F-35 Does not Meet Canadian Military Statement of Requirements

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/03/26/pol-f35s-fighter-jets.html

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is stating that they have seen a copy fo the heretofore secret Statement of Requirements to replace the CF-18 Hornets and supposedly the F-35 does not meet the criteria for selection.

I for one am hoping that Canada walks away, correction RUNS AWAY, from this F-35 pig in a poke and buys something more mature and sensible for our needs like the Super Hornet, Typhoon or Rafale.

Put the Yak-141 or a Sea Harrier F/A-2 aboard in the 1980s and the Kiev’s look a lot better then they ever did with a gaggle of ‘Forger” hangar queens taking up hanger and deck space.

The problem with the Russian design was not the fact per se that they tried doing two things on one hull rather the problem was that the V/STOL air complement assigned was so dreadfully useless.

Pterodactyl I UAV Ground Attack Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Hb_hcOIYdX4

Is General Atomics getting a licensing fee for this bird?

Another piece of “original” kit coming out of the PRC I guess. 😡

I would hazard a guess that there are more public affairs officers in the US Military than there are probably service members in say the entire Belgian Armed Forces (not picking on Belgium… just a convenient example).

Trying to reverse engineer electronic circuits from mid 60s would be an useless effort. I see the core of Iranian mods in modification of the existing hardware to work with modern semiconductor-based electronics. The resulting system doesn’t even have to be considerably more capable than the original but nevertheless it forms a new platform with future upgrade potential.

Think about an AWG-9 radar set equipped with COTS superscalar RISC based processors, easily upgradable with dynamic DRAM. That’s quite a different platform to work on than the original type and definitely more than enough for Iran. Say it triples your MTBF, reduces maintenance by 50%, removes most troubles of secret import of spare parts from the US by replacing them with COTS solution, isn’t that great for a start?

And the fact that the detection range might not exceed the original late 60s set in any reasonable way… Who cares? 🙂

Very well said.

AWG-9 may not have many of the capabilities of some of the newer AESA options out there but if it is given a new COTS “back end” then from a strictly dynamic perspective it would still be a useful piece of kit. Being able to give a Phoenix a decent firing solution at a hundred miles is still a capability that not a lot of newer radars could probably match.

With due respect I think those in this thread that are arguing for Rafale/Eurofighter as preferred solutions for this requirement are missing the point a little. The Gripen has been selected to replace the F-5 not some 4th gen superfighter.

If the Hornets were up for replacement then perhaps the Gripen would not be up to the task and the Rafale or Typhoon would probably be the better option.

But the Swiss wanted to keep up numbers of airframes relatively speaking, they wanted a plane that is suited to the Swiss model of basing (and I think perhaps only Sweden could truly get the Swiss way in this regard) and they wanted to stretch their francs as far as possible.

The best aircraft is not necessarily always the best option.

And I guess you’ve never heard of the ice cap….(and not the one offered by Timmies 😉 )

I have indeed heard of both 🙂

For me nuke boats are a non starter for Canada. The Americans are against Canada getting this capability so they would not sell Canada any boats, new or used. That leaves the French or Brits for nuke boats that are NATO compatible. Not sure that Canada would want to go either routwe.

f the intention is to stay in the sub business then go and get some U-214’s from Germany or find a way to put an AIP capability into the Victoria class to give them a “limited” under ice capability. Back that up with ice reinforced surface ships, SOSUS type sonar nets at choke points in the north and use MPA’s/drones/RADARSAT to provide the coverage Canada needs.

AIP is a mature enough technology to give a sub the ability to operate under ice for periods of enough time to provide a limited capability to project Canadian military force in the north that does not exist now.