Mission: Deep strike
Best choice: F-35 is perhaps the only choice for future deep-strike, full-combat operations
Example: Bombing Iran’s nuclear sites or a full-blown war
Precedent: Canadian warplanes haven't engaged in aerial combat or bombed well-defended targets since the Second World War.
Options: Russia is developing, and India is buying, the Sukhoi T-50, but the program is as “iffy” as the F-35, it might be more expensive and it would lack the interoperability advantages of a U.S.-built fighter-bomber
Unfortunate that some give the faulty F-35 too much credit and assume Western tech will prevail.
6 comments:
The F-35 project has become this big joke. The only one laughing is Lockheed Martin...Laughing all the way to the bank as they sprinkle our political leadership with their magical marketing dust!
Its situations like these that encourage me to start a business, become rich, and invest in building a local aerospace centre to develop solutions for our Australian Defense Force's future. (Kill two birds with one stone: Build what we need and grow the manufacturing sector! Take that Gillard Govt!)
In this way, China's perspective of reducing reliance on foreign technologies as much as possible is of good thought.
To be dragged into this mess that they call the F-35 project is really disheartening.
...Why can't we develop our own stealth expertise and competence? There's nothing to stop us, is there?
It seems to me after reading this article that "surprise!" except if Canada wants to bomb Iran, it doesn't need F35 or even if it did buy it, it really isn't the best option, whereas upgraded F18s or some new F15s and a cheap high performance trainer a la T/F50 or M346, a couple of UAVs would be plenty good and probably cheaper for Canada.
Why is this so hard for politicians to understand that you don't always have to buy the most expensive piece of equipment out there???
@10:27 PM
You seem to have no idea how complex 5th generation aircraft are. This isn't the kind of thing that any country with no experience of modern aircraft development can pull out of a hat. American has spent billions to get where it is now. Short of theft, there is no way that any other country can design and manufacture a similar plane without pouring similarly huge amounts of money into it.
Well, they, like any other design process seem to be very complex when in the case of the F-35 attaches a STOVL requirement and then has not a clue of a weight management program early on.
Or add over 3 times the software as an F-22. Or, have any number of management / leadership delusions about how great it will be.
With that though, the F-35 is not a "fifth-generation fighter" except in the eyes of the marketing pukes.
Hello Eric
When I was reading about "Weighing the factors in buying a warplane" myself, I do find this very bad assumptions and poor reporting.
I just want ask you question Eric. What do you think about Australian Aviation website and what are they like with facts about aircraft options etc?
I seem to think Andrew McLaughlin and some other folks are a pro-JSF advocates and probably laughing their heads off when we say the Super Hornet/JSF are a joke. Which they are indeed a wrong aircraft.
Regards Peter
To (yet another) Anonymous @6:57am,
You are right, but how do you explain Japan and Korea, or for that reason China (less the theft)? You have to start somewhere, Im not suggesting Australia go it alone but there is scope for a number of Western, South American and Asian countries with similar requirements to seriously consider collaborative efforts to design an alternative to what America and to an extent Europe is no longer offering. It doesn't have to be a single airframe design but rather could take advantage of various areas of expertise to trade and combine designs, components and philosophies to create tailor made solutions based on these shared synergies.
If we don't we will all be buying from Russia or China within 20 years. This has been highlighted by a just released report into the European aerospace industry which could be in dire straights within 20 years if money and direction are not forthcoming. We have all been warned. The time for thinking of reasons why we cannot do something has past and the time for realising what we can do is now upon us.
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