Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) News and Discussions

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
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  • #21
Considering Canada's position it could be argued that a Super Hornet fleet would be "good enough" for their requirements.

They are in a far more secure position than Australia so a decent fleet of general purpose strike aircraft able to rapidly integrate into NATO air campaigns would be the most logical option. A mixed fleet of F-18E/F (possibly even G?) should be cheaper than an equivalent F-35 fleet and be of sufficient quality to last for a few decades.

Of course they could become America's New Zealand and scrap their combat aircraft altogether.

Our legacy Hornets are 40 years old and any replacement needs to be viable for the next 30-40 years. A Superhornet 20 years from now will only be viable in uncontested airspace IMO. Frankly Canada might be better off getting out of the fast jet business if only second rate jets are to be considered. Take the fighter budget and buy 6 Virginias and some new air tankers/P-8s and fast track the new surface combatant ships.
 

t68

Well-Known Member
Our legacy Hornets are 40 years old and any replacement needs to be viable for the next 30-40 years. A Superhornet 20 years from now will only be viable in uncontested airspace IMO. Frankly Canada might be better off getting out of the fast jet business if only second rate jets are to be considered. Take the fighter budget and buy 6 Virginias and some new air tankers/P-8s and fast track the new surface combatant ships.
You don't have the same stratigic circumstance as NZ, don't think a politician could even consider cutting the ACF. Not only have you need the for Artic patrols and NATO, but have they considered the implications and signal it would send to the Americans under NORAD.

Whilst I believe F35 is your best long term bet, but to appease the mind set could an interim buy of 36 Super Hornets and with rationalising the legacy fleet push you out to the mid 2025? Order F35 around 2025 for a 2030 FOC so come 2035 you replace Super Hornet for additional F35 and it also overcomes block obsolesce
 

SpudmanWP

The Bunker Group
Whilst I believe is your best long term bet, but to appease the mind set could an interim buy of 36 Super Hornets and with rationalising the legacy fleet push you out to the mid 2025? Order around 2025 for a 2030 FOC so come 2035 you replace Super Hornet for additional and it also overcomes block obsolesce
You will have the SuperHornets for 40+ years, not 20 (The CF-18 will be 42 in 2025). This means that you are planning to have 2 different fighters going forward. That makes no tactical or economic sense.

btw, Block Obsolesce is a very minor risk as the has been designed from the very beginning for ease of upgrades. For instance, Block 3f is less than 1 mil per plane as it's mostly software. There is already a worldwide upgrade program in place that is well funded with a large production engine driving it. That can never be said of the Super Hornet or ANY other fighter.

For example, the Superhornet got Block2 in 2005 and has yet to get a Block3 but the F-35 is getting new Blcoks every 2-3 years after IOC.
 

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
You don't have the same stratigic circumstance as NZ, don't think a politician could even consider cutting the ACF. Not only have you need the for Artic patrols and NATO, but have they considered the implications and signal it would send to the Americans under NORAD.

Whilst I believe F35 is your best long term bet, but to appease the mind set could an interim buy of 36 Super Hornets and with rationalising the legacy fleet push you out to the mid 2025? Order F35 around 2025 for a 2030 FOC so come 2035 you replace Super Hornet for additional F35 and it also overcomes block obsolesce
That's to much common sense and to logical for the pollies. Canada and NZ are, IMHO, illustrations of political and treasury ideology along with bureaucracy having detrimental or even deleterious impacts upon the security of a nation. Whilst the NZ case is more centred on ideology, the Canadian case illustrates both. Then there is India. Canada is not that bad yet.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #25
You don't have the same stratigic circumstance as NZ, don't think a politician could even consider cutting the ACF. Not only have you need the for Artic patrols and NATO, but have they considered the implications and signal it would send to the Americans under NORAD.

Whilst I believe F35 is your best long term bet, but to appease the mind set could an interim buy of 36 Super Hornets and with rationalising the legacy fleet push you out to the mid 2025? Order F35 around 2025 for a 2030 FOC so come 2035 you replace Super Hornet for additional F35 and it also overcomes block obsolesce
Everything in this GD country boils down to political expediency for our brain dead pollies. Worse still, there is the whining Canadian electorate which are easy prey for our low-life pollies, promise them all sorts of BS, their memories can be measured in nanoseconds anyway (and unfortunately they are right).

DND has already committed $500m to extend some of our CF-18s out to 2025. There is no way a 36 unit purchase of SHs could happen unless you want to doom the RCAF to a Superhornet fleet for the next 30+ years IMO. This is Turdo Jr.'s plan. As for NORAD and US opinion , the bleeding heart class in this country is more than willing to let the US carry the load. Absolutely disgraceful!
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
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  • #26
You will have the SuperHornets for 40+ years, not 20 (The CF-18 will be 42 in 2025). This means that you are planning to have 2 different fighters going forward. That makes no tactical or economic sense.

btw, Block Obsolesce is a very minor risk as the has been designed from the very beginning for ease of upgrades. For instance, Block 3f is less than 1 mil per plane as it's mostly software. There is already a worldwide upgrade program in place that is well funded with a large production engine driving it. That can never be said of the Super Hornet or ANY other fighter.

For example, the Superhornet got Block2 in 2005 and has yet to get a Block3 but the F-35 is getting new Blcoks every 2-3 years after IOC.
A 12-24 SH purchase would have made sense 10 years ago and the number of legacy Hornets that needed to be upgraded could have been minimized (centre barrel replacements, and other stuff). Furthermore, the just announced $500 million needed to extend a few of our Hornets lifetimes out to 2025 would not have been necessary. Given the electoral climate, the F-35 likely will be rejected and we will suffer for it.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
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  • #27
That's to much common sense and to logical for the pollies. Canada and NZ are, IMHO, illustrations of political and treasury ideology along with bureaucracy having detrimental or even deleterious impacts upon the security of a nation. Whilst the NZ case is more centred on ideology, the Canadian case illustrates both. Then there is India. Canada is not that bad yet.
I agree but these pollie morons could not get away with all the BS here in Canada were it not for apathy (and appalling ignorance of defence issues) of the Canadian electorate. As for being as bad as India, we are damn close some days and worse on others IMHO.
 

t68

Well-Known Member
You will have the SuperHornets for 40+ years, not 20 (The CF-18 will be 42 in 2025). This means that you are planning to have 2 different fighters going forward. That makes no tactical or economic sense.
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Agree with what you are saying about 2 seperate log tails,but whatever aircraft is chosen they will have a need for 2 seperate lines till all aircraft are replaced anyway in either the short or long term.

Surely RCAF has put future cost estimates in for a variety of platforms which should show that whilst F35 my cost a little bit more upfront now but should show saving in the long term in regards to capabilty and upgrades or is it a case of stuff the long term it's here and now that they are worring about
 

SpudmanWP

The Bunker Group
A 12-24 SH purchase would have made sense 10 years ago
No, just no.

Doing that would lead to (based on linked original plan):

15+ years (2005 - 2017) of Hornet & Super Hornet
5 years (2017-2021) of Hornet, Super Hornet, and F-35
23 years (2022-2047) of F-35 and Super Hornet

After 2048 you would have F-35 and whatever replaced the Super Hornets.

From that point on you would always be stuck with at least two fighters as your planes are not aging at the same pace and cannot be replaced at the same time.


Agree with what you are saying about 2 seperate log tails,but whatever aircraft is chosen they will have a need for 2 seperate lines till all aircraft are replaced anyway in either the short or long term.
You will always have a slight overlap of fighters in any program, but for Canada it was only 5 years.

http://i.imgur.com/7amfWyv.jpg
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #30
No, just no.

Doing that would lead to (based on linked original plan):

15+ years (2005 - 2017) of Hornet & Super Hornet
5 years (2017-2021) of Hornet, Super Hornet, and F-35
23 years (2022-2047) of F-35 and Super Hornet

After 2048 you would have F-35 and whatever replaced the Super Hornets.
I am not sure about the overall status of our Hornets. AFAIK we have about 80 of our Hornets left from the 138 (I think). Of these, I believe 40-50 had centre fuselage replacments and of course there has been on going weapons/electronics improvements. At present the fleet is good for maybe a couple of more years but no purchase will happen until 2017 at the earliest and deliveries of new jets will not arrive in time hence another 500 million is needed to extend some of legacy Hornets out to 2025. A dozen SH ((maybe configured for Growler conversion) would have bridged the gap. Having a few Growlers around to operate with whatever the frigging government of the day decides it will buy for the RCAF would be manageable until 2030-2035.
 

SpudmanWP

The Bunker Group
They are going to SLEP the Hornets to keep them around till "something" replaces them. There is no economic or tactical need or logic to "forever" having to support two different fighter types.

If you had bought Super Hornets 10 years ago, then they would be 20 years old when (assuming F-35) Canada get's its last F-35 . Then, every 20 or so years you will have to re-compete and replace half your fighter fleet when it reaches ~40ish years.

2005 - Buy 12-24 Sh
2025 - Get F-35s
2045 - Replace your SHs
2065 - Replace your F-35s
2085 - Replace whatever replaced your SHs
2105 - Replace whatever replaced your F-35s
etc, etc, etc

The only way to stop that is to do a 20 year SLEP (that's a massive SLEP) to either the SH or F-35 so that its replacement covers both types. Then again, somebody will make the same argument then that you are making now and it starts all over again.

btw, with the announced $500 mil SLEP there will be no fighter gap.
 
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John Fedup

The Bunker Group
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  • #33
They are going to SLEP the Hornets to keep them around till "something" replaces them. There is no economic or tactical need or logic to "forever" having to support two different fighter types.

If you had bought Super Hornets 10 years ago, then they would be 20 years old when (assuming) Canada get's its last F-35. Then, every 20 or so years you will have to re-compete and replace half your fighter fleet when it reaches ~40ish years.

2005 - Buy 12-24 Sh
2025 - Get F-35s
2045 - Replace your SHs
2065 - Replace your F-35s
2085 - Replace whatever replaced your SHs
2105 - Replace whatever replaced your F-35s
etc, etc, etc

They only way to stop that is to do a 20 year SLEP to either the SH or F-35 so that its replacement covers both types. Then again, somebody will make the same argument then that you are making now and it starts all over again.
The issue boils down to political incompetence by all parties. It would be easier for these fools to agree that shit smells like roses than agreeing on what fighter to purchase.
 

rockitten

Member
The issue boils down to political incompetence by all parties. It would be easier for these fools to agree that shit smells like roses than agreeing on what fighter to purchase.
John, would you mind if you can explain a bit why Canadian politicians are so against/indecisive about buying F-35?

Do they prefer European stuff (buy British syndrome?)? F-35 too expensive? Local industrial participation too low? Or they are just politicians?
 

RobWilliams

Super Moderator
Staff member
Do they prefer European stuff (buy British syndrome?)?
That's not a thing since the Upholder debacle.

If they want national participation then the F-35 is the biggest game in town for them, Typhoon, Rafale & SH don't hold a candle to it from Canada's perspective.
 

swerve

Super Moderator
That's not a thing since the Upholder debacle..
Indeed - & the sorry saga of the EH101 purchase & cancellation, & the cocked-up eventual buying of a US alternative doesn't exactly suggest a pro-British bias. If there was one, they'd have stuck with EH101, & have had Merlins in service for years.
 

RobWilliams

Super Moderator
Staff member
Indeed - & the sorry saga of the EH101 purchase & cancellation, & the cocked-up eventual buying of a US alternative doesn't exactly suggest a pro-British bias. If there was one, they'd have stuck with EH101, & have had Merlins in service for years.
Exactly, then there's the outright dismissal of the Type 26 a couple of years ago in the name of protecting Canadian skills.

Load of bluster IMO, they'll either be getting F-35 or sticking it out with what they have.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
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  • #39
John, would you mind if you can explain a bit why Canadian politicians are so against/indecisive about buying F-35?

Do they prefer European stuff (buy British syndrome?)? F-35 too expensive? Local industrial participation too low? Or they are just politicians?
The short answer is the Canadian electorate for the most part are totally mis-informed about the F-35 and continue to accept all the obsolete negative info about the jet (including way out of date pricing for the F-35 and false pricing on some alternatives). The anti-defence media (CBC, Toronto Star "Harper haters) continue to spoon BS to citizens who gladly eat this shit up hoping the money goes to their particular desires. The pollies, gutless as they are, are more than happy to defer or cancel important decisions for political advantage. This is not just a F-35 problem, it is a military procurement failure on all fronts.

From an economic POV, Canadian companies have done about 600-700 million on the JSF program and could manage another 10+ billion if 2500-3000 are built. A failure to procure F-35s by Canada puts that business at risk. Any other choice would not come close to this amount.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
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  • #40
Indeed - & the sorry saga of the EH101 purchase & cancellation, & the cocked-up eventual buying of a US alternative doesn't exactly suggest a pro-British bias. If there was one, they'd have stuck with EH101, & have had Merlins in service for years.
The common link with the Merlin and Upholder was Chrétien, a useless POS. While he was trying to make his mind to purchase the Upholders they were being left without proper mothballing as the RN expected the deal to proceed quickly. Then the RCN failed to properly evaluate their condition (perhaps intentionally fearing an exit from the sub business). As for the Merlins, he cancelled the deal out of spite for Mulroney and we paid a huge cancellation penalty. Twenty two years later we have 6 CH-148s out of 28 orders and they still don't meet specifications. The EH101 was the only right choice and still is.:(
 
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