BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

    [Welcome to "NITPICK"!  For the next few weeks I will be examining a single aspect of the potential fighters that just drives me nuts.  These are not dealbreakers, or even major flaws.  They are simply one aspect of the aircraft THAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE BETTER.] Since we have gone over the (canted) pylon problems with the Super Hornet and the (lack of internal) pylon problems with the JSF, it seems only fair that we nitpick the Gripen's pylon problems as well. There is nothing wrong with the Gripen's pylons per se .  They are certainly there.  They do a serviceable job attaching various weapons to the aircraft.  They all point in the same forward direction (* cough*Super Hornet).   Yet...  There is something unsettling about the Gripen's pylons.   Admittedly, it took a while for me to figure it out.   Even "clean" the Gripen's sleek lines are interrupted by pylons.  Pylons on each wingtip.  Two mor...

Rutan Voyager (All around the world without refueling) Welcome to "Back to Basics"; an ongoing series in which we will attempt to "get back to basics".  Each week (or so) we will examine one crucial aspect of a fighter and how the fighters vying for Canada's FFCP compare.  No matter how capable a fighter aircraft may be, it is of little value if it cannot get to where it needs to be.  While this fact may seem obvious, many fighter comparisons seem to either gloss over an aircraft's range or ignore it entirely.  One could make the argument that, in the age of aerial refueling, an aircraft's maximum range is no longer a priority.  Maybe so, but that assumes ample resources will be available; something that is not always the case .   Perhaps one of the reasons a fighter aircraft's range is often overlooked is because there is never a clear-cut answer.  Unlike top speed or g- limits, which have a clear "maximum" number; an aircr...

Meet the Fokker. Welcome to "Back to Basics"; an ongoing series in which we will attempt to "get back to basics".  Each week (or so) we will examine one crucial aspect of a fighter and how the fighters vying for Canada's FFCP compare.   What makes a fighter aircraft... a fighter? No matter how fast or maneuverable an aircraft is, you cannot truly call it a "fighter" until you strap on some weapons.  Without those weapons, that fighter becomes either a trainer , a reconnaissance platform , or an acrobatic demonstrator .   While all fighters have weapons, weapons alone does not make an aircraft a fighter.  One would hardly call a B-17 or an A-10 "fighters".  The reason for this is obvious, those two aircraft are designed to engage ground targets.  Fighter weaponry places the emphasis on one thing:  Air superiority.   The first true "fighters" were nothing more than WWI biplanes with machine guns bolted on. ...

[Note:  I apologize for my recent absence here.  I was resting up in preparation for the next two years, which will likely be a tumultuous time.  Moving forward, I will attempt bi-weekly updates at the bare minimum.  I may also attempt a few format changes (shorter posts more often, more opinion pieces, etc.] Okay...  Here we go. This may come as a surprise to some, but Canada has still not selected a fighter to replace the aging CF-18.   The good news, however, is that we are getting closer.  Better still, the winning fighter design will not be decided by default, as Saab and Boeing are still very much in the running. Before we go into detail about that, let us first pour one out for the departed Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale.  Both of these fighters' manufacturers decided that they did not want to play a game they could not win . That leaves the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, the ...

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...

Typhoon, we hardly knew ye... Airbus, which represents the Eurofighter consortium, announced the decision to withdraw from Canada's future fighter competition .  This follows Dassault, which announced its decision to leave back in November of last year.  This leaves Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Saab pitching their F-35, Super Hornet, and Gripen; respectively. I wish I could say this came as a surprise.  Sadly, anyone who has been paying attention should have seen this coming. Airbus's reasoning for dropping out of the competition sound suspiciously close to Dassault's; citing difficulty meeting security requirements and a last-minute alteration to the RFP that seemed to favor the JSF. “A detailed review has led the parties to conclude that NORAD security requirements continue to place too significant of a cost on platforms whose manufacture and repair chains sit outside the United States-Canada 2-EYES community,” the statement from Airbus and the UK Defence Min...

Gripen for Canada?  That sounds familiar... It's happening . After years of uncertainty, we now know that the Saab Gripen is a serious contender in the contest to replace the CF-18. This may not seem like big news.  The Gripen has long been mentioned alongside other potential contenders like the F-35 and Super Hornet.  This humble writer has been extolling the Gripen's virtues for years . So what is different now? Saab has made it official .  After years of little to mention on its website, Canada now has a dedicated subsection . Saab has also made a much more prominent appearance at this years CANSEC.  Not only do we have a media brief that focuses on Canada's needs, but Saab has a full size mock-up of the Gripen E on display. That digicam tho... Media briefings and mock-ups help raise awareness of the platform, but Saab has a long way to go before it can catch up to more established players like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Airbus. ...