Review Of F-35 Fighter Likely To Yield Lower Price, Faster Production

[Troubleshot]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthomps ... 407be51007

Interesting read

[AuxBatOn]

And look here: http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/politics/fi ... -1.3956306

Sole-Sourced Super Hornets will set us back $123M a piece. Just for the aircraft. For a vastly inferior weapon system.

[Troubleshot]

And look here: http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/politics/fi ... -1.3956306

Sole-Sourced Super Hornets will set us back $123M a piece. Just for the aircraft. For a vastly inferior weapon system.

Is there any significant savings in a similar airframe? i.e... aircraft support equipment, tooling, training, crew and maintenance familiarity? This was probably already discussed but I must have missed it.

TS

[trampbike]

It will end up being WAY more expensive and far less relevant in the near future for most missions, than just straight up buying F-35s. This is a purely political decision that has nothing to do with the reality of the RCAF needs and the actual long term costs.

(Super insightful comments about the Super Hornet having twice as many engines as the F-35, inbound in 3, 2, 1...)

[kevind]

I read somewhere that Super Hornet was less than 20% common with the CF-188 and that it might not fit in the Quick Response Hangers.

It is like saying that your 1980 Civic is the same as your 1998 Civic.

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q= ... 2898335209

[Rockie]

(Super insightful comments about the Super Hornet having twice as many engines as the F-35, inbound in 3, 2, 1...)

Super insightful comment has arrived.

It's not that the SH has twice as many engines as the F35, most of the other options do. It's that the F35 only has one. You and other fans of the airplane continue to think that fact is irrelevant in the face of all the other truly magical things the jet can do, but let's have this conversation again after we lose the 1st, 2nd 3rd ones due to single engine failure.

Coincidentally on the Harvard II thread where they may have lost their engine you are rightly defending the crew's decision to eject, apparently unaware of the irony as it pertains to this thread.

[AuxBatOn]

Comparing a small turboprop to a modern jet?? Nobody would be questionning the decision to eject, if it had to happen: what we are saying is that it is less likely to happen.

[Rockie]

You're missing the irony too, I'm not talking about the ejection. But like I said we'll have this conversation again after that "less likely" event has happened a few times.

[AuxBatOn]

Again, you are comparing two extremely different systems (from a design, engineering and technology point of view).

[Rockie]

Again, you are comparing two extremely different systems (from a design, engineering and technology point of view).

Yeah...so?

Modern turbofan engines are many orders of magnitude more reliable than any fighter engine built, or likely ever to be built, yet procedures and regulations are still in place not for if an engine quits, but when.. F35 engines are man-made mechanical things, therefore they will break. Ignoring that basic truism won't make it go away.

[mato]

There's enough lives being hauled around on caravans and PC-12's up north on one engine. So what's the big deal about the f-35, when you have pilots flying them that are well aware of the risks associated with the job? It's not like these guys and gals are signing up for day care. If if bothered them so much single engine they can put their name down for multi or rotary, as far as I know no one gets forced onto fighters, it's usually requested. Now that that's out of the way, my only concern is really loss of life, I could care less if one packs it in if the pilot ejects safe. With all the risks of the job it sounds silly to me to talk about Swiss cheese and the layers of safety to death about having two engines. I don't care, it's not for me to care about, why do people even have such strong opinions about this?

[frosti]

Is there any significant savings in a similar airframe? i.e... aircraft support equipment, tooling, training, crew and maintenance familiarity? This was probably already discussed but I must have missed it.

Most of our equipment is just as old as the Cf18s, so we'll need updates regardless. AFAIK its a couple weeks for techs to get qualified on the Super, even less for pilots - just some sim time and one or two check rides. Transitioning isn't an issue, its spending all this money for an aircraft that's already obsolete.

[Rockie]

There's enough lives being hauled around on caravans and PC-12's up north on one engine. So what's the big deal about the f-35, when you have pilots flying them that are well aware of the risks associated with the job? It's not like these guys and gals are signing up for day care. If if bothered them so much single engine they can put their name down for multi or rotary, as far as I know no one gets forced onto fighters, it's usually requested. Now that that's out of the way, my only concern is really loss of life, I could care less if one packs it in if the pilot ejects safe. With all the risks of the job it sounds silly to me to talk about Swiss cheese and the layers of safety to death about having two engines. I don't care, it's not for me to care about, why do people even have such strong opinions about this?

Actually it is for you to care about if you pay taxes in Canada. For me it doesn't matter if the pilots concerned are willing to shoulder the risk because I'm not willing to let them. They have a Canada flash on their shoulders which means they are tasked with defending us, and each of us has a say in what tools we give them to do it with. Before anybody goes off on giving them the best combat aircraft realize there are other considerations than that at play here in the great white north. Despite being in combat operations on and off since 1991, how many jets have we lost to combat compared to other reasons?

We also cannot afford to lose airframes to something as eminently survivable as a simple engine failure. To me it's foolish.

[Spokes]

Again, you are comparing two extremely different systems (from a design, engineering and technology point of view).

Yeah...so?

Modern turbofan engines are many orders of magnitude more reliable than any fighter engine built, or likely ever to be built, yet procedures and regulations are still in place not for if an engine quits, but when.. F35 engines are man-made mechanical things, therefore they will break. Ignoring that basic truism won't make it go away.

If the single engine option were combined with a properly robust search and rescue structure in the arctic would your opinions on this matter change? Is it just the single engine "problem" that is the source of your objection, or is it just the main one?

I am really not an expert in fighter type operations and am just curious. It seems that lots of people move around the arctic in single engined airplanes, not sure how this is different. Except maybe the pilots of these jets would have better survival training.

[teacher]

.....and the department of National Defence report stating the folly of buying the super hornet has now been made "SECRET".....

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/ ... ain-secret

Good thing our government is open and transparent

[Rockie]

If the single engine option were combined with a properly robust search and rescue structure in the arctic would your opinions on this matter change? Is it just the single engine "problem" that is the source of your objection, or is it just the main one?

Well it would certainly help, but that's not about to happen is it? Nor would it completely erase my concerns because as I've said before these jets will not be replaced, and losing one to an engine failure means one less for the fleet...forever. We're getting the absolute - bare bones - can't do it with any less minimum as it is, in fact Canada cannot meet commitments with the higher number of Hornets we already have. The math doesn't work.

Now, if Canada had this amazing SAR capability you mentioned, and we could afford enough jets to more than cover our commitments, and buy replacements as we lose them - then I'd be all for it.

[trampbike]

You're missing the irony too

I'm curious here: what are all the cognitive biases that you have to go through to convince yourself that your opinion regarding this subject is more actual and relevant than the opinion of a guy like AuxBatOn? How do you convince yourself that someone like AuxBatOn just doesn't get what only you here are clever enough to get?

[Mach1]

Actually it is for you to care about if you pay taxes in Canada.

I care. I care deeply. And I am deeply offended that: The government is doing what it complained about it's predecessor doing... a single source buy; that the government is keeping the deal a secret from the public, just like they complained about the previous government doing; that every department in the government is telling the Liberals that this will cost us MORE money, not less; that we, the tax payer are expected to carry this burden so that Jr doesn't have to have an open and honest competition in which Jr's plane of choice might not win (or worse yet, the one he doesn't like will win). Now with numbers coming in that show the F-18 to be a more expensive option than the F-35, I can't help but wonder if we won't ultimately wind up with less aircraft under your desired dream plane than the alternatives.

You; should be concerned that when the bills for this fiasco start coming in that 18 planes might well be all that your comrades in arms ever get because the budget will have been blown to cover the ego of a substitute drama teacher. And the minimum number of airframes you are concerned about will never emerge regardless. I can see us still flying our current fleet into 2050 with this interim buy... how safe is that going to be? Or I can see my tax rates (already over 50% combined tax rates in 6/10 provinces) going even higher to pay for these massive deficits that, according to Jr's dad, take care of themselves (they don't... and we had 2 decades of paying for that policy behind us already to prove the point).

To me it's foolish.

We all know that is your opinion but it is just that, your opinion. That does not make anything you have said fact. You may be right or not. Only time will tell either way. But!!! Why won't these guys hold an open competition and just do what they promised. Let the winner take all.

[Rockie]

You're missing the irony too

I'm curious here: what are all the cognitive biases that you have to go through to convince yourself that your opinion regarding this subject is more actual and relevant than the opinion of a guy like AuxBatOn? How do you convince yourself that someone like AuxBatOn just doesn't get what only you here are clever enough to get?

The irony is that you and Auxbaton are defending a single engine airplane because it's perfectly safe at the same time you're defending ejecting from an airplane that lost its one and only engine. You don't see it?

Don't get me wrong, I respect Auxbaton's and your opinion on all kinds of things, but not everything. Too bad you have so little respect for mine.

We all know that is your opinion but it is just that, your opinion. That does not make anything you have said fact. You may be right or not. Only time will tell either way.

I've never claimed it was anything but my opinion, but if you can point to an aircraft engine that's never quit, or a single engine airplane that doesn't hit the ground when when the engine quits I'll admit there may be exceptions to that opinion.

Why won't these guys hold an open competition and just do what they promised. Let the winner take all.

I agree completely, but the ability of the aircraft to survive an engine failure has to be one of the factors in that competition. So far that little detail has been studiously ignored.

[dhc#]

Don't forget to add the cost of a new fleet of aerial boom tankers, (or pay to rely on the US Air Force) if Canada eventually goes with the F35A, since that model is not set up for the hose-drogue system that our Air Force uses on the Airbus/Herc tanker fleet.