We don't need F-35s...
A CTV report from last night now says the cost of buying and maintaining the F-35 will be established at $40B over its lifespan.
I'm not against the Canadian Air Force replacing their ageing F-18 with something newer, more modern and better performing but I do not think we need to get a "stealthy" top of the line aircraft. And why would/should we get a single engine aircraft when we know how big and unforgiving our territory is?
One of the major reasons the F-18 won over its main rival, the F-16 back in 1980 was the fact that the F-16 was a single engine aircraft and the F-18 a twin engine aircraft and I quote... "two engines for reliability (considered essential for conducting Arctic sovereignty and over-the-water patrols)."
If it was good then why isn’t good today? Why would we want to change that logic just for the sake of a new aircraft?
The Canadian Air Force's role does not require the latest and greatest and I think that the newer and more modern and better performing Super Hornet would do just fine for our country. This aircraft is a known system, already operational and not under development so cost of purchase and maintenance are already available and a known factor and not a guessing game.
The other factor tha't got me worried about the F-35 aside from an unknown over all cost factor is it's longivity and how many aircrafts are going to be left in the fleet after lets say 25 years?
If we look historically at the F-18 program, it cost us to procure this platform $4B ($2.4B was the original cost estimate) for 138 aircrafts that were delivered between 1982 and 1988.
Today we have only 79 F-18s that still remain operational. So over a 24 to 30 year period the attrition of this platform was of 59 aircrafts or approximately 43% of the fleet through crashes, accidents and moth balling because the airframes were simply over used.
Apply those numbers to the F-35 platform and in 25 years down the line a 43% attrition rate would leave us with only 37 aircrafts in our fleet! That would make for a great Air Force with the second largest country to cover I don’t know how a 37 aircraft fleet would manage that.
In the end at a fly away cost of $67M for each F-18 Super Hornet which is 2.5 to 3.5 times cheaper per copy than the “estimated” fly away cost of the F-35, I think Canada should definitely look at that option (plus others).
For the same amount of dollars spent on the F-35 (at today’s estimated cost) we could buy between 162 and 226 F-18s and that would be a hell of a lot better than the 65 proposed F-35s.