Behold: the quality of what your taxpayer funded thinking buys you...
--"It’s no surprise that the cost of the F-35 is problematic for Canada. It’s the world’s second most expensive tactical aircraft after its F-22 stablemate."--
Nope. 120 combat capable F-22s for around $83B. About the same amount of non-combat-capable F-35s for well over $110B and climbing to-date.
Then there is the actual cost to get it to a squadron. The F-22 is cheaper there too.
--"At a projected flyaway price of US$82 million in 2020, it compares to US$61 million flyaway for a new build Super Hornet (prices in 2015 dollars). Supporters of the F-35 would argue that you get a lot more capability for your money, but that doesn’t help if you’re broke. And when you look at its defence budget, Canada has been heading for the wall for a while now."---
Nope. The Super-Hornet, to-date, beats the F-35 in every possible, useful combat metric. Although, let us see how NAVAIR saw it with an F-35C years ago. Today, the F-35 is worse than this underwhelming 'capability'. The chart below assumed F-35 systems worked properly.
--Even if our northern mates are doing things smarter than we are, that’s an implausibly large amount of efficiency to find. It’s more likely that they’re expending a much greater proportion of their budget on keeping the extant forces going than we are."--
Highly debatable on bang for the buck. Not with this management history.
--"The problem is that the something won’t cost that much less than the F-35, will offer less capability and—perhaps worst of all from a Canadian point of view—might require earlier expenditure."--
Nope. Gripen.
--"The most likely alternative for Canada is the Super Hornet. European options would require new supply chains and integration of new weapons into the inventory. As Australia found, the transition from Hornet to Super Hornet is easy, with training and logistics being similar enough to significantly reduce overheads. Canada’s also attracted to the Super Hornet because of its twin engines. There was a school of thought in Australia that we need two engines to operate safely over water; the Canadian equivalent is the vast northern expanses. The argument fails to appreciate the reliability of modern American jet engines (it might make sense if you had to use Chinese engines) but it still seems to have some currency up north."--
A few points. The F-35 fan-base has stated one-engine is good enough. So, hard to shoot down Gripen over that. The other part is every other aircraft in production actually works. The F-35 does not work to any credible level. At well over twice the cost per flight hour of a Super Hornet.
--"The list of pros for the F-35 also includes the preference of the RCAF for the highest tech platform it can get (air forces are like that) and Canadian industry involvement in the program—always politically tough to walk away from. Canada will get some work regardless, but future opportunities for construction and support work would be highly constrained. I wouldn’t mind a small wager that Canada eventually settles on the F-35 after all."--
Tech for the sake of tech is not an answer.
Let us watch how far the ASPI spin goes.
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-DOT&E Report: The F-35 Is Not Ready for IOC and Won't Be Any Time Soon
-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era
-History of F-35 engine problems
-Compare
-JSF hopes and dreams...early days of the Ponzi Scheme
-The Prognostics
-2002--Australia joins the F-35 program
-Congressional Research Service--Through to FY2013, F-35 has received $83.3B in funding
-F-35 choice gives Dutch a shocking high cost per flight hour
-More indications that the F-35 is a failed program
-From the year 2000. Very insightful. The JSF: One More Card In The House (PDF)
“It will affordable because already there are 3,000 aircraft on the order books.”
—27 June 2002, Air Marshal Houston, Defence press announcement, Australia joins the F-35 program—
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