Some of these things I have written about before.
The Liberal Party of Canada may increase government spending on a lot of things not associated with Defense. The Canadian government is well beyond the point of tolerating defense acquisition stuff-ups. Here, there is not much similar with Australia where both the major parties just parrot whatever a U.S. defense company says as good. Analysis=done. In Australia thus far, there has been no credible risk-assessment for fighter aircraft replacement. So let us stomp that meme out right now: that Canada and Australia are some how similar in regard to the F-35.
The last Canadian leadership either lied or was really poorly advised about the CF-18 replacement project. Not selecting the F-35 was actually a choice. The last government did not want you to believe such a thing. The last government stated a robust competition had already been done for the F-35. That is: the X-32 vs. the X-35. That wasn't a competition. It was a rigged game between prototypes. At the link, note that weapons bays add a lot of weight to the design. Pretty easy to 'win' a 'competition' if one of the players has the U.S. government in their hip pocket.
The last Canadian government also stated they would buy the F-35 during peak production and lowest price--around 2016. Given the F-35 project history with so much development still to do; there is no such thing as F-35 peak production or a low price. There was a lot of other spin from the last government that amounted to Lockheed Martin talking points.
No country should consider purchasing a U.S. defence product unless it has passed U.S. department of defense procurement milestone-C. This signifies that a project has stable production methods and design properties. Milestone-C is a law that has to have been awarded...before any low-rate-initial-production has happened. Odd how the F-35 program has been able to ignore that; with hundreds of mistake jets in the pipeline. The F-35 program won't get milestone-C until the end of the decade. That is a red flag.
You should not consider a U.S. military aircraft unless it has been fully tested and used by a normal, everyday operational U.S. squadron.
For a few years.
This has not happened with the F-35.
You should evaluate the military requirement for the product. As it stands the F-35 is too expensive to own and operate and is likely to get shot down vs emerging and some existing threats. Some threats that are over 20 years old.
Add that up and there is no justification for Canada to consider the F-35 as a CF-18 replacement.
Even if the F-35 met its requirements and worked, Canada is looking at the wrong version of the F-35; the 'A' model. A couple of Canada's operational deployed fields are short. One is 6001 feet. Where arrestment gear similar to aircraft carriers is used to recover the CF-18 (photo below). Note, you may know that the CF-18 was designed to be used on aircraft carriers.
The hook on the F-35A model (which Canadian defence says it needs) is for emergencies only. So an F-35C, the aircraft carrier variant is a bit closer to the need. All in all, if Canada loves the F-35 so much, only the F-35B and C will do. So, Canadian defence has shown it can't make up a military requirement to replace the CF-18. Bankrupt thinking.
A naval variant of the Rafale, the Super Hornet and the Gripen will be able to manage short fields.
The F-35 in no way has met any Canadian specific needs. More, the only reasonable way to replace the CF-18 is to have a fly-off competition between existing, finished, tested, low-risk fighter aircraft on the market. The F-35 doesn't meet that requirement as it is years from such a status.
If ever.
The F-35 is not qualified to replace the CF-18.
In the end, whatever replaces the CF-18 should have gone through a well run requirement process, procurement process and evaluation process. All based on existing Canadian government methods for such a huge spend.
I would add that various, potential aircraft that qualify to replace the CF-18 offer 100 percent offset options and other benefits. As well as being affordable and reliable.
All the CF-18 replacement candidates can kill an F-35.
Without too much trouble.
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