http://www.hilltimes.com/2016/12/07/government-quietly-signed-f-35-memorandum-march-despite-election-promise/90257

Here is the root of the problem; duplicity in what the Liberal gov is saying publicly, then signing a tentative aquisition schedule as required by partner nations. The Trudeau government wants to continued to reap the industrial benefits of staying in the program while generating negative publicity. Paying JPO to stay a partner nation and submitting updated aquisition schedules every six months, all while championing an “open competition” and sole sourcing an interim buy.

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/6998448-department-of-national-defence-removes-report-critical-of-interim-fighter-jet-purchase-from-websit/

No surprise here, operating two fleets will be more expensive long term.

“that fluffy thing in the middle of the ocean surely has got to be a boat ?
i’ll better have a look outside the window and see what it is !”

Would have bet good money that Oblig would pull out one of his five “go to” quotes. This is despite constantly being told he is confusing the DAS functions with HMD imagery.

EOTS allow you to ID the fighter, DAS does not have that ability at any range

Of course you have specific information to support this claim no?

Because they’ve already stated that the shape recognition algorithms allow for that very thing at ranges that would make visual ID impossible.

What about those earlier versions? D model wasn’t in service. Mostly on test and development stage.

? F-14D flew combat ops. All were 20 tons and above.

There is two issue with Kutz.
1st: A Su-33 is heavier than any other service jet fighter. Dunno about E-2D though.. Eighter way, it produce more stress on arrest system.

F-14D was the nearly same empty weight, and bring back was likely higher, doubt that is the issue.

NO, doubtful, yes (AoA), NO, dubious and no idea (we don’t now the cost of ASH)

Considering both have primarily operated in a strike role in combat ops, arguing over frontal RCS reduction is akin to arguing about who is the skinniest kid at fat camp.

its not up for debate, F-106 propelled by F119 is the only perfect fit

Yes, very rational choice. Or an: Avro arrow fitted with F-22 radar and yf120 engines, better yet an F-23, or a YF-12 interceptor with a modernized Phoenix missile. Wait, this is reality, and not a Dale Brown novel?

The sad one in all of this so far is you FBW. Haarvarla makes good points, but you are some sort of “F-35 Vigilante” and cant seem to get your head around some fairly obvious facts to those not blinded by F-35 fervour, and attack any sort of anti F-35 points of view as if we insulted a close family member.

Trudeau is to me a left wing POS, and an absolute social justice warrior type blinded to the bleeding obvious, and I view his election as more motivated by a desire to be rid of Stephen Harper more than the Canadian people endorsing Trudeau and the radical views he holds on man levels.

However, if you objectively view the legacy hornet fleet world wide, you come to a different conclusion than “this is just anti F-35 Trudeau rhetoric”. The USN/USMC are regenerating a large number of legacy hornets that had been affected by sequestration. This has taken up a lot of the worldwide spares holdings, and pushed up the lifetime cost of maintaining fleets for the foreseeable future for other Hornet users.

The Kuwaiti F/A-18E/F buy was rushed through suddenly by all accountsll!

First we will deal with the reality, then I’ll address the personal attack. Haavarla was claiming the military chose the F-18E/F and saw the interim purchase as a necessity. That is obviously not true as Hood stated otherwise (that is not my opinion, that is the opinion of the RCAF).

Next,” Kuwaiti deal was rushed”….no. The FMS proposal had been waiting for Congressional green light for over a year.

“The F-18 E/F will be delivered in 2018″…no. The negotiations have not even started. Watch, it will be surprising if a contract is signed by spring 2017, then add roughly two years for delivery, another year to stand up squadron. 2021 would be a good bet for when the super hornets would be operational in the RCAF. The legacy hornets will still need life extension, this is the least intelligent option.

“Trump will sell Canada the F-22”- it is nice to believe that the F-22 is coming back. The difficulties associated with an F-22 restart make it a long shot. Even assuming Trump did get the program restarted, and Canada chose them. How exactly does that address Trudeau’s fighter gap? The first new production F-22 would be years away, and not likely to go to Canada.

In short, you and Haavarla misread the arguements: Canada could have had a competition (as promised) and replaced the entire fleet within a similar timeframe (+1 or two years) as this interim buy will take. Canada could have flat out sole sourced the entire replacement fleet ( instead of the partial sole source interim buy). Or Canada could have continued with the controversial Harper gov sole source of the F-35. Any of those would have been better choices that the current partial f-18 replacement predicated on politics, not military necessity.

While your point about legacy hornet parts is true, how does that make this interim buy look anything but absurd? Canada will still need to fly those legacy hornets well into the 2020’s now.

Lastly, as for me being some “F-35 vigilante”. I look at these arguements from reality. The very vocal opponents of the F-35 generally bring incorrect, bias, frankly emotional rather than logical criticism of the jet. Do i find myself disagreeing with them? Yes. If that makes me some sort of “F-35 vigilante” in your eyes? So be it, it’s better than being ill informed, outright wrong, or in your case, based on the above, illogical.