Pay no attention to the liar in the cupboard

Nothing demonstrates cowardice in a politician as much as attempting to sneak things, which should be completely public, past the citizenry in a clandestine fashion intended to hide the truth.
Boris laid the groundwork here.

Why is the coward bearing the title "prime minister" so hell-bent on sole-sourcing the F-35? BECAUSE HE'S MADE A DEAL HE HASN'T TOLD YOU ABOUT. He's hiding something - he always is!

A little more for you.

Historical failure . . .

ONCE UPON A TIME, THE USAAF got a bright idea for a bespoke night fighter, which resulted in the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. Not one of John Northrop's successes. Over-weight, overly complex, the USAAF European theater generals wanted the de Havilland Mosquito, instead, but they got the P-61 because that's what the procurement process had produced. Mind you, it was not a Brewster Buffalo failure, the P-61 did OK, but it was an unnecessary redundancy and economic waste. For what it's worth, the USAF isn't the only beneficiary; the Navy and Army get their opportunities, too. A classic case is the expensive frustration of the M247 Sergeant York self-propelled antiaircraft vehicle.

Well, according to Dina Rasor at TRUTHOUT, the tradition is alive and well. Her article, "F-35 Fighter Is Latest in Long Line of Wasteful Weapon Failures", describes the stumbling to date.

There has been a flurry of articles in the defense press Tuesday about an internal Department of Defense (DoD) report on how the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon's newest attempt to buy a fighter jet, is skating toward potential mechanical and monetary disaster. The DoD top civilian weapons buyer put together a team to do a quick look at how the fighter was doing in its journey to become the next main fighter in the DoD arsenal. The report has the usual DoD hedge wording and qualifiers, but the answer is: not too good.

• • •

Now, the newest fighter is falling under its own bloated procurement weight. Is the system, which has given us generation after generation of overpriced and technically dubious fighters, tanks, and other weapons finally succumbing to its own folly? 

• • •

To understand why this keeps happening to our weapons acquisitions and to try to change it, you have to know some history on how the system works and what has happened in the past. It is a sad tale of déjà vu all over again.

Ernest Fitzgerald, the well-known Pentagon whistleblower who fought the bureaucracy in hand-to-hand combat for better weapons and realistically priced weapons from the 1960s to 2006, came up with a simple law of why this sordid history keeps repeating itself. Fitzgerald's first law of weapons procurement is: "First it is too early to tell, second, it is too late to do anything about it." I have found that this is the way that the DoD, the military services and the defense contractors squeeze every last dime out of the procurement budget and then even more, while making sure that their weapon doesn't get so obviously gross as to go on the rare weapons' chopping block.

It's like watching a slow-motion train-wreck, and thanks to Stevie and Airshow, we're paying for a ring-side seat. Think of it as a solid gold plank in the gallows that is being built for the Conservative Party.

Airshow's latest problem . . .

ACCORDING TO WIRED'S David Axe, the F-35 is a long way from service. "Stealth Jet Won’t Be Ready for Combat Until 2018" says it all.

More bad news for the Pentagon’s next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive weapons program in Defense Department history — and arguably the most important one in the Pentagon today. The Air Force has confirmed what observers long expected: that the land-based F-35A model probably won’t be ready for combat until 2018, two years later than previously scheduled.

The single-engine stealth fighter, built by Lockheed Martin, has been beset by parts failures, design changes and a 64-percent increase in overall cost since development began in 2001. While testing has gone better lately, the nearly $400-billion program still needs to complete thousands more test flights before the first batch of regular pilots can even begin training.

The effects of the delay are cascading throughout the world’s biggest and most powerful Air Force. To keep up its strength while awaiting the F-35, the Air Force is having to keep its 1980s- and 1990s-vintage F-15s and F-16s far longer than anyone ever imagined when those planes rolled off the production line.

The problem of aging airframes for F-15, F-16 and F-18 fighters is becoming a serious problem, and the F-35 delay is cause for serious concern. It is also a major reason why the USAF and the USN are working as fast as possible on an RPV fighter, aka "drone".

Meanwhile, our F-18's pile up the airframe hours. And it's all just fine with Stevie and Airshow.

Revelations?

WIRED has a very interesting report by David Axe, "China, Russia Could Make U.S. Stealth Tech Obsolete". It appears that advances in electronics may make US stealth aircraft unable to operate in airspace where next-generation surveillance electronics exist.

It’s been a pillar of the U.S. military’s approach to high-tech warfare for decades. And now, it could become obsolete in just a few years.

Stealth technology — which today gives U.S. jets the nearly unparalleled ability to slip past hostile radar — may soon be unable to keep American aircraft cloaked. That’s the potentially startling conclusion of a new report from Barry Watts, a former member of the Pentagon’s crystal-ball-gazing Office of Net Assessment and current analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

“The advantages of stealth … may be eroded by advances in sensors and surface-to-air missile systems, especially for manned strike platforms operating inside defended airspace,” Watts cautions in his 43-page report The Maturing Revolution in Military Affairs (.pdf), published last week.

That could come as a big shock to the U.S. Air Force, which has bet its future on radar-dodging technology, to the tune of half-a-trillion dollars over the next 30 years.

So, should Canada proceed with purchasing the F-35, or save money and pick up the F-18 Super Hornet? This could get very entertaining over the next 12 months as costing concerns keep being raised in Washington.

Airshow augers in . . .

ACCORDING TO THE TORONTO STAR'S Allan Woods:

OTTAWA—Scrapping a plan to purchase American fighter jets risks leaving the Canadian Air Force grounded in 2020, the defence minister says.

Peter MacKay says opposition to the purchase of 65 F-35 jets, which are experiencing delays and cost overruns, could result in an “operational gap” when the current fleet of fighter jets are pulled from service because there is no guarantee a replacement could be found on time.

"because there is no guarantee a replacement could be found on time" Gee — if we offered coin of the realm to Russia, I wonder how fast we could get a bunch of Sukhois?

The world's new slinky

Yeah. It's amazing!

Let's say you're a small country. Very small. Your means of defence is arrived at by some convoluted deal in which the country with world's largest and most expensive military keeps you at a level of military capability which will keep you fighting for about three weeks. After that, your ass depends on that other country either having swayed world opinion in your favour, (and the global cavalry comes over the hill to save the day), or they park a couple of super-carriers on your doorstep and neither confirm nor deny that they have it within their means to turn your opposition's cities into glass parking lots.

Still, you have enough moxie to know what you need to keep yourself going for three weeks and have the history to demonstrate that, with the right resources, you can dispatch all comers before you have to pull the fire alarm.

The problem is, being able to pull off that three weeks is expensive and most of your TO and E is paid for by the foreign aid contribution of that large country. Still, you'd like to be able to pick your own stuff and maybe even modify it to suit your needs.

Then, along comes the F-35 Lightning II. You view it as expensive and unsuitable for your needs. You have something different in mind. Until that large country, your defence benefactor, tells you otherwise.

It now turns out that unostentatiously, while overseeing the Israel-Palestinian peace talks, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton busied herself last week in Jerusalem with an errand of equal important to Washington: bulldozing Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak into agreeing to buy 35 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning stealth warplanes for the Israeli Air Force at a cost of $4.7 billion.

This transaction Israel can ill afford. debkafile's military sources report it is opposed by senior ministers, especially Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, and even more fiercely by high IDF officers and heads of Israel's Aerospace Industries. Nonetheless, Clinton got her wish; a special committee the Prime Minister set up for the purpose approved the purchase after cutting down the final number of F-35 warplanes from 35 to 20 at a cost of "only" $2.7 billion.

Military chiefs, furious over Netanyahu's hasty action, said it makes nonsense of the drastic cuts just imposed on defense spending and means that the IDF will have to do without certain new weapons systems needed for facing up to threats from Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas. One officer accused the prime minister of "shamefully and needlessly surrendering to American pressure."

Hmmm. DEBKA is unabashedly hawkish when it comes to Israeli defence and has a reputation for getting pretty chummy with right-wing journals. They also have a habit of using "unnamed sources" for just about everything. The problem, however, is that read as archival history, they have a reputation for accuracy.

The Israelis, no less than any other purchaser of a new and untested warplane, would want to be in on some of the production, and they, like any other country would want regional industrial benefits from such a purchase.

... military sources dismiss reports that Israeli industry will take part in manufacturing the F-35s on sale are untrue. On the contrary, the Americans have laid down tougher limitations than ever before against Israeli access to the production process.

Israeli aeronautical experts and technicians are denied access to the production lines of the plane. Israel's Air Force and Aerospace Industries are prohibited from installing their own homemade systems to the new plane or even altering the Lockheed Martin systems to meet their special needs without prior US consent.

Interesting...

A. You're buying this thing because it's "the best fighter ever". We don't care if you really want the Euro-fighter - in the end it's us paying for it;

B. No. You can't help build it. We already have "gentlemens' agreements" with other countries and if we jeopardize those IRBs they may cancel their order;

C. Lockheed Martin 'R' Us. We're in a world of hurt if we can't peddle this crate so ... shut up and buy them. Just tell everyone there was a competition and Boeing lost.

Even Israeli pilots will only see the finished product when it is ready for their instruction. This will happen towards the end of 2011. The first F-35s are scheduled for delivery in 2015.

Two ministers, Steinitz and the former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon, are skeptical about the US plane's ability to contribute much toward enhancing the IAF's standards. Its design has met wide criticism in military aviation circles. They fear that the decision to purchase it was guided by politics rather than military considerations.

Now where have you heard that before?

Airshow Mackay pulls out his "morale" card

As predicted by Pogge the Harper conservatives have trotted out their propaganda by turning the F-35 purchase into a "Support The Troops" mantra. If you question the awarding of the largest Canadian military purchase ever in a no-bid arrangement, you don't support the troops.

"It has an impact on morale," MacKay asserted, saying such uncertainty affects the career planning of Armed Forces members and their families.

What an utter crock of horseshit. Career planning?! What is this moron trying to feed us.

But since he's at it, let's look at the Harper government record. As dumb an idea as it was, under the Harper plan there were supposed to be rapid deployment battalions stationed in Comox, Trenton and Greenwood. That would affect at least 3000 soldiers and their support elements. With that announced plan, a lot of serving personnel would have been marking a lot of "new" possible posting preferences on their annual Personnel Evaluation Reports. Effect on "career planning"? Big. Those are now wasted choices and prospective postings that vanished.

Equipment purchases have an effect on "career planning"? How about the cancellation of the Joint Support Ship? No big deal? Wrong!!!

If you are a marine engineer of any form you are faced with being one of the dwindling cadre of steam propulsion types trying to keep archaic high and low pressure boiler-fired engineering alive. While all the other "stokers" in the fleet move on to more advanced systems, the navy is still required to maintain training for engineering personnel on steam propulsion systems. Career planning, Mackay? Who cancelled the JSS, and why didn't we hear from you about the impact on career planning for those engineers who have to maintain 2A and 3A engineering certificates?

And here's where we juxtapose. The single biggest morale crusher ever experienced by the peacetime Canadian armed services was Paul Hellyer's Canadian Forces Reorganization Act, otherwise known as "unification".

Mackay's position?

So much for Elmer's little boy caring about the morale of the troops. It is, and always was, propaganda and abusive.

Tally Ho! Gadget sweet.Hotdog red.

Yes, I know that title is something akin to Greek to most readers. Some will actually understand it. Doesn't matter though, it makes about as much sense as the one that appeared in the National Post on Wednesday.

Mark Collins: Canada buys an attack plane for defence

Which then goes on to cherry-pick bits and pieces of information from the US Navy and Royal Navy about how the future employment of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter involves First Day Strike operations etc, etc.

Wonderful.

Here's a bit of news for the National Post and the editor who allowed that bit of spoiled milk to seep through.

1. The Canadian Air Force CF-188/CF-18A, acquired by the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau, is actually the F/A-18A, a strike aircraft, originally designed and built for the US Navy. The "A" part of F/A designates it as an attack aircraft.

2. The giveaway, (if there was ever a need for one), is in the public nomenclature of the F-35. It's in the shiny brochures and everything: Joint Strike Fighter, just in case people were confused about what "JSF" actually meant.

This is in no way intended to approve or condemn the proposed purchase of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But Collins missed the mark, if he actually had one, by a Saskatchewan section. Whatever is chosen to replace our current multi-role combat aircraft should also be a multi-role combat aircraft.

There is amusement in the comments section to the Natty Post article where he is roundly thrashed by those who would call him a liberal.

Maybe Kelly McParland has an agenda of which we are not aware.

As an added bonus... Collins authoritatively goes on to tell us about the radar suite of a TU-95H. Cool! How about if he gives us the EW and ECM capabilities while he's at it. OK. Maybe just the PRF of their targeting radar.

Steve gets mad and goes off the page

Then starts making comments which make no sense.



Furthermore, he and his band of hillbillies are lying about the ramifications of withdrawing from the future purchase of the F-35 Lightning II. We haven't signed a contract yet and we won't until 2013.

Harper's yapping coincides, coincidentally, with a pressurized sales push by Lockheed Martin's F-35 programme general manager, Tom Burbage.

Industrial participation by international partners in the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme could be affected if firm commitments to buy the aircraft are delayed or amended, Tom Burbage, the general manager and executive vice president for the F-35 programme, warned on 17 August.

Canada entered into the development stage without any commitment to buy and Burbage knows it. This is arm twisting on the part of LM.

Burbage told Jane's that the eight international partner nations - Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and the UK - were "still soft on production schedules".

Soft? The Netherlands and Denmark actually cancelled their plans at one point and only re-instituted them after... pressure from Lockheed Martin.

The countries mentioned by Burbage are facing hobbled economies and soaring deficits. Harper has been right in amongst those other countrys' leaders expounding the virtues of curbing those deficits and getting "their" house in order.

And they intend to. Britain, which is building two larger aircraft carriers is now looking at slowing or entirely eliminating one of them. Along with the reduction in seaborne deck space comes an obvious reduction in the need for aircraft. Word is hemorrhaging out of Whitehall that the Brits will cancel the F-35B STOVL which they helped develop and go with a cheaper standard carrier launch version instead. That will drive the cost of the F-35B upward - for the American buyers - the US Marine Corps.

Burbage and Lockheed Martin will be panicking. The "soft" countries still have a way to go before they finalize any agreement to purchase. Most are still questioning their future needs and have not gone beyond the development agreement. Announcements, like Canada's, have indicated a preference and the waving around of some money. What Burbage would like is a solid deal, something he's not likely to get until the final price tag can be nailed down. So he pops this out:

"There is a sort of a gentleman's agreement in this game that ties industrial participation to buying airplanes," said Burbage.

"Industrial participation is all going on today in advance of anyone making a formal decision to buy an airplane."

"If, at some point in time, somebody says we are not going to buy any airplanes, that puts us in a pretty difficult situation, so there is a trust factor, sort of a partnership factor, that goes along with being part of the programme," he said.

Sounds familiarly like what Harper is attempting to shovel onto the field. It's also bullshit. Lockheed Martin called for international industrial participation without commitments to buy. Gentleman's agreements don't work in multi-billion dollar programmes. If they had required commitments from participants it should have been spelled out in print.

This is where Harper is finding himself in a bind. Commitment from all partners is starting to waver. The Dutch have ordered a total of two aircraft for testing and the British, three. Along with everyone else they are looking at ways to trim their fiscal deficits and big defence equipment purchases are high on the list of things to cut-back. Saab still has a sales push going on with both The Netherlands and Denmark to sell them Grippens over the F-35 - and the Dutch and Danes have not told them to go away.

Harper's yapping has as much to do with trying to keep the F-35 development partners on a buying spree as it does trying to sell Canadians on an aircraft they have not had a chance to evaluate or debate. He can prattle on all he wants that "allies would be angry" if Canada put a hold on the F-35 purchase. In fact, they might be relieved at such a move. If Canada withdrew it would drive the price per unit so high that the Europeans would also withdraw and go shopping elsewhere - closer to home.

Harper is scrambling to keep the European commitment to the F-35 strong. If those partners pull out, (and there is every indication that at least one of them will), the price of the F-35 is going to go up. Way up. For everybody, including the Americans.

Do you get it now?

A great post on the lies being peddled by Harper and crowd is over at Impolitical. Must read.

Red Alert! The Russians still have planes!

Frankly I don't think we can be expected to write a whole new blogpost every time DefMin Flying Ace "Airshow MacKay" and his trusty sidekick Woodstock Kory climb up on top of the Con doghouse to fight off the Red Baron yet again in the Arctic, so this time we're just going with what David Pugliese reported last time 18 months ago (h/t Maclean's) :

"The military officers I was talking to yesterday were full of kudos for Defence Minister Peter MacKay for a move that one described as “playing the media like a finely-tuned fiddle.”
The officer was referring to the breathless Canadian news media coverage of the flight of two Russian bombers that were “intercepted” by Canadian CF-18s …
Yesterday’s incident prompted some amusement at NDHQ about how gullible some in the news media can be and how easily some journalists swallowed the government’s bait hook, line and sinker."

We would just like to add in the media's defence that this time they didn't actually swallow, opting instead to spit it out quietly into a hankie afterwards.

.

Update : Ok, here we go - the new government talking points from conservative.ca :
Info-Alert
Subject: Ignatieff Liberals Embarrassed by Russian Bomber Flights Over Arctic

"Mere days ago Michael Ignatieff pledged to cancel the new fighter jets the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces urgently need.
Embarrassingly for him, Russian bomber flights over the Arctic -- just two days ago -- underscore why our men and women in uniform need modern equipment to do their jobs. Perhaps because he wasn't in Canada at the time, Mr. Ignatieff is unaware of how past Liberal governments gutted our military. More proof that Michael Ignatieff isn't in it for Canadians. He's just in it for himself."

etc ... etc ...

F-35. The project, the plane, the mission - from the seat

During the past few days Boris (leading the way) and I have put out a few posts regarding the announced plan to purchase the F-35 Lightning II as a replacement for the Canadian Air Force fleet of F/A-18 fighter jets. Those posts generated some long and highly informative debates in the comments sections. One commenter was clearly very well informed on the subject, from various angles, and expressed some frustration at articles which appeared in national media publications, specifically The National Post, by Mark Collins, and The Toronto Star, by Michael Byers.

Unfortunately, if you don't read the comments section (75 comments can be daunting) you might have missed an important part of the whole debate especially the part offered by an informed, educated Air Force officer in procurement. While not a member of the fighter jet community we invited that commenter to respond to Mr. Collins and Dr. Byers (and to some degree, Mercedes Stephenson) on this site.

His/her post is presented unedited and without further comment except to say that he/she is closer to the subject than any of we regular contributors.

--------------------------

Michael Byers writing in the Sunday edition of the Toronto Star and Mark Collins writing in the National Post's Full Comment have recently sought to portray the decision by the Conservative government to acquire the F-35 Litening II (the Joint Strike Fighter) as wrongheaded and inappropriate for Canada's defence needs.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Setting aside the politics of the purchase and process in which Canada acquiesced to it, there are a number of points both authors have raised about the aircraft's technical merits and the alternatives to the F-35 that I would like to address:

- "stealth" aircraft are offensive platforms equipped solely for "shock and awe" first night types of missions
- that the F-35 lacks the range for the defence of Canada' Arctic
- that the Boeing Super Hornet is viable and cheaper alternative for Canada

These assertions demonstrate a serious lack of understanding of the rationale and reasoning behind the Air Staff's choice of the F-35. To start with, the purchase has not come out of thin air. The Next Generation Fighter Capability (NGFC) office has been in existence for the better part of a decade and has been tasked with (like all other defence procurement programs) finding a platform that will serve the CF for 30+ years after the retirement of the CF-18 Hornet.

To accomplish this task, one must understand the evolving nature of the air threat in the decades to come. This environment has markedly changed in the post-Cold War era. During the Cold War the best platforms our fighter pilots might encounter were usually possessed by the Soviet Union and to a somewhat lesser extent, the Warsaw Pact forces. And while fighter aircraft were sold to friendly regimes elsewhere in the world, they were rarely top of the line.

In the post-Cold War era though, this situation has been reversed. Russia, starved for cash, particularly for its aerospace and defence programs now seems to have no qualms selling its best technology to anybody willing to pay. The proposed sale of the S-300 air defence system to Iran is an excellent example. But it's even worse on the combat aviation side of the business. Some of the best versions of its platforms are not even flown by the Russians. For example, While the Russians field several hundred Su-27s, they have sold the Su-30 MKI, a significantly more advanced model of the Su-30 (a derivative of the Su-27) to India and the Indians intend to field hundreds of them in the years to come. The Chinese also operate over 150 of less capable Su-30 MKK (still more advanced than the base Su-30 operated by Russia). And while Canada entertains no desires to enter into conflict with the rising Asian powers, more disconcerting for us, is that this platform (the Su-30 in various variants) is rapidly becoming the air superiority fighter of choice around the Pacific Ring and for those flush with cash. New operators of the Su-30 now include Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Uganda, Algeria and (most importantly for North Americans) Venezuela. The Russians even go so far as to develop advanced platforms largely for the export markets, that they don't intend to induct into service themselves. The MiG-35 is a good example of this.

The Russians aren't the only ones in the game, either. The Chinese have also recently awakened to the revenue potential of exports of advanced fighter jets. Their recent partnership with Pakistan for the J-10 program is the first effort at exporting a medium capability fourth generation fighter. This is an aircraft that's on par with the F-16 or Mirage 2000 and is being offered up by the Chinese, often as a sweetener (and a way to recover some of their spending) to their resource partners in Africa.

Looking at this proliferation of advanced 4th and 4.5 gen aircraft around the world, combined with the sales of advanced anti-air systems like the S-300, the CF is rightly concerned that potential adversaries today are fielding platforms that may already outclass the CF-18. For example, the Sudanese are now fielding significantly modernized MiG-29s. Should Canada decide to participate in any sort of action similar to Operation Allied Force (NATO's intervention in Kosovo), it would mean our fighter pilots would be facing opposing platforms that are potentially as capable as their own. And while training, weapons and tactics can give us the edge, the margin is far too discomforting for the Air Staff on which to risk the lives of our fighter crews.

The situation in the future does not look markedly better. As platforms like the J-10, Su-30, MiG-35 and even the Su-35 proliferate around the world, the CF will face a significant challenge in maintaining its combat edge in any potential combat scenario overseas. Domestically, the development and fielding of 5th generation fighters by the Russians and Chinese (combined with China's attempt to field aircraft carriers) will pose significant challenges to our security in the Arctic. For this reason, the combat aircraft that the CF acquires for the future has to possess certain characteristics that ensure our crews have the ability to counter the threats they will face abroad and in the defence of Canada. For a small, single type multirole fleet there are three characteristics: stealth, advanced sensors/networking/sensor fusion and improved aerodynamics.

It is unfortunate that some of these characteristics (such as stealth) have been mis-characterized in the press as being solely required for offensive missions. Stealth characteristics dramatic improve survivability. While stealth technology has been associated with offensive aircraft to date (particularly by the public watching "shock and awe" footage), in the future air combat environment of highly capable 4th and 4.5 generation fighters combined with advanced anti-air systems like the S-300, stealth is essential for the survivability of the platform. The enemy can't engage our fighters if they can't detect them. Stealth gives our pilots a significantly better shot at completing their missions and coming home safely.

Advanced sensors, networking and sensor fusion is also vital for a future fighter platform. These systems dramatically increase the pilots awareness of his surroundings and allow several fighters to operate as a single system as opposed to a team of aircraft. This significantly improves both their combat power and combat efficiency. Such networking and fusion not only improves situational awareness, it allows the pilots to engage targets they cannot "see" using the combined air picture derived from multiple sensors on multiple aircraft.

The third characteristics is improvements in the aerodynamics characteristics of the aircraft. The big improvement here is the internal carriage of ordinance. Weapons and fuel tanks hanging from the fuel tanks incur significant aerodynamic drag penalties. This causes aircraft to significantly underperform from their advertised figures on range and speed. Internal carriage of weapons eliminate these drag penalties allowing the aircraft to perform much closer to the glossy brochure figures. An alternative here would be an improved airframe and engine that allows for supercruise (the ability to travel faster than Mach 1 without using fuel guzzling after-burners).

Aerodynamics brings us to the next major discussion point: range. The Joint Strike Fighter has been impugned as possessing insufficient range to adequately operate in Canada's vast Arctic expanses. Is there any truth to that? To answer this question, range has to be understood the way engineers and pilots discuss it. For us, there are two range numbers that matter: ferry range and combat radius. The first lets you pre-position your aircraft. The second lets you fight as far away from your base, tanker or whatever you are trying to protect. In the Canadian context, the F-35 has more than adequate ferry range to reposition from Cold Lake to our forward operating bases in the Arctic. But combat radius is where the F-35 shines. It's combat radius is significantly higher than most of its competitors (except for maybe the Eurofighter Typhoon) and the currently in-service CF-18. This means the F-35 will be able to operate further away from its base or tanker, putting distance between the enemy and their targets. In a future where our potential polar adversaries are fielding advanced fighters with significantly longer range missiles, putting some distance between their combat aircraft and our defenceless tankers or bases or urban centres is vitally important. Lastly on range, Michael Byers suggests that the range is insufficient because it takes 8 hours for a tanker to arrive in the Arctic. Here he is getting range and endurance mixed up. They are not the same thing. Simply put, however, the F-35 has the requisite range and endurance to operate in the Canadian domestic environment.

And all this leads us to our third major point of contention: alternatives to the F-35. Several have been proposed, and if the Air Force was willing to compromise on its requirements, some (the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale for example) could be contenders. However, the one being pushed by some commentators opposed to the JSF purchase, is the Boeing F-18 E/F Super Hornet (largely because of its price). This is an aircraft that is wholly inadequate for Canada's future defence needs. Mark Collins insists that its adequate since the US Navy operates the aircraft. However, that's only half the story. The US Navy does indeed operate the Super Hornet in the fleet air defence role today. It replaced the F-14 Tomcat in that role. However, it does not intend to do this in the years to come. Like the CF, the US Navy too has recognized the changing air threat environment and it too has committed to the Joint Strike Fighter program. As has the other operator of the Super Hornet: the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Both these operators recognize that going forward the Super Hornet will not possess sufficient survivability in a medium or high threat battlespace. So both are procuring Joint Strike Fighters to escort the Super Hornet. That should have told Mark Collins something. The Super Hornet is being relegated to the role a light bomber in the future, a bomb truck. This is not what the CF desires in its next fighter. And this is not what Canada needs for its own defences.

The Super Hornet has a significantly lower combat radius than the F-35 (meaning it has to fight closer to what it's trying to protect), no stealth characteristics (a must for survivability in the future) and no improvements in its aerodynamic characteristics over our existing CF-18. In sum, it's a terrible alternative for the Canadian Forces. Those pushing the Super Hornet, are either unaware of the CF's requirements or don't care about them and seek to simply impose the cheapest solution possible.

And the Super Hornet isn't all that cheap either. The RAAF's experience is instructive for Canada. The Aussies spent about AUS$ 6 billion, paying out about US$ 2.2 billion to acquire 24 aircraft and agreeing to a US$ 2.4 billion agreement for 10 years of support. Given the Australian experience, a fleet of far less capable Super Hornet would cost us between $6-$7 billion to acquire and up to $13 billion to support over 20 years. Contrast that to the $9 billion spent on acquiring 65 F-35s and a rumoured cost of $7 billion for a 20 year maintence contract. So while the Super Hornet might have a lower acquisition cost, it is far more expensive to maintain (understandable since engines account for one third of an aircraft's maintenance costs and the Super Hornet has two) over the long run, significantly negating any savings in acquisition costs. Furthermore, being less current that the F-35 also then means that the CF would have to spend billions on upgrades sooner to keep the aircraft at par with the threats it might face. This makes the Super Hornet a terrible value proposition. We'd be paying significantly more over the long run for a lot less capability.

In summary, the Air Staff and the CF are right when they suggest that the Joint Strike Fighter is the most capable and most cost-effective solution that Canada can field in the decades to come. It meets or exceeds all our defence requirements at a reasonable long term price. The alternatives are all significantly more expensive and could result in capability gaps in the later stages of the platforms expected service life (2030-2045), possibly requiring significant and expensive upgrades or simply sacrificing survivability putting our air crews and possibly our national security at risk.

While it's understandable that some commentators and politicians are unhappy with the method in which the Joint Strike Fighter was selected, they should understand that significant efforts were put into studying the future threat environment, evaluating the options and identifiying the best value proposition for Canadian taxpayer, and the best platform for the Canadian Forces for the next 30 years. The Air Staff's recommendations should not be taken lightly. Their decision was not concluded in a flippant manner. And those attempting to portray the F-35 as a unaffordable luxury, a "cadillac" of fighters are doing significant disservice to the fighter pilots, engineers and civil servants who have spent the better part of a decade studying the issue. It's one thing to criticze the government for its processes. It's another matter entirely, to challenge the choice of the CF, assume you know better than the professionals and then insist on a cheaper alternative without knowing if it's suitable or not. I sincerely hope these commentators will be a little more responsible in the months and years to come and place the needs of the CF and concerns for our national security over partisan bickering.

--------------------------------

The CF-18 replacement

AVIATION WEEK has a report from Graham Warwick, "Canada Looks to Accelerate F-35 Decision; Lockheed Eyes Consortium Buy".

So, it appears that Stevie and the Gang are getting to the short strokes of the decision-making process:

"Canada is working to bring forward a decision on its new fighter to later this year, with the Lockheed Martin-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter facing ostensible competition from the Boeing F/A-18E/F, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen NG (Next Generation).

Canada was the first country to join the United States and the United Kingdom as a partner in development of the JSF, and its industry has significant participation on the program. The original plan was to replace all 80 CF-18s, but "65 is sufficient to do the job," says the official."

I know it's wildly impractical politically, but I'd love to see us acquire the latest Sukhoi 35, with Canuck avionics and engines. Might be cheaper and more reliable.