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Comment by foxyv | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, I think the F/A-18 is an excellent jet for Canada's needs. Also Canada currently has 88 F-35s on order and will get their first ones in 2026.

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The ancient F/A-18s airframes Canada purchased however, were not.

>Canada expects to receive its first four F-35As beginning in 2026, another six in 2027, and six more in 2028, with the full fleet to arrive in time to enable the phase out of the CF-18s by the end of 2032. But its CF-18 fleet, even bolstered by the purchase of 18 ex-Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18A-Bs, may not be able to effectively hang on until then.

They wasted a lot of time and money setting up supply chains and training pipelines for a fleet of near-end-of-life airframes that required constant maintenance, provide only the bare minimum capabilities and won't end up in service for very long. And they're having so many retention issues with their pilots that even that is wasted.

The world changed significantly since that initial order, with the threats greatly increasing (from China and Russia). F/A-18 jets might have made sense in a more peaceful world.

Now Canada has bigger problems and needs to better interoperate with NATO allies. Many countries switched their plans to F-35's after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The issue is really that they bought used, worn out airframes just because they weren't as old as ours. From another Airforce that basically deemed them to be too old and worthy of replacement by the f-35... the same f-35 that we chose to not buy instead! It's such a Canadian thing but we just basically swept the problem away for the couple of years that we can get from the airframes, but we had to basically go through all of the procurement again not even half a decade after that decision.

So there was no point at all, we could've just bought actual replacements (f-35 or not) that would last for an entire generation back in 2p15. But hey, problem solved for the current government so who cares about what happens in 10 years! But then the issue got too big and we ended up circling back to buying the exact same f-35 that we wanted to have for the past 20 years. Just with a worse deal and even more clapped out f18 and pilot accidents.

I don't mean that the airframes are any good, I just mean that Canada has a population similar to that of California and almost half the GDP. They neighbor their closest ally and are separated by ocean and arctic wastes from anyone who would want to invade them. They don't really have much expeditionary need and their defense would be backed by all of NATO.

So a couple old multi-role fighters are sort of okay for what they are doing. Mostly air to ground missions and demonstration flights. They need to up their defense spending a bit to meet NATO obligations, but not that much honestly. No one is going to kick out Canada, especially after the USA dragged them into Iraq.

>I just mean that Canada has a population similar to that of California and almost half the GDP.

That makes the mistake in not buying the F-35 the first time around all the worse.

>especially after the USA dragged them into Iraq

This is so not right, it's not even wrong.

F-35s are significantly cheaper than they were a few years ago, and as more are produced the prices continue to drop

The regime of steadily decreasing F-35 prices as new lots are contracted is at an end [0]. With inflation and the cost-overruns on the Tech Refresh 3 upgrade package, we are in a regime where prices will slowly increase.

[0] https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2022/11/18/f-35-costs-h...

TIL, although it does make sense, thanks!

>F-35s are significantly cheaper than they were a few years ago, and as more are produced the prices continue to drop

I've heard this argument before about Canada's F-35 saga and it is now what it was then, massive copium overdose. By this logic Canada ought to wait until the F-35 is obsolete and other nations are selling airframes off for cheap.

That Canada did not have to use its air force in war during the Trudeau years does not mean that its 100% politically driven decision to shirk on the F-35 buy, then jump back on it again, was not a mistake.

i'm not saying canada not buying f35s to begin with was necessarily the correct choice, but the fact that they don't have a massive GDP and have now managed to purchase them for a lower price isn't "infinitely worse" than if they had bought them to begin with, it has lucked out in their favour

As a guy who knows the F-35 and the program pretty well, I think the best Canadian minds on the F-35 are Richard Shimooka with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and former CAF and F-35 test pilot Billie Flynn.

Shimooka has a number of works chronicling the Canadian F-35 decision making process, e.g. https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/assessing-damage-canadas-fighter...

Billie Flynn discussing the F-35 and the current state of the CAF on "The Merge" podcast: https://youtu.be/kibWNHr9hdg

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