Hmmm.
Permission, as a non-military member, but proud supporter, to offer my opinion? I promise to try and word it in a way that will not offend my betters. Much.
All of the reporting I’ve read to date makes heavy use of terms like “preliminary”, “could cost up to”, "if" and many other qualifying weasel words. Hence, I think it’s safe to say that anyone’s opinion on the matters is just that: opinion. No one really knows what will happen after the fact. Apparently, sometimes government acquisitions occasionally go one or two dollars over budget. No, really. And the negotiations for economic offsets haven’t even begun, let alone been finalized! So why don’t the F35 admires calm down and quit trying to act as if they know the financial implications so precisely when the people who actually do the procuring, don’t? With no disrespect intended to AuxBatOn, a rank and file military pilot knows as much about the dollars and cents of military acquisition as a line pilot knows about managing an airline.
Numerous ironies and incosistencies abound, as pointed by Rockie. Outrage over single-source (guess you’re gonna give back your C-17’s, hmm?) "Single engine a/c are incredibly reliable" True, sure, ok. Right until they aren't - sumtin' 'bout a Harvard II recently? Harrumphing about the supreme value of life, and how it trumps equipment cost. Except that of course, unless massive SAR resources are staged at enormous cost in the north, the survivability of an ejection in the latitudes likely to be patrolled against the Red Threat is grossly lessened. And so it goes.
I am completely in agreement with Rockie on the 1 vs 2 engine argument. It’s Canada, not some tiny landlocked country. It does not have the resources of the US. Whether or not a twin should be the Super-Hornet, I am not entirely certain of but it sure seems like a logical choice. Capabilities? I’ll leave that to the “armchair experts”. I certainly don't try and claim they're the same, it's a different generation of aircraft after all. But much of the article describing the capability advantages of the F35 are based on things like US carrier ops - where there definitely IS SAR standing by constantly. How does this relate to far north patrols in Canada exactly?
Non-expert that I am, I’m trying to understand though, how the backers of the F35 look at these articles and view them as a win for their position on the issue of affordability. There was a statement somewhere stating basically “the F18 Super Hornet will cost more and be a far less capable aircraft”. Except, both articles state nothing of the sort regarding cost. Even with the most optimistic assumptions, the F35 is still assumed to be 10% more.
Perry said it would be ironic if Trump succeeded in quickly driving down the cost to the point where both fighters were competitively priced.
"If Trump is able to gets some extra savings out of Lockheed … my guess is you're looking at a 10 per cent cost difference [between the Super Hornet and the F-35]," he said.
(There's a couple of those "if's" I was talking about.)
But I wouldn’t lose too much sleep about Trudeau overspending. That’s a given. He campaigned on it, people voted for it, and now he’s going to exceed your wildest expectations. Hooray! So yeah, I would say affordability needs to play a crucial role in procurement. I get it, wanting the best tool for the job isn’t an affliction limited to military personnel. But I do know that Canada is a country that can’t really afford “good enough”, let alone “the best”. Sorry, but that’s just the reality.
*No egos were hurt in the writing of this post.*I’m still waiting for my white male privilege membership card. Must have gotten lost in the mail.
