year. This has been an interesting year for the JSF, to say the least.  While it has been the brunt of much criticism (including mine), the program has seen quite a bit of progress over the last year.  The biggest sigh of relief must have been when two F-35Cs successfully completed carrier landing trials , putting that nasty tailhook  problem to bed. Of course, the elephant in the JSF's room for 2014 was the ill-timed engine fire that put a halt to the F-35's international debut at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) and the Farnborough Air Show after that .  A fix has been devised for engine issue, but flight restrictions were put in place, keeping F-35 test pilots from testing the aircraft's limits. None of this is any surprise to those who h...

From the Flightglobal archive : Click to enlarge. This news clipping from 1979 says a lot about why the F/A-18 was selected over the F-16.  Quite simply, the Hornet came with more attractive offsets and the AIM-7 BVR missile.  Very much a "big deal" back then. Back in those days the F-16 was still very much a short-range, fair-weather day fighter.  It would not become the multirole fighter we know of today until the F-16CD variants were introduced in the mid-eighties.  The F-16s production numbers would not become stratospheric until the Reagan administration relaxed sales restrictions on military hardware , increasing demand for the Viper internationally.

Is one of these a deathtrap? There was a decent crown at the air show today.  It was a beautiful August Saturday, with just the slightest wisps of clouds high up.   "Time to start the show." Captain Buster said to himself as he throttled his trusty CF-18 Hornet demonstrator up and off the tarmac.  Buster had a privilege of following The Snowbirds that day, so he knew he had his work cut out for him.  "No problem." he thought, those 50-year-old CT-114s may have their precision, but the ol' Hornet had raw power on its side.  Captain Buster imagined he could hear the crowd's "Ooohhs!" and "Aahhhs!" over the roar of this after burning GE404 turbofans.  Even after 30 years of service, the Hornet was still an impressive plane.  Its high thrust and high angle-of-attack performance allowed it to perform maneuvers that seemed to contradict the laws of physics.  "Not bad for an old girl..." thought Buster with a smile. ...

Like many of you, I grew up in the shadow of an older sibling.  That older sibling always seemed to be so much better at everything.   Everything just sort of fell in place for him.  High school was a breeze, followed by university, followed by a prestigious and high-paying job. My story was a little different.  I was the awkward kid in high school, flunked out of university, than wandered around from one low-paying job to another until I finally got my act together.  By the time I did, by older brother was already living in a nice house, driving a fancy sports car, and dating one beautiful woman after the other. In retrospect, it was all about timing.  My brother was born 10 years before I was, giving him an ample head start.  He graduated university at a time when a diploma was all you needed to land a high-paying job (even a Bachelor of Fine Arts).  The economy was good and everybody was hiring. I was not so lucky.  Intent on...

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 ...