You don't have the same stratigic circumstance as NZ, don't think a politician could even consider cutting the ACF. Not only have you need the for Artic patrols and NATO, but have they considered the implications and signal it would send to the Americans under NORAD.
You will have the SuperHornets for 40+ years, not 20 (The CF-18 will be 42 in 2025). This means that you are planning to have 2 different fighters going forward. That makes no tactical or economic sense.
That's to much common sense and to logical for the pollies. Canada and NZ are, IMHO, illustrations of political and treasury ideology along with bureaucracy having detrimental or even deleterious impacts upon the security of a nation. Whilst the NZ case is more centred on ideology, the Canadian case illustrates both. Then there is India. Canada is not that bad yet.
Everything in this GD country boils down to political expediency for our brain dead pollies. Worse still, there is the whining Canadian electorate which are easy prey for our low-life pollies, promise them all sorts of BS, their memories can be measured in nanoseconds anyway (and unfortunately they are right).
A 12-24 SH purchase would have made sense 10 years ago and the number of legacy Hornets that needed to be upgraded could have been minimized (centre barrel replacements, and other stuff). Furthermore, the just announced $500 million needed to extend a few of our Hornets lifetimes out to 2025 would not have been necessary. Given the electoral climate, the F-35 likely will be rejected and we will suffer for it.
I agree but these pollie morons could not get away with all the BS here in Canada were it not for apathy (and appalling ignorance of defence issues) of the Canadian electorate. As for being as bad as India, we are damn close some days and worse on others IMHO.
Agree with what you are saying about 2 seperate log tails,but whatever aircraft is chosen they will have a need for 2 seperate lines till all aircraft are replaced anyway in either the short or long term.
No, just no.
You will always have a slight overlap of fighters in any program, but for Canada it was only 5 years.
I am not sure about the overall status of our Hornets. AFAIK we have about 80 of our Hornets left from the 138 (I think). Of these, I believe 40-50 had centre fuselage replacments and of course there has been on going weapons/electronics improvements. At present the fleet is good for maybe a couple of more years but no purchase will happen until 2017 at the earliest and deliveries of new jets will not arrive in time hence another 500 million is needed to extend some of legacy Hornets out to 2025. A dozen SH ((maybe configured for Growler conversion) would have bridged the gap. Having a few Growlers around to operate with whatever the frigging government of the day decides it will buy for the RCAF would be manageable until 2030-2035.
The issue boils down to political incompetence by all parties. It would be easier for these fools to agree that shit smells like roses than agreeing on what fighter to purchase.
John, would you mind if you can explain a bit why Canadian politicians are so against/indecisive about buying F-35?
That's not a thing since the Upholder debacle.
Indeed - & the sorry saga of the EH101 purchase & cancellation, & the cocked-up eventual buying of a US alternative doesn't exactly suggest a pro-British bias. If there was one, they'd have stuck with EH101, & have had Merlins in service for years.
Exactly, then there's the outright dismissal of the Type 26 a couple of years ago in the name of protecting Canadian skills.
The short answer is the Canadian electorate for the most part are totally mis-informed about the F-35 and continue to accept all the obsolete negative info about the jet (including way out of date pricing for the F-35 and false pricing on some alternatives). The anti-defence media (CBC, Toronto Star "Harper haters) continue to spoon BS to citizens who gladly eat this shit up hoping the money goes to their particular desires. The pollies, gutless as they are, are more than happy to defer or cancel important decisions for political advantage. This is not just a F-35 problem, it is a military procurement failure on all fronts.
The common link with the Merlin and Upholder was Chrétien, a useless POS. While he was trying to make his mind to purchase the Upholders they were being left without proper mothballing as the RN expected the deal to proceed quickly. Then the RCN failed to properly evaluate their condition (perhaps intentionally fearing an exit from the sub business). As for the Merlins, he cancelled the deal out of spite for Mulroney and we paid a huge cancellation penalty. Twenty two years later we have 6 CH-148s out of 28 orders and they still don't meet specifications. The EH101 was the only right choice and still is.