Unfortunately djcross, its not that fool Justin who will part with HIS money, it is the Canadian taxpayers ( of which I am one ) who will part with OUR money for having voted for that fool.
The Liberals joined the program initially, then while in opposition argued against it as a ‘sole source’ program with ‘unknown costs’, and now, having regained power, they act with typical Liberal entitlement ( they know what’s best for us ) and give us a sole source acquisition for which they don’t know costs yet.
Is that the new definition of a competitive and transparent acquisition ?

Bring-it-on and others are bang-on their analysis, this is all ( dirty ) politics.
And Haavarla can quote the Toronto ( Liberals can do no wrong ) Star all he wants, the Liberals are not doing whats good for the country or our armed forces.
This is about saving face and getting re-elected.

Remember the helicopter competition won by the EH-101 ?
The previous Liberal government of Jean ‘Cretin’, paid 3/4 of a billion dollars for exactly ZERO helicopters, just so he wouldn’t look bad.
Sometimes you see the justification for electing a ‘wrench in the works’ candidate like Donald Trump !

People are already disappointed with the F-35 ?

I remember another airplane which was supposed to be a ‘jack-of-all-trades’, multi-role aircraft for both the Air Force and the Navy.
It was over-weight, over-budget and a lot of its systems didn’t work at first. It got so bad that the Navy cancelled their version and built a different plane ( but very similar ).
But eventually all its problems were straightened out, and ‘McNamara’s folly’ served admirably as one of the best tactical strike aircraft for about 30 yrs.
I only hope the F-35 turns out to be as capable as the GD F-111 became.

I like the NG design.
Clean and simple, like a trainer should be ( and close in concept to the t-38/F-5 series ).
Except for the huge vertical tail. I realize its needed for hi-alpha control, but coulden’t they have used smaller, canted, twin stabilizers ?

You can call us all trolls, if you wish, but the general consensus in Europe and North America ( especially amongst the more cynical of us ) is that the whole affair was ‘staged’ by Erdogan to further cement his hold on the government and possibly ultimately become a de-facto dictator.
He has ‘survived’ coup attempts before, and come back stronger.
He has also used this opportunity to remove any barriers to increasing his powers. How many judges has he removed/arrested ?
And he has blamed the whole affair on his political opponents.

Isn’t the Turkish military supposed to be a check on ‘run-away’ government power ? Or at least secularity ?
Every time they’ve seize control of the government, since the time of M. K. Ataturk, they’ve promptly returned power to civilian rule.
I would therefore, tend to trust the Military more than I would Erdogan.

The Turkish people had better notice what’s going on, before they find themselves living under a dictatorship.

( if this post is too political, please move to an appropriate thread )

You guys are making the mistake of analyzing the planes on offer and the manufacturer’s schedules.
What you should be looking at is the Government’s motives and agenda in all this.

The previous Liberal Government of Jean Chretien are the ones who got the F-35 ball rolling by joining the program to the tune of $200mil. When they lost power, and it became the Conservatives’ baby, the liberals did all they could to discredit the plans to purchase F-35s. They can’t backtrack now and admit that the F-35 is the best plane for the job. They have to at least make it look like they are exploring other options.
This is nothing new. In the middle 90s, the Chretien Liberals scrapped the previous Conservatives’ plan to replace Sea King Search n Rescue helicopters, which were falling out of the sky, with the EH-101. They paid millions of dollars to cancel the program, and we got no helicopters. After a couple mre years of Sea King crashes, guess what the Liberals ended up ordering ?
Yes, of course, EH-101s .

This will play out exactly the same.
The Liberals will look very serious and wring their hands a lot. But if we have any F-18 crashes, or they reach end-of-life, they will order F-35s. It was their plan all along.

Unfortunately to substitute for an A-10 it would need a much heavier gun.
Even a reduced barrel version of the A-10 gun is too much for the M-346 airframe.
I’m wondering if an Oerlikon KCA ( from the Viggen ) and a titanium tub for the crew would be possible.

Thanks Blue Apple.
I wasn’t aware of that.

Do tell, Holloweenie.
How exactly did the M-53 change its bypass ratio ?

It was a fixed, low bypass, single spool turbofan of very simple design.