AVCANADA

Maybe he just wants the best tools for the men and women who go to sleep at night knowing there is a risk of a mortar shell landing in their bunk? Someone trolling on avcanada (yourself) , obviously does not have this worry. I think you are the liberal loving- sycophantic, brainwashed - anal retentive bottom feeder who looks to run his mouth at any chance possible. Go stick your head in the snow.

I remember before I went on the internet thinking, "Wow that's great we'll be able to communicate with everyone!" Now I know it's sort of like "everyone" has had half a bottle of rye 15 minutes before the debate started.

modi 13 was trying to make light of the idea that it's too expensive to properly equip our military. Maybe he just wants the best tools for the men and women who go to sleep at night knowing there is a risk of a mortar shell landing in their bunk?


Sorry to interupt, go get 'im!

F 35 debate is a symptom of the bigger issue. Military forces do two things, Defend the homeland from Military threats and support the national security objectives of the nations foreign policy. Canada does not have any meaningful military threats against the homeland so the main function of the Canadian Forces is to support the nations foreign policy. The problem is we do not have a rational, consistent and well articulated foreign policy. We should buy military equipment that best supports the National Security interests of Canada and Canadians. This is hard to do if you don't have well defined and well understood criteria for defining those interests. If we had the test then whether the F35 was the right aircraft could discussed intelligently. At the moment it seems we will spend in the region of 21 Billion dollars to buy the aircraft and then figure out the concept of operations on how we will use it after we get it, and despite our "partner" status in the F35 program we have no guarantees on the amount of significant industrial benefits that will flow to Canadian aerospace companies.

I find it very unfortunate as a Canadian and also as a member of the CF Reserve forces that there is so little interest in discussing the foundation issues of "why do we have a military" and "what do we want it to do ?" There is an election coming up so I think every time one of the politicians knocks at your door ask him/her the question :

"What are the National Security interests of Canada and what is your party doing to address them ?"

Egypt has the largest air force in the Arab world, with over 550 airplanes, more than half of which are of Western origin. Unlike the U.S. military where all services fly aircraft, in Egypt, only the EAF flies aircraft. Not only does the EAF operate U.S. aircraft, but also French, Czechoslovak, Russian, Chinese, and Egyptian aircraft. Some items of U.S. equipment, SH-3 and CH-47, were manufactured underlicense in England and Italy. The U.S. supports only a portion of the total EAF inventory. Managing the logistics support for any one service is a difficult task, combining three U.S. Services as well as seven other countries under both Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Commercial Contracts.

As of 1989, the Egyptian air force had more than 500 combat aircraft and 30,000 personnel, of which 10,000 were conscripts. Its front-rank fighters consisted of sixty-seven multimission F-16 A/Cs and thirty-three F-4Es from the United States, as well as sixteen Mirage 2000s from France. A large inventory of older MiG aircraft (some of which were Chinese versions assembled in Egypt) backed up the more modern fighters. The air force had fitted many of the MiGs with advanced Western electronics, including radars, jamming equipment, and Sidewinder and Matra air-to-air missiles. The Air Defense Force exercised operational control of about 135 MiG interceptors, although their aircraft and personnel remained part of the air force. Egypt also planned to exchange crude oil for fifty Pucara light ground-attack fighters from Argentina. The air force operated seventy-two combat helicopters and a number of electronic-monitoring, maritime-patrol, reconnaissance, and earlywarning aircraft. Some of these aircraft were capable of detecting low-flying targets at great distances.

Talk about starving you people, in order to afford useless weapons:



What was the need for such stuff, after they made peace with Israel???

I don't think it is a question of whether we need new jets or not...its a question of why all the secrecy and lack of competitive bids or following a tendering process like every other government contract.

There is a legitimate requirement for a 5th Generation fighter

ok, get F-22's then. Everyone talks non-stop about our tight, seamless military integration with the USA, so why not get a good 5th gen fighter instead of an also-ran?

that would make our interoperability more seamless than if we could get our hands on the F-22

Ok, I buy your rhetoric. By the same reasoning, the USAF should get rid of it's F-22's - so give them to us

I'm fine with that too... and if they just "give" them too us people would stop bitchin'!

ok, get F-22's then.

Everyone talks non-stop about our tight, seamless military integration with the USA, so why not get a good 5th gen fighter instead of an also-ran?

So, time to look around at alternatives.

Never, there's allways something wrong. "I wanted them to be a lighter grey."