Bwahahah! Its the old joke with a kernel of truth. Under Liberals the Canadian Forces would be back to sticks, canoes, and paper airplanes. Liberals have promised to cancel the F-35 stealth fighters in favor of what?
Watch the test flight of the Liberal's new air force.
Joking aside, geeks like this are close to my heart. Well done gentlemen.
2 comments:
You might want to takea look at this rather biting piece at "Aviation Week and Space Technology's" "Ares" blog:
"F-35 Push To Canada And India"
The photo is of a Douglas F-3D Skynight.
Mark
Ottawa
Excerpts from good round-up article in "Aviation Week and Space Technology" article, worth the read:
"JSF Costs Key To 2011 Global Fighter Market
...
Estimates for the price of a production aircraft vary widely, ranging from above $100 million on down. Lockheed Martin asserts the unit recurring flyaway cost of the F-35A will eventually drop to around $60 million in 2010 dollars, and argues this would put the cost of acquiring a CTOL F-35 on par with buying a Block 60 F-16 or Block 2 F/A-18E/F. For Lockheed Martin, meeting that cost goal depends heavily on the number of F-35s it will sell to international customers, and the number of F-35s is can sell abroad depends heavily on meeting its price target.
Repeating the success of the F-16 on the international market is part of Lockheed Martin’s vision for the JSF program. The F-35 is viewed as an aircraft that will allow friendly nations to buy a fighter with a high level of stealth, but without the high level of technical secrecy surrounding the U.S. Air Force’s F-22 Raptor. The F-35’s design also emphasizes the air-to-ground mission [you'll not hear that from our government], an important feature in the modern security environment. For the U.S. military and its allies, it is more likely the highest threat in an air campaign will come from surface-to-air missiles rather than enemy fighters. Also, a fighter is far more likely to spend its time supporting ground forces and acting as a node in the wider command-sensor network.
The eight nations participating in the F-35 SDD phase—the U.K., Italy, Australia, Turkey, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark and Norway—all typically engage in military operations beyond their borders through collective security arrangements and coalitions. Two of them—the U.K. and Italy—are also Eurofighter Typhoon operators and already possess a fighter designed for the air superiority role. For the remaining partner nations, that any of them will find themselves in a solo campaign against a peer competitor seems fanciful...
While it is likely the JSF partners will order fewer aircraft than initially planned to save money—the U.K. deciding to jettison its planned purchase of 138 Stovl F-35Bs for a lower number of carrier-capable F-35Cs—they have yet to signal an intent to acquire a different aircraft instead. Denmark and the Netherlands have delayed final decisions, but elsewhere the procurement of F-35s has already received government and/or parliamentary approval, with only the timing and size of initial orders to be determined...
...Australia has ordered F/A-18F Super Hornets and plans to order a larger number of F-35s. Japan looks likely to select the F-35 to replace its fleet of aging F-4EJs [emphasis added] under its F-X program..."
Mark
Ottawa
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