BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

2015?  2016?  2017? It hasn't been a good month for the F-35. First, there was the revelation that some JSF parts were being outsourced to China .  Then came the arrest of a Pratt & Whitney engineer attempting to sell information to Iran .  Shortly after that, a non-profit group released a report questioning Lockheed Martin's overoptimistic job creation numbers .  There was also a former USAF Chief of Staff advocating for dropping the F-35's nuclear capability , but I don't see how less  nuclear proliferation is a bad thing. "Did you try turning it off and on again?" If all that wasn't enough, now we find out the F-35 is still having software issues that will keep it from meeting its initial operability capability (IOC) dates. Last May, the Pentagon announced the F-35's IOC dates .  First to come would be the USMC F-35B version, planned between July and December of 2015.  The USAF F-35A was to come the second half of 2016, whi...

I've been criticized for being a bit of a F-35 "basher", but I honestly do try to keep the JSF program in perspective.  It certainly isn't the first large scale military project to run off the rails a little bit.  My issues with the F-35 mainly center around its suitability for for Canada, what with it being better suited for attacking foreign ground targets than protecting a country's airspace. When the news came out a few days ago that the F-35 was being constructed with Chinese parts, I didn't think it was that big of a deal.  These were supposedly simple magnets , after all, worth little more than $2 a piece.  Perhaps these magnets required rare earth metals found predominantly in China, I thought.  It certainly wouldn't be the first time a western defense contractor needed to go elsewhere for rare metals, the SR-71 Blackbird was constructed from Soviet sourced titanium , unbeknownst to the Soviets at the time. It turns out that the Chinese sou...