What Are They Playing At?

 


It's new fighter time for the RCAF. There were three contenders short-listed: the latest F-18, the SAAB Gripen and Lockheed's F-35.

The F-18 was rejected. Apparently it doesn't meet the RCAF requirements but how is unclear. In any case don't shed a tear for the manufacturer, Boeing, after that company did a dirty on Bombardier's promising C-series jetliners. Screw Boeing.

That, however, leaves us with two aircraft that supposedly do meet the RCAF requirements and it's an odd couple to be sure. It's hard to imagine how two aircraft so different could both fit the bill. There's probably a logical answer to that - they don't. 

The costly and often unreliable F-35 is the favourite of the RCAF brass. It's American after all and Canada's generals put a premium on all things American. I wonder if they've noticed how many wars our bellicose neighbours to the south have won with all their high-tech wizardry?

Despite 20 years of development, the F-35 is - and will remain - prototypical. It was the first go at embodying some of the stealth features of the F-22 Raptor into a glorified bomb truck. America's military has a love/hate relationship with the F-35 due to its spotty reliability, high cost and sometimes inadequate performance. Here's an example. The original requirements for the F-35 specified a maximum landing distance. The F-35 couldn't meet the requirement. The Air Force simply adjusted the figure to what the F-35 could do. There have been a few of these "workarounds."

The US Navy has a few problems with it. For the F-35 C, the naval version, to bomb China (it's real purpose) the carrier has to bring the fighters within range of the shore. That brings the aircraft carriers within range of ballistic missiles China has developed specifically to sink those carriers. It's called A2/AD or anti-access/area denial.  Think of it as Beijing's NORAD only when they do it they're a bunch of sneaky little buggers.

The F-35 is up against SAAB's Gripen a name that, in English, comes out to Griffin, something confirmed by the early tail art chosen by SAAB. 


The Gripen has a few advantages over the F-35. It's smallish, it's reliable, it is far less costly to operate. It's not a stealth strike bomber but it has an electronic suite that offsets that shortcoming to some extent. Did I mention it's Swedish? To the RCAF boys that sounds suspicious, Surströmming or sour herring, okay for Swedes but not real men.

I don't want to tip the scales but, then again, when was the last war the Swedes lost? Actually they won it. It was 1814. The Danes got their asses handed to them and Sweden took over Norway. I'll bet you didn't know that when you got out of bed this morning. 1814, that was the last time American forces tried to conquer Canada. Unlike the Swedes, they were sent packing, eh?  Don't want to rub it in but hey.

Does Canada really need the ability to bomb China? You can't get there from here and, besides...  There's also the cost factor. Ottawa has been draining the treasury to get us through the pandemic and now we have climate change to contend with. These are costly problems. This might not be the best time to throw billions of dollars on high-ticket capabilities we don't need. America has shopped the F-35 to several countries, Britain and Australia for example. They've got a pretty good aerial foreign legion if they want to attack China. They don't need us toting their bombs.

So, my money is on the capable, reliable and less costly Swedish bird of prey. It just seems to make more sense.


 

Comments

  1. Northern PoVNovember 30, 2021 at 10:57 AM

    "Does Canada really need the ability to bomb China?"

    swords to ploughshares

    they are all nonsense

    ReplyDelete
  2. TrailblazerNovember 30, 2021 at 12:20 PM

    Does Canada really need the ability to bomb China?
    Only if we are cow towing to their foreign policies. such as bombing Libya..

    The following is a good assessment of the F35.


    https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/109313/capstone_McColl_2018.pdf

    Since this paper, the US announce it is looking for a replacement engine for the F35

    TB


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibNovember 30, 2021 at 1:32 PM

      From what I've read, TB, the adaptive engine is a non-starter. It's just too expensive for an aircraft the Americans would prefer to quietly phase out. It apparently overcomes a lot of the F-35's range and power shortcomings but there's a reluctance to invest that kind of money. Which means that the F-35 being considered by the RCAF will remain an under-performer.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Up in Smoke. 300 Sq. Mi. of Amazon Rainforest Lost Every Day.

Image
  The Amazon rainforest is disappearing at what should be an alarming rate. 312 sq. mi. or 808 sq. kms. every day. Over the past 30 years humans have destroyed a patch of the Amazon equal in area to the states of Texas and New Mexico . The Amazon – historically a great carbon absorber, since trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen – now releases more carbon than it stores, which adds to, rather helps to reduce, our global climate crisis. Deforestation rates decreased slightly from 2004 to 2012. But since then, they’re back on the rise, especially in the past couple of years, since Jair Bolsonaro became president of Brazil. In 2018, as Bolsonaro campaigned as a patriotic man of the people, scientists predicted that once the Amazon lost more than 25% of its tree cover, it would become a drier ecosystem, all because deforestation changes weather patterns (due to how trees respire), which in turn reduces rainfall. Furthermore, as the forest becomes fragmented, areas surrounded...
Read more

The Cognoscenti Syndrome

  There is a group of people I think of as the Cognoscenti, people who are well educated, very informed and of rapidly diminishing relevance. Their ranks include writers such as Chris Hedges and Glen Greenwald. These are people who have honed an almost Puritanical value system, readily finding fault in any direction. They are scathing in their attacks on Republicans and Democrats alike to the point where they become nihilists. They don't endorse. They prescribe. This is where they fail. They're unable to advocate for anything that might resonate with the public whose interests they argue are being trammeled. Donald Trump was bad but Joe Biden is scarcely better. This is where their elitism comes in.  74 million may have voted for Trump but, hey, they didn't know any better. The mob that stormed the Capitol. They were just victims of the system venting their frustrations. All the racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, white nationalism - inevitable side effects of their oppr...
Read more

Who Asks "Why?"

Every time there's a conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, all we hear is 'why?'  Why, as in, whose fault is this? It's easier to affix blame if you can truncate the event. Pick a convenient start date, something recent. In this case we'll make it either the Israeli eviction of Arabs from Jerusalem or the scuffle that took place outside the mosque in response. If those don't work, let's go for Hamas launching unguided rockets into Israel. That's even better because it tags Hamas with the blame. The nice thing about this approach is you can just keep using it. It goes on and on, just as it has for the past half-century since the '67 war. You can even date this whole mess to the beginning of the occupation of the Palestinian territories. The Israelis are said to have called these periodic wars, "mowing the lawn." The idea is that, every now and then, you have to take these Arabs to the woodshed. And then you keep your powder dry unt...
Read more