Just remember the Liberals and NDP say "sole sourcing" is bad because you will end up with stuff like C-130J, Leopard 2's, C-17's and Chinook helicopters. All of which will make the Canadian military more effective and therefore we may be called upon to do more as the US scales back.
To be fair to the critics I think the F-35 is a plane to far and we should take a hard look at what we need in a fighter. My concern is that we are buying far to few airframe and throwing all our eggs in one untried basket. I would be far more comfortable with a mixed fleet of 80 or so fighter aircraft made up of Super Hornets and perhaps the F-35.
Definitely agree with your assessment of the F-35. I don't think that the 35 is required for what we usually do, and we got by over Libya just fine with the F-18.
ReplyDeleteEven with the new sniper pods our CF-18's are getting long in the tooth. In a perfect world we would have two fleets of fighters which we upgrade a fleet every 15 years, keeping the force modern, reliable and won't break the bank by having to replace all at the same time.
ReplyDeleteBy the way thanks for taking the time to comment
ReplyDeleteNP.
ReplyDeleteSuper Hornets would be my preference, there available right now. But I also have a feeling that we'll never see the F-35.
You could be right about the F-35. The Aussies are going with a mixed fleet, Super hornets and F-35s, plus a few Growlers (EW version). Mind you the Super Hornets are to replace their F-111 and not their front line fighters.
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