BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

  With the FFCP  decision expected to be awarded in 2022, it finally  looks like Canada is in the final stretch to replace its aging CF-188 Hornets.  With the recent ousting of Boeing's Super Hornet from the competition, we are now left with two very different candidates:  The Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II and the Saab JAS 39E Gripen (Griffon).   What a long, strange trip it's been... Nearly twelve years ago, when I started Gripen4Canada , the Joint Strike Fighter was a troubled project that seemed to be on the verge of collapsing in on itself.  Despite this, the Canadian government at the time had committed itself to buying 65 F-35As.  Shortly after, it was found that no other alternatives were fairly considered and that "fuzzy" math was used to come up with a $9 billion price tag.  Real costs were said to be much closer to $46 billion over the lifetime of the aircraft.  The fighter purchase was then "reset" (ie: put off). An "independent" re

  Russia pulled a sneaky on everyone.   While every military analyst has been focused on China's J-20 , Russia has upped the ante by unveiling the Su-75 "Checkmate".  One look at it tells you all you need to know, this aircraft will be a direct competitor against the F-35; both in the skies and the marketplace.   More modest than the J-20 and Su-57, the Checkmate utilizes a single-engine design that obviously strives for stealth.  Unlike The Shenyang FC-31, which simply looks like the twin-engine F-35, the Su75, simultaneously looks like nothing else in the air whilst also being hauntingly familiar.   Why does it look so familiar?   Because the Su-75 utilizes elements from two fighter designs that lost to the F-35.   The most...   Interesting  design choice has to be that front engine intake.  A similar intake appeared on Boeing's ill-fated JSF contender, the X-32.  This very intake earned the aircraft its infamous nickname:   MONICA .   (No, this isn't a Friends