GinnerHow is that any different to the F-16? You may not know this but typically groundings do not affect the entire fleet, essential missions such as QRA as well as aircraft flying in combat zones continue through groundings.
Fleet groundings do happen. It’s happened to the F 22 multiple times and at least once with the F14. I don’t believe it ever happened with the CF 18 though. I’m not sure it’s a valid concern in a mature platform that would necessitate a mixed fleet….more of a bonus.
GinnerThe decision to operate a mixed fleet is not necessarily about sustainment costs. Other reasons to have a mixed fleet include;
– The cost of replacing old airframes is a bigger factor in having a mixed fleet against a single type, many nations cannot afford the number of new aircraft required for fleet rationalisation. For third world countries, often the only airframes that come their way are gifted or refurbished second hand, in those cases you take what you can get.
– The political case as with Malayisa, where they acquired both MiG-29 and F/A-18D in the mid 90s, and suffered issues with both fleets ever since.
– Capability issues. Many of these nations that operate mixed fleet do so with aircraft that really only have a primary role, so a defined interceptor aircraft that has little capability for ground attack or vice versa.
– Final point to note is that what the country intends to do with the aircraft very much effects what they operate and to what standard. For expeditionary air forces having standardisation and commonality is very important. If the air force never goes anywhere and has no real readiness applied to them, then they are more likely to operate whatever they can get and will keep older airframes for longer.
Looking at those countries you mentioned, Malaysia as I said has an element of buying political. They could easily harmonise around a single type but haven’t. They could standardise around the SU-30MKM to replace both the F-18 and MiG-29 but instead are looking at another fighter from the west including Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen or SH.
Thailand received half of their F-16s second hand and had even agreed to purchase F/A-18s in the late 90s before they ran out of money. They have every chance to standardise around the Gripen but not sure yet if they will.
Singapore is a rich country and has the ability to operate quite a diverse fleet, albeit with a lot of it based in the US and training conducted in the US, Australia and possibly still in France. They chose F-15SGs to fulfil a specific need and are slowly phasing out the F-5s so they will become a F-15/16 fleet only.
I am not going to get into a flame war over this subject but in my opinion a mixed fighter fleet of differing capabilities is a valid consideration for Canada and I ‘d love to see a more complete report on the subject becuse that one is incomplete in it’s analysis. Every one of the five options Canada currently is evaluating have deficiencies. For four of those, those deficiencies could be overcome by operating a mixed fleet.
If a single fighter type was the only choice I think I’d dismiss the F35 and Gripen pretty quickly and probably even the Rafale on the grounds of having to go it alone in ongoing certification of weapons.
The F35 and Gripen would both be compelling in mixed fleets. The Rafale only a possibility as a single fleet where other export countries would share certification costs. I believe the Rafale is the best multi-role aircraft on the planet so it’s unfortunate that we probably should not buy it.
GinnerEven assuming CPH of two different fighters were 8,000 or 10,000 apart, it still does not make sense to operate two separate multirole fighters for such a small fleet. Why take on the major expense of another platform just for a minimal gain in one or two mission sets?
How much do you think maintaining two separate training programs, two separate groups of specialized maintainers and ground crew, simulators (a high fidelity basic simulator can cost 12 million, more for a specific fighter simulator ). For each fleet you would need separate stockpiles of initial spares, hours of familiarization/conversion flying time for each type (it costs 2.6 million to train a fighter pilot, now think about having to split your pool of experienced pilots to train on separate aircraft). Then you have weapon certifications if your inventory is not cleared on each of those platforms, or worse having to buy billions of dollars in new weapons (looking at you, Dassault).
The rafale is a non-starter in a mixed fleet. I never suggested that is even remotely possible. Based on published Typhoon weapons certification costs, I’d estimate the costs of canadianization of Rafale at around 1Billion dollars. That’s a fixed cost no matter if it’s 36 or 65 planes. Rafale cannot be part of a mixed fleet, and I’d argue does not need to be.
A mixed Gripen-E/F18-F fleet of 72 aircraft could possibly provide better capability at a lower cost than 65 Typhoons or 65 F-35s, especially considering we don’t do SEAD/DEAD first day strike and likely never will. Gripen and the F-18 have pretty much the broadest set of certified weaponry and both aircraft have commonality with our existing muntions and share a similar engine (414).
GinnerAgain, I will quote
No they do not specifically identify the per hour cost difference between operating the two aircraft in a mixed fleet, although the reference document does go into it, but they don’t need to. The per hour cost is not significantly different enough between two fighter aircraft compared to the fixed costs of operating two types.
This is evident by the assessment that doubling flight hours only results in a 50% increase in sustainment costs.
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What you quoted does not answer my question at all. They did not consider differences in operating costs between fighters. End of story. I am quite confident that there are substantial differences between them. That is illogical for a cost comparison of operating a mixed fleet vs a single platform. A mixed fleet can give you some advantages in operational capability (range and payload vs speed and A2A), and can give you a variable cost advantage that may overcome the duplication of fixed cost components (simulators for example).
The report is flawed. It does not refute the option of managing a mixed fleet. Even a minimal difference of $4,000 per hour x 7,500 hours x 36 planes = just over a $1B dollars. That is material.
If mixed fleets were cost prohibitive, we would not have welcomed bidders on FWSAR to consider submitting mixed fleet proposals. If it gives you optimized capability, you look at it.
GinnerI expect without a purchase business will dwindle, but I also expect a few countries like Denmark will also drop out. Regardless, they need to buy the right plane.
GinnerGinnerOzair…..you need to read that report again. They have no consideration in that report anywhere for differences in operating costs between fighter types. It’s an obviously flawed assumption. Show me anywhere in the report where they reflect operating costs or allow for variation in them. It’s held constant. Stupid assumption. I had to read it three times because it invalidates the report by skipping one of the most significant program cost components.
You cannot simply state that fighter availability is a function of investment in maintenance. The F-14 is an excellent example of that. They navy did not under invest. It was a difficult aircraft to maintain.
GinnerCanada already has orders to produce $750 million in parts for the F-35 production line.
And Trudeaux is willing to throw that away and an additional $10.26 billion in future sales by backing out of the F-35 program. Those are Canadian jobs.
The man is N.U.T.S.
Buying the right aircraft is way more important than job creation. We are still investing as a partner in the program and will do until there has been a determination on which fighter they are actually going to purchase.
GinnerI have to be honest, this is starting to look like one of those “I wish” lists than a realistic appraisal of the CF-18 replacement options. There is zero chance of a split buy for many obvious reasons:
Canada is not going to want to set up separate O&S for two different platforms, two pipelines for spares, training, weapons (particularly in the case of the Rafale), simulators.
A split buy for 65-80 airframes would be far more expensive than buying more of a single type. Considering the noise coming out of the Department of National Defense about trimming defense spending, less than 65 airframes is a distinct possibility.Realistically, the defense review is not even due till the end of this year. An open competition is going to take time to draw up, review selection process, hold competition, sort bids. This could take years. Some of the options you listed above are in jeopardy of nearing the end of their production run by 2020. Considering the history of the Liberal party (and Canadian government as a whole) on the speed of defense procurement, it would be a miracle if a decision is made prior to then.
Most likely, the CF-18’s are going to soldier on until the end of this decade without a firm decision what will replace them. By that time, the options may be look different.
The F-18 are receiving upgrades to take them through to 2025. I believe that contract has already been signed. The decision on a replacement is going to happen a lot faster than people think. They are aware of the issues facing the F-18 production line.
The F-35 will not win just because there is a delay. The Rafale and Gripen production lines are both going to be open. Depending on what happens with the Typhoon orders they may be open for a while yet too. Only the F-18 is currently in jeopardy and even then, the maintenance contracts will be able to keep that facility operational for a while.
GinnerA mixed fleet will not happen. It will require more money to operate a mixed fleet against operating a single type. The whole point of this exercise is to save money. A Canadian Military comparative analysis made this very clear.
http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/about-reports-pubs/mixed-fleet-en.page
The chance of a F-18E/F purchase becomes less and less likely as the evaluation draws out. It is likely to take at least two years, and probably closer to three, to get to contract award on this. Unless Boeing gets another export of the SH then it will almost certainly be out of production by the time Canada is ready to order.
Why are you claiming that an F-35 buy would require new runways, hangers, forward operating bases etc but not for the other airframes?
As for operating costs, you need to also factor in the mid life upgrades of the aircraft. Looking at the options, everything but the F-35 is likely to require two upgrades for life of type while the F-35 should require only one. A common upgrade charge is somewhere between 30-50 million per airframe. Given when this occurs the F-35 will be the most numerous aircraft with the broadest support and supplier base, and likely the only airframe with any chance of still being in production, its upgrade costs will be significantly less than competitors.
As has been stated previously, the longer this competition takes the more likely F-35 is of becoming the winner…again…
The mixed fighter cost analysis is flawed on a number of levels:
First they made assumptions that operating and maintenance costs for two different fighter types are the same. The idea is that not only does one cost less to buy, but one may cost a whole hell of a lot less to operate.
They made assumptions that availability for the fighter types were the same
They made assumptions that the mix was high and low capability rather than specialized capability which screws up their assumptions about allocation of those aircraft to particular missions
That analysis was quite poor. Read the report.
The runways issue: The F-15 requires longer runways than we have in our forward operating locations and possibly require them to be in pristine condistion. The carrier capable aircraft (Rafale, F18, F35C) and the Gripen have shown a much better ability to utilize more austere locations because of the reinforcement of the planes and landing gears for those kinds of conditions.
Gripen, Rafale and Typhoon should be small enough to fit into existing hangar infastructure.
GinnerAll of the options have serious warts. All of the options can deal with the mission set Canada primarily needs it for.
Ideally….mixed fleet but I’d be happy with any of these options in order of preference:
40 Gripen E + 30 F-18F, 6 F-18G (NGJ)
Gripen + Typhoon (High/low capability mix)
Typhoon + (LCA, UCAV Drones)
Rafale (Canadianized) + (LCA, UCAV Drones)
Gripen E, F + (LCA/UCAV Drones)
F 18 E, F Limited Buy (36 – 48 aircraft and find a better long term solution) <—–THIS IS THE MOST LIKELY OUTCOME
Not reasonable but plenty sexy
Typhoon + F-18 F/G (Operating costs too high)
F-35A + F15 SE (Operating costs, acquisition costs, hangers, forward base runways too short)
F-35A + Typhoon (operating and acquisition costs too high)
Mixed Rafale/Gripen (impossible to canadianize small Rafale buy without a bunch of other countries doing the same)
I Don’t Like
F-35 alone (runways, hangers, operating costs, interception)
F-18 E/F/G alone (as a long term solution)
F-15 SE alone (runways, hangers, operating costs)
GinnerIt might just be that the F35 is not the aircraft for Canada. That is a possibility. If the RAF considered the F35 for the job the Typhoon is currently doing I would be up in arms. So it is possible that the many strengths of the F35 just happen to be the ones least needed by the Canadians a lot of the time.
I am assuming that they are looking for something to intercept at range and bomb as part of a coalition?
As a stand-alone solution the F-35 is probably the worst choice of the bunch for Canada. It may be the best plane, but it’s not really what we need. It’s simply a solution to a problem we don’t really have. In the case of a state on state conflict, it’s not like we are going to be doing SEAD or first day strike. We’d be defending against incursions over the arctic or defending the Baltics, Germany Poland and Scandinavia.
I don’t mind the F-35 as part of a mixed fleet at all if we had the tankers for it. I absolutely hate it as our only fighter.
GinnerAs of now it has not been excluded (which was not the Liberals position during the election.) If I was handicapping this one I’d say there is a 60% chance it goes to the Super Hornet, 20 % F35 and 20% one of the other three.
I’d prefer to see a larger, mixed fleet. The F35 makes little sense for Canada and the SH lacks a bit in the top end. Gripen E’s mixed with any of the other 4 would be pretty ideal.
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