BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

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...

From the very start of this blog (and the one before it) its mission has been to advocate for a fair and open competition to replace the CF-18.  At the time, one of the biggest issues regarding Canada's pending F-35 purchase was  how  the fighter was selected in the first place.  For those of you who do not remember, the JSF was chosen with barely a cursory glance towards its competition.  The reasoning for this was that the F-35(C) was replacing the F/A-18 in the USA, so it only made sense... Never mind that the F-35 was developed with little-to-no thought into Canada's needs and budgets. In what now seems like a perfect storm of controversy, Canada's JSF purchase was delayed, "reset", and then eventually cancelled altogether following years of cost overruns, technical issues, and criticism.  The Liberal Party of Canada's promise to nix the F-35 purchase helped them win the last federal election. "LOL...  I don't know." Despite the...

As we enter 2019 and what  should be  the homestretch of Canada's CF-18 replacement saga, I thought it would be useful to do a quick update on where all the fighters stand. F-35 LIGHTNING II After years of development problems and controversy, the F-35 can now be declared an operational fighter.  The jet has been declared IOC for both the USAF and the USMC, with the USN scheduled for later this year.  Not only that, but  foreign customers are taking deliveries  and the aircraft has even seen  limited comba t. Better still, the JSF's unit cost has finally dropped.  While early models were wildly expensive, later model prices seem to have leveled off to approximately  $95 million  (US) per unit.  Most recently, the F-35A broke the  $90 million barrier . Despite the current Trudeau government campaigning on the promise to not buy the F-35, the JSF is still very much a contender to replace the CF-18.  The requirem...

The last few years have seen Canada's ongoing quest to replace its CF-18s turned upside down .  The F-35 has gone from the odds-on-favorite to a political landmine.  Its assumed alternative, the Super Hornet, has gone from a no-bid certainty to being shunned. This pretty much leaves the three Eurocanards (Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen) as the only alternatives.  This would have been unforeseeable five years ago.  Still, stranger things have happened. The current state of affairs would seem to suggest that the Eurofighter Typhoon has huge advantage over the other choices.  Airbus, part of the Eurofighter consortium, did just perform a last-minute rescue of Bombardier's C Series , after all.  This puts it in much higher regard with the Canadian government, especially compared to Boeing. As I have mentioned before , this is not necessarily a bad thing. Airbus C295, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. This would not be Airbus's first ti...

RAAF F/A-18 Hornet Canada has officially begun the process to acquire used F/A-18 Hornets from the RAAF .  It has presented the Australian government with a "Letter of Interest".  This tire-kicking will give a sense as to how much these second-hand fighters would cost us and how soon they would arrive. Let me save the Trudeau government some trouble:  Don't bother. This is not to disparage the Australians or the RAAF.  Like Canada, the Aussies have continuously upgraded and refurbished their fleet of Hornets.  While there are minor differences between the two, integration into the RCAF fleet should be relatively "plug-and-play". As far as costs go, second-hand F/A-18s would likely seem like a bargain.  It would certainly be a lot more affordable than the mind-boggling $5.23 billion quoted for 18 Boeing Super Hornets . So why give the RAAF Hornets a pass? It is a simple matter of availability.  The whole point of the interim fighter is to...

Welp...  So much for that! Thanks to " Trumponomics " the plan to acquire 18 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets is now effectively dead . While not yet official , Boeing has now positioned itself  persona non grata  to Canada's Liberal government.  After months of rhetoric and threats, the Liberal government would be foolish to back down on their threats to cancel its Super Hornet buy if Boeing continued its suit against Bombardier. Procuring the Super Hornet at this point would be political suicide to the Liberal party.  They would be roasted, and rightly so, all the way to the next election.  In the meantime, they risk appearing weak in NAFTA talks.  Who would back down against a government full of empty threats? Barring any last-minute compromise, the idea of a Canadian Super Hornet dead on arrival.  And we were so close, too . What is Canada to do now though?  We still have a fleet of rapidly aging fighters and a "capability gap".  We...

The Eurofighter Typhoon is a bit of a dichotomy.  Depending on the source, the Typhoon is considered either a deadly  air-superiority fighter  or an  unreliable money pit .  As always, the answer is probably somewhere  in-between . BAe EAP (Experimental Aircraft Program) History The Eurofighter Typhoon is the collaborative effort of four European nations; Germany Italy, Spain, and the U.K.  This joint effort was formed as a way to (hopefully) breath life into Europe's aerospace industry.  At one point, France was also involved, but left due to differing requirements.   The design goal of what was to become the Typhoon was a challenging one:  Develop an air-superiority fighter that combined the combat effectiveness of the F-15 Eagle, but in a size closer to that of a F/A-18 Hornet.  The end result was an aircraft resembling that of  British Aerospace's EAP demonstrator . The Typhoon's development was a troubl...

No...  Not that. It would seem that the CF-18 is not the only RCAF asset that is being tasked with flying past its prime. (Unlike the wonderful and evergreen Anne Murray) There ya go. Recent news reports have stated that the RCAF's fabled demonstration team will likely continue flying the venerable CT-114 Tutor until the year 2030 .  This would put the 60's era jet trainers approaching their 70th birthday by the time they retire.  Not as a design, but as actual 70-year-old airframes, as the last Tutor was built in 1966.  Even now, the Snowbirds can be considered ancient artifacts (apologies to any of my readers over the age of 50).   There is no shame in this, as the CT-114 Tutor has outlasted the CF-101 Voodoo, and is well on track to outlasting the CF-18 as well.   Indeed, the 431 Demonstration Squadron could be considered a "Heritage Flight".  As Professor Jones would say: From 1961 to 2000, the CT-114 Tutor served ...