BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

United States President-Elect Donald Trump  has made no secret of his disdain for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.  In his late night Twitter rants, he has gone so far as to suggest that the Pentagon's JSF purchase be curtailed in favor of more Super Hornets.  This, of course has had serious repercussions toward Lockheed Martin's stock price. [Let's get this out of the way:  The fact that the future American president is willing and able to negatively effect the value of people's investments through a single tweet is bone-chilling.  The value of the JSF program is estimated to well over a TRILLION dollars throughout its lifetime.  Any decision regarding its future should be carefully planned, thought out, and communicated...  NOT summed up in 140 characters or less.] Ugh. Can Trump "fire" the F-35? In a word:  No. The F-35 has already entered initial operating capability (IOC) with both the USAF and the USMC.  Desp...

Aviation buffs always get caught up. When the talk centers around fighter aircraft, they debate the merits of each by comparing top speeds, payload capability, wing-loading and such.  By using these empirical measurements, they can argue for their favorite based on hard facts.  Much like buying a car or a microwave, the selection usually comes down to choosing the right balance of features and price. Multi-billion dollar military procurement contracts do not work that way, however. In my last post, I focused on the government ministers whom will be ultimately responsible for Canada's next fighter aircraft acquisition.  Why?  Because politics determine fighter sales far more than stealth or the ability to supercruise. Putting aside each aircraft's performance and other capabilities, how politically  palatable are the CF-18 replacement contenders? F-35, no longer a near-certainty. F-35 Lightning II:  Down but not out. Five years ago, Canada's...

When the UK, Spain, Germany, and Italy got together to design the Eurofighter Typhoon, one wonders why they simply did not decide to procure the F-15 Eagle instead.  Instead, they decided to to go one better and develop a new medium-sized multirole fighter.  In theory, this had the benefit of both producing a fighter for the 21st century (hence the "Eurofighter 2000" moniker) as well as keeping the European aerospace industry up to date. Did they succeed?  In a word...  Yes.  But not without difficulty.  The Typhoon program has been beset with cost overruns, maintenance issues, and dissent among the partner nations.  Much of this is due to simple timing.  With the Cold War ended, many questioned the need for a cutting edge fighter. In recent years, economic concerns have led to austerity measures.  Now, the Eurofighter partners are looking for foreign buyers to help breath new life into the Typhoon. The F-15 had no such issues. ...

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...

Boeing T-X concept (pre-Saab partnership) Saab and Boeing dropped a bombshell late last year when they announced that they would be joining forces to submit a bid for the upcoming T-X program.  The T-X program intends to replace the venerable T-38 Talon in use by the USAF as a high performance jet trainer.   What will this collaboration look like?  Early reports on a "decontented" Saab Gripen have been dispelled.  This will be an "all new" aircraft .  Given the context of the T-X program, it is very likely that much of the project will be off-the-shelf in order to keep risk and costs down.   Designing an all new aircraft does give put the Saab/Boeing T-X bid in a riskier position than the other T-X contenders.  All the other bidders are proposing existing aircraft in order to keep risks to a minimum.  Lockheed Martin is partnering up with Korean KAI in offering the T-50 Golden Eagle, Northrop Grumman is partnering with BAE in offeri...