Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Guess Germany is looking at other options besides the F-35.   Probably not a big surprise given the way that Merkel (and most other Europeans) view the US administration.

 

By the time they purchase them (assuming it happens), how old will the Typhoon be?   

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-defence/germany-favors-eurofighter-as-it-seeks-to-replace-tornado-idUSKBN1E52EK

 

If it doesn't work, maybe they can see if Australia has any additional F/A-18A's they can spare?   

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

 Am I underestimating the Euro  fighter  ?  I thought it was just what it was named . A fighter , not a multi purpose aircraft .

 At any rate, it seems to me it comes with a hefty price tag ...

Cheers, Christian 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Meh, who needs the F-35 or new/old Australian Hornets when these babies are what Canada and Germany really need...

 

gettyimages-473544810.jpg?quality=85&str

 

...the mighty Hawg can do it all! As an added bonus they can be had for cheap, much sooner then 2021, and for a limited time if they buy two they get one free (pay separate shipping and handling accessories sold separately). I mean that Shark Mouth alone will scare away any possible aggressor...

 

:rolleyes:

 

EDIT: Note that these (below) are not for sale as they are being held in strategic war reserve as they are deemed far too valuable to national security:

 

2876669272_1a2b4a119d_b.jpg

Edited by Don
Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, 11bee said:

Guess Germany is looking at other options besides the F-35.   Probably not a big surprise given the way that Merkel (and most other Europeans) view the US administration.

 

By the time they purchase them (assuming it happens), how old will the Typhoon be?   

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-defence/germany-favors-eurofighter-as-it-seeks-to-replace-tornado-idUSKBN1E52EK

 

If it doesn't work, maybe they can see if Australia has any additional F/A-18A's they can spare?   

 

Has little to do with Trump as the alternatives are also American. Wouldn't be delivered until 2025 either. He will be gone then 

 

They just want to cross the T's and dot the I's and there is internal pressure that if Germany buys the F-35 They won't produce a homegrown equivalent anytime soon.

Edited by TaiidanTomcat
Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, Chris L said:

 They won't produce a homegrown equivalent anytime soon.

 

 That all sounds reasonable until you think of how long it takes to develop something equivalent and then get the bugs out .  

 

That has been pointed out by the Germans. If you want a next gen replacement by 2025, F-35 is it. Unless you want more tiffies or hornets/strike eagles.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just released here in Australia

Sale of Australian Classic Hornets to Canada

 
13 December 2017
 

Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Marise Payne, today announced the Government has agreed to the sale of 18 Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18 A/B Classic Hornets to the Government of Canada. 

The offer follows an expression of interest from the Canadian Government received in September. The sale of the aircraft and associated spares remains subject to final negotiations and Country of Origin export approvals.

Defence plans to withdraw its fleet of F/A-18A/B Classic Hornets from service by 2022, which will be progressively replaced by the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, Australia's new fifth-generation air combat capability.

Minister Payne spoke with her  Canadian counterpart, Minister for National Defence Harjit Sajjan, to welcome the sale.

“Australia greatly values our longstanding and broad bilateral defence relationship with Canada, and this decision is another example of our close and strong partnership,” Minister Payne said.

“The aircraft will supplement Canada’s existing fleet as it develops and implements its plan to replace the Royal Canadian Air Force fighter jet fleet.

Transfer of the first two aircraft is expected to occur from the first half of 2019, in line with the current plan to transition to the Joint Strike Fighter.

Australia’s first two Joint Strike Fighters are expected to arrive in Australia at the end of 2018

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
10 hours ago, Aussie_superbug said:

Just released here in Australia

Sale of Australian Classic Hornets to Canada

 
13 December 2017
 

Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Marise Payne, today announced the Government has agreed to the sale of 18 Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18 A/B Classic Hornets to the Government of Canada. 

The offer follows an expression of interest from the Canadian Government received in September. The sale of the aircraft and associated spares remains subject to final negotiations and Country of Origin export approvals.

Defence plans to withdraw its fleet of F/A-18A/B Classic Hornets from service by 2022, which will be progressively replaced by the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, Australia's new fifth-generation air combat capability.

Minister Payne spoke with her  Canadian counterpart, Minister for National Defence Harjit Sajjan, to welcome the sale.

“Australia greatly values our longstanding and broad bilateral defence relationship with Canada, and this decision is another example of our close and strong partnership,” Minister Payne said.

“The aircraft will supplement Canada’s existing fleet as it develops and implements its plan to replace the Royal Canadian Air Force fighter jet fleet.

Transfer of the first two aircraft is expected to occur from the first half of 2019, in line with the current plan to transition to the Joint Strike Fighter.

Australia’s first two Joint Strike Fighters are expected to arrive in Australia at the end of 2018

 

 

 

Thank you 

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, MarkW said:

What about the just announced competition in 2019 for 88 jets?  With the "Eff You, Boeing" clause?

 

 

Which one?


 

Quote

 

Potential ‘harm’ to economy now a factor in all Canada defense competitions
13 Dec 2017 David Pugliese

"VICTORIA, British Columbia – In a major policy shift, Canada will now determine the winning firms for its defense equipment projects not only based on the benefits a company can provide but also the “harm” individual corporations have on the Canadian economy. The change, announced Tuesday with the launch of a (CAN) $19 billion project (U.S. $14 billion) to buy 88 next generation fighter jets, is clearly aimed at Boeing, which earlier this year filed a trade complaint against Canada’s largest aerospace firm, Bombardier.

But the criteria will apply to all future defense procurements, Canadian government officials said Tuesday. “This new policy clearly demonstrates that we are standing up for Canadian interests,” said Navdeep Bains, the minister of innovation, science and economic development....

...Canada’s procurement minister Carla Qualtrough said all companies are welcome to bid on the upcoming fighter jet program. Proposals will be requested in 2019 and a winner selected in 2022. Eighty-eight fighter jets will be purchased, she added. Delivery of the first planes are expected in 2025.

But Qualtrough noted that the new policy provides for the examination of whether a bidder has been “responsible for harming Canada’s economic interests.” Although she didn’t name Boeing specifically, the minister pointed out that such an evaluation would be based on a company’s actions at the time bids are examined. That would give Boeing a chance to drop its trade complaint against Bombardier, government officials say.

Boeing said Tuesday it will examine what is being called the “Boeing clause.” “We will review the future fighter capability project requirements for 88 jets and make a decision at the appropriate time,” company spokesman Scott Day said. “If there’s an impact on Canadian jobs you will be at a distinct disadvantage,” he said of firms who want to bid on military equipment projects....

...Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Bains said Tuesday that Canada will only deal with a “trusted partner” on the new fighter jets.


 

 

Irony being that Canada hasn't been a "trustworthy partner" on the F-35 program lately, loudly shouting it doesn't work and you won't buy it is not trusty, but I digress. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
17 minutes ago, TaiidanTomcat said:

 

 

Which one?


 

 

Irony being that Canada hasn't been a "trustworthy partner" on the F-35 program lately, loudly shouting it doesn't work and you won't buy it is not trusty, but I digress. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Correction, Trudeau hasn't been a trustworthy partner in the F-35 program.

 

The Canadian government had been (Conservatives and the previous Liberal governments).

 

Don't put Trudeau and Canada in the same sentence.

Link to post
Share on other sites

We will review the future fighter capability project requirements for 88 jets and make a decision at the appropriate time,” company spokesman Scott Day said. “If there’s an impact on Canadian jobs you will be at a distinct disadvantage,” he said of firms who want to bid on military equipment projects....

 

I like it, it's innovative.   Wonder if the US should enact something similar?   How many US aerospace jobs have been "impacted" by EADS / Airbus?  Should probably make sure they are banned from any future US bids. 

 

Also out of idle curiosity - how many Canadian jobs currently support the JSF program?   If Canada ultimately goes with another jet, is LM under any legal requirement to keep that work up north or can they pull those jobs back to the US (or other partners)?

 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Question, had Canada stayed with the F-35 in terms of actually going ahead and purchasing it as the previous administration(s) had wanted then when would the RCAF have received its fist airframe? I mean a final decision (...is there ever a final decision in Canadian military procurement?) what to purchase won't come until 2022 at best with deliveries at least a couple years after that. All the while how much money will yet another study cost the Canadian tax payers? Not to mention the cost of the new (...old...) RAAF Hornets. Then there's the "Boeing Clause". What other U.S. aircraft manufacturer produces modern fighter aircraft aside from Boeing? The answer to that question is obvious. So what other alternatives are there? Ah yes, Airbus (Bombardier's savior and "Sunny's" new best friends) has a potential option don't they... interesting...

Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Don said:

Question, had Canada stayed with the F-35 in terms of actually going ahead and purchasing it as the previous administration(s) had wanted then when would the RCAF have received its fist airframe? I mean a final decision (...is there ever a final decision in Canadian military procurement?) what to purchase won't come until 2022 at best with deliveries at least a couple years after that. All the while how much money will yet another study cost the Canadian tax payers? Not to mention the cost of the new (...old...) RAAF Hornets. Then there's the "Boeing Clause". What other U.S. aircraft manufacturer produces modern fighter aircraft aside from Boeing? The answer to that question is obvious. So what other alternatives are there? Ah yes, Airbus (Bombardier's savior and "Sunny's" new best friends) has a potential option don't they... interesting...


Had JT and his ilk not done what they did..

IIRC around early 2019/late 2018, around the same time as the RAAF 

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Jonathan_Lotton said:


Had JT and his ilk not done what they did..

IIRC around early 2019/late 2018, around the same time as the RAAF 

 

Close. The first of the RAAF aircraft to be handed directly to the RAAF is A35-003, which is in flight testing now. That and the next seven are o be released to 3 SQN RAAF in the USA during this year and the first pair will be flown to Australia late in 2018 if ADF schedules are to be believed. I have a lot more faith in them than Canadian purchasing, but sh!t happens.

 

Shane

Link to post
Share on other sites
17 hours ago, 11bee said:

We will review the future fighter capability project requirements for 88 jets and make a decision at the appropriate time,” company spokesman Scott Day said. “If there’s an impact on Canadian jobs you will be at a distinct disadvantage,” he said of firms who want to bid on military equipment projects....

 

I like it, it's innovative.   Wonder if the US should enact something similar?   How many US aerospace jobs have been "impacted" by EADS / Airbus?  Should probably make sure they are banned from any future US bids. 

 

Also out of idle curiosity - how many Canadian jobs currently support the JSF program?   If Canada ultimately goes with another jet, is LM under any legal requirement to keep that work up north or can they pull those jobs back to the US (or other partners)?

 

 

 

 

 

The F-35 is out. It would have a huge impact on Canadian jobs, employing Canadians on thousands of aircraft across decades.

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
20 hours ago, 11bee said:

We will review the future fighter capability project requirements for 88 jets and make a decision at the appropriate time,” company spokesman Scott Day said. “If there’s an impact on Canadian jobs you will be at a distinct disadvantage,” he said of firms who want to bid on military equipment projects....

 

I like it, it's innovative.   Wonder if the US should enact something similar?   How many US aerospace jobs have been "impacted" by EADS / Airbus?  Should probably make sure they are banned from any future US bids. 

 

 

 

EADS/Airbus isn't as ham fisted a Boeing.  When they compete here, they also build a plant here.  They "create" jobs, or at least offset the jobs lost if a Boeing or Lockheed was to lose jobs.  Look at the Tanker deal back in the early 2000s...won of the 14 time Boeing or Airbus won it, Airbus was going to build a plant here to produce the tankers.

 

The difference between the US and other players is simple:  Other player give away the store to sell their jets.  Look at what Saab or the French are doing to sell the Gripen and Rafale.  In our case, in the limited cases we buy foreign, they also give away the store. 

 

F-35 is mildly interesting because we ar giving away some minor stuff, like final assembly plants (giant empty warehouse to assemble legos in), but we are still keeping the real manufacturing stuff much more under control.

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2017-12-13 at 5:33 PM, Jonathan_Lotton said:


Had JT and his ilk not done what they did..

IIRC around early 2019/late 2018, around the same time as the RAAF 

 

In 2006 the first delivery was scheduled for 2016. We are level three partners in the program, which is the highest level of partnership there is. We paid and invested to be a level three partner.

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2017-12-13 at 2:01 PM, 11bee said:

We will review the future fighter capability project requirements for 88 jets and make a decision at the appropriate time,” company spokesman Scott Day said. “If there’s an impact on Canadian jobs you will be at a distinct disadvantage,” he said of firms who want to bid on military equipment projects....

 

Also out of idle curiosity - how many Canadian jobs currently support the JSF program?   If Canada ultimately goes with another jet, is LM under any legal requirement to keep that work up north or can they pull those jobs back to the US (or other partners)?

 

 

 

 

144 contracts were awarded to Canadian companies, universities, and government facilities. Financially, the contracts are valued at US$490 million for the period 2002 to 2012, with an expected value of US$1.1 billion from current contracts in the period between 2013 and 2023, and a total potential estimated value of Canada's involvement in the JSF project from US$4.8 billion to US$6.8 billion. By 2013 the potential benefits to Canadian firms had risen to $9.9 billion.

 

Which all may be lost if we don’t purchase our previous commitment for jets.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

 

Let me see if I have this straight. In order to meet an urgent “capability gap” with regard to its aging fleet of fighter jets, the federal government is kicking the competition to produce a replacement jet that it promised two years ago another year into the future. A winner will be chosen no sooner than 2022, five years from now, or a dozen years after the winner of the previous competition was declared. The planes will be delivered in 2025.

 

In the meantime, as an interim measure, it will upgrade its current fleet of 30-year-old CF-18 Hornets with 18 virtually identical second-hand Australian F-18 Hornets of the same age. This follows its decision to cancel a previous agreement to buy the same number of new F-18 Super Hornets from Boeing, in retaliation for Boeing’s invocation of U.S. trade remedy laws against Canada’s subsidies to Bombardier. The earliest the interim planes will be in the air is the “early 2020s,” leaving perhaps two years before they are mothballed.

Boeing likewise faces effective exclusion from the competition for a long-term replacement for the CF-18s owing to proposed new rules against procuring military equipment from companies who do “economic harm” to Canada. Not excluded from the competition: Lockheed Martin’s F-35, the plane that was first chosen in 2010, but which the incoming Liberal government had promised it would not choose, in the same platform in which it promised to immediately launch an “open and transparent competition.”

The F-35, by the way, is the plane that Australia has chosen to replace its aging F-18s: the one it is now selling to us. It may well be the plane that Canada eventually chooses to replace, er, itself. But that’s not until after the next election, so it hardly counts.

Everything about this whole sorry mess reeks of politics, deceit and cowboy economics — or in other words, procurement as usual. The “capability gap” suffers from a pronounced credibility gap: virtually no independent expert agrees it exists, defined as it is by a standard of military readiness — the ability to meet both our NORAD and our NATO commitments, simultaneously, in full — that has never been asked of us and is unlikely ever to be.

The cancelling of the Boeing purchase, likewise, while an obvious money-saver — used jets are cheaper — is unprecedented in subordinating the needs of national defence to the prosecution of a private trade dispute. As an attempt at blackmail it is also spectacularly unwise: there is no indication Boeing has any intention of withdrawing its suit, and in any case Canada has an interest, as the smaller party in any dispute with the United States, in maintaining a rules-based approach to its resolution.

But it is the proposed new rules governing military procurement that are the silliest part of this shemozzle. Procurement has long been disfigured by attempts to attach local content requirements, such as the notorious Industrial and Technological Benefits (ITBs), in an attempt to rope international arms manufacturers into the dubious project of propping up the Canadian defence sector.

Or rather, to pretend to. The burden of such disguised subsidies is almost certainly not borne by the contractors, who compete for capital on international markets and can ill afford to hand out freebies. Rather, it is priced into the contracts. As such, it is subject to the same criticism as any other industrial subsidy. The cost is borne not only by the taxpayer and/or the military, but by other sectors of the economy, from whom capital and labour are thereby diverted.

Now the government proposes attaching still another non-military condition to future military purchases, starting with the $19-billion fighter jet contract. The details have yet to be revealed — or, it would seem, written down — but apparently it would involve some sort of test of every competing bidder’s “overall impact on Canada’s economic interests,” assessing their “economic behaviour” in the years prior to the contract being awarded. “Bidders responsible for harming Canada’s economic interests,” the government warns, will be at a “distinct disadvantage.”

The best word for this, other than petulant, is eccentric. No one knows how any of these terms would be defined, still less how this novel approach would square with Canada’s obligations under international trade law. Which types of “behaviour” would be assessed? What sorts of “harm” would count? The prospect is for still further delays and still higher costs as these highly subjective judgments are worked out, with still greater uncertainty the result.

 

Is Boeing, a major employer in Manitoba, really doing “harm” to Canada by defending itself against alleged unfair trade practices on the part of Bombardier, a major employer in Quebec? A strong argument could be made to the contrary: that by calling out the federal government’s decades-long history of favouring Bombardier, to the tune of billions of public dollars, Boeing is doing Canada an enormous service.

The government may pretend that the economic interests of the country are synonymous with Bombardier’s. But that’s no reason the rest of us have to.

 

 

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-fighter-jet-mess-reeks-of-politics-deceit-and-cowboy-economics

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yep, as Canada bumbles along and gets left behind with the never ending new fighter replacement, other NATO members are pressing forwards. A neat article on HMS Queen Elizabeth and how the F-35 will fit in with interoperability (a snippet):

 

"It is however at the heart of shaping 21st century interoperability.

There is the interoperability being worked with the US Navy, as evidenced in the recent Saxon Warrior exercise off of Scotland.

There is the interoperability being worked as the USMC will operate its F-35Bs off of the ship.

Carrier-300x150.jpg

HMS Queen Elizabeth. Credit: UK MoD

This will require an ability for the ship to operate US weapons onboard as well as to accommodate USMC maintainers as well with their specific national maintenance approaches.

The ship is an F-35 carrier and will work its interoperability with other F-35s as well in the region, notably with the Dutch, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Italians, the Israelis, the US and perhaps others Europeans as well.

In other words, the carrier is at the vortex of a turn in British history, and a key element of shaping 21st century force integration and interoperability."

 

Link to full article:

 

http://www.sldinfo.com/the-commissioning-of-the-hms-queen-elizabeth/

 

Regards,

Don

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...