The RCAF's Next Generation Fighter (CF-188 Replacement)

[lenaitch]

I believe Viking did, along with Field Aviation in Toronto but no idea who owns the rights

From Transport Canada to you for those who can understand these things; it seems the certificate is held by DeHaviland Aircraft of Canada Limited (the new version) but it seems only for the original piston version.

It may have simply been included in the acquisition deal for the ones they really wanted and it and the drawings are lying in a drawer somewhere in Calgary.

 

[Kirkhill]

PM says F-35 review ongoing after Norad chief says they’re not critical

Carney said his government is still considering a range of factors in its review of plans to purchase a fleet of F-35s.

www.thestar.com

U.S. Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot inadvertently contributed to the political debate in Canada over the fighter jet procurement when he told a congressional panel earlier this month that fifth-generation fighter jets like the F-35 are “frankly” not needed to defend North America’s borders.

The Norad commander told U.S. senators such advanced stealth fighters are better suited to attacking targets overseas.

“I would like to see continued modernization of fourth-generation fighter fleet,” the general told the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee on March 21.

“We don’t need fifth-gen to defend our borders. Those capabilities are better used overseas, where their stealth, air-to-ground weapons and penetration capability are needed.”

 

[KevinB]

PM says F-35 review ongoing after Norad chief says they’re not critical

Carney said his government is still considering a range of factors in its review of plans to purchase a fleet of F-35s.

www.thestar.com

U.S. Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot inadvertently contributed to the political debate in Canada over the fighter jet procurement when he told a congressional panel earlier this month that fifth-generation fighter jets like the F-35 are “frankly” not needed to defend North America’s borders.

The Norad commander told U.S. senators such advanced stealth fighters are better suited to attacking targets overseas.

“I would like to see continued modernization of fourth-generation fighter fleet,” the general told the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee on March 21.

“We don’t need fifth-gen to defend our borders. Those capabilities are better used overseas, where their stealth, air-to-ground weapons and penetration capability are needed.”


View attachment 99442

Sort of funny as this specific issues had addressed much earlier in this thread when discussing split fleets and the F-15 EX and F-35 combo.

Also same article was posted and discussed a few pages ago.

Now split fleets work for the USAF due to the volume of aircraft we have — but I don’t know if the same holds true for Canada, as well I suspect that a F-15 EX and F-35 split fleet would be even more politically unpalatable as a sole F-35 fleet.

What is pretty clear to anyone but the clowns is that the Grippen has no place in the RCAF.

 

[Kirkhill]

Sort of funny as this specific issues had addressed much earlier in this thread when discussing split fleets and the F-15 EX and F-35 combo.

Also same article was posted and discussed a few pages ago.

Now split fleets work for the USAF due to the volume of aircraft we have — but I don’t know if the same holds true for Canada, as well I suspect that a F-15 EX and F-35 split fleet would be even more politically unpalatable as a sole F-35 fleet.

What is pretty clear to anyone but the clowns is that the Grippen has no place in the RCAF.

Sorry about the repost. It is hard to keep up.

As to the split fleet....

All those arguments have been well rehearsed.

On this thread's previous 399 pages.

 

[KevinB]

Sorry about the repost. It is hard to keep up.

As to the split fleet....

All those arguments have been well rehearsed.

On this thread's previous 399 pages.

Wasn’t intended to be a dig at you, more the countless anti-F-35 folks in Canada that seem to think y’all will be better served by something else.

The mental gymnastics going on with that crowd are astounding and I have to wonder if their parents had any children that lived, as clearly they are clinically braindead.

 

[Kirkhill]

Wasn’t intended to be a dig at you, more the countless anti-F-35 folks in Canada that seem to think y’all will be better served by something else.

The mental gymnastics going on with that crowd are astounding and I have to wonder if their parents had any children that lived, as clearly they are clinically braindead.

2015.

That was when this thread started.

2010.

Harper announced his intention to buy 65 of the beasts

2006.

Production starts and Canada starts making money

1997.

Chretien starts paying into the JSF-F35 project.

1993.

The JSF project launches in the US - 33 years ago.

And it was supposed to be the low cost solution.

For Canada it was a capable strike platform that woud allow it contribute to more campaigns like

Kuwait 1990
Kosovo 1999
Libya 2011

and their associated no-fly campaigns

but could also handle the less demanding domestic Air Defence role.

....

As a strong supporter of the F35, and a particular fan of the F35B, the problem I am having currently is Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Azerbaijan, the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah don't seem to be hindered in their abilities to launch effective bombardments in the absence of the F35 and billion dollar budgets.

....

Trying to find it now but it escapes me.

Someone just posted a video about a presntation to a bunch of US Navy corpsmen about the impact of drones on their trade in Ukraine. Many things stood out for me which disappoints me more that I can't remember where it is.

One thing that did stand out for me was the description of delivering whole blood by drone to the frontline for use by the wounded soldier.
It particularly addressed the challenge of navigation in a an electronically contested environment where your GPS system is denied. The solution was a combination mutual self-referencing and terrain following.

Essentially these 1000 dollar drones are talking to each other and saying "I know where I am. Can you see me? Get a fix on my location."
And how did the original unit know where it is? It matches what it can see through its camera to a bunch of photographs in its memory.
That was the secret sauce behind the cruise missiles tested over Canada in Reagan's day. A national secret that cost billions to develop and many more to protect to ensure it didn't fall into the wrong hands. Although it didn't take long for the US itself to produce a low cost version they could stick on any of their existing and future bombs.

Now thanks to Moore's Law, smartphones and their cameras, Google Earth and TheCloud the National Secret is now availble to every hobbyist and terrorist.

...

Add that to this.

Goddard and von Braun were playing with rockets in the 30's. They were Hitler's National Secret in the 40s and the basis of geopolitics from the 50s.

But they were also the basis of Rocket clubs of hobbyists from the 50s. And they have just got easier, and cheaper, to make. And more effective.

....

The capabilities that were only available to the state are now, in the words of the CEO of Rheinmetall, available to housewives playing with Lego.

The edge that authority had over the hoi polloi has disappeared. Just as it did when the bow and arrow ruled and later, when the rifle ruled.
Democratization of force has happened and the state no longer has a monopoly on the use of force, laws notwithstanding. As somebody once said, the laws that govern rely on the consent of the governed. A lot of people are withdrawing their consent.

...

Where does this tie in to the F35 debate?

The F35 is a trillion dollar solution to a bombardment problem that can now be solved with thousand dollar rockets and drones. And even the state is reaching for lots of thousand dollar solutions rather than exquisite trillion dollar ones. It can't afford the trillion dollar ones in any case. National Secrets don't stay secret very long. And the State's edge, its monopoly on effective force, has disappeared.

Where is the justification now, in 2026, for this 33 year old National Secret when there are multiple other solutions on offer that can be purchased, or created, in mass quantities and at pace?

What will that justification look like by 2066 when the planes still flying on patrol in our arctic will be using 73 year old technology and the logisticians will be searching for 73 tear old parts from 73 year old suppliers?

...

There is a real risk that the F35's window has closed.
That its time has passed.

And I think that is a factor in the NxORAD commander's thinking.

He needs that money to be spent on stuff that will be effective today and readily adaptive to wahatever tomorrow may bring.

...

My hovercraft dreams ended a while ago. These things happen.

...

And the government may need to spend less efoort on regulating guns and more effort on regulating rockets and drones and sugar and the other stuff necessary to make effective muutions at home.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Nobody needs white refined sugars and it should be a controlled substance.

 

[OldSolduer]

Nobody needs white refined sugars and it should be a controlled substance.

Ummmm ok. Is the F 35 made of sugar?

 

[GR66]

Wasn’t intended to be a dig at you, more the countless anti-F-35 folks in Canada that seem to think y’all will be better served by something else.

The mental gymnastics going on with that crowd are astounding and I have to wonder if their parents had any children that lived, as clearly they are clinically braindead.

Don't hold back....tell us how you really feel!

 

[Kirkhill]

Nobody needs white refined sugars and it should be a controlled substance.

The world was built on white refined sugar.

It provided a storable, transportable source of your primary nutritional requirement: kJoules, or Calories if you prefer.

It eliminated the need to go foraging everyday. It eliminated the hunger moon in February.

It was the coal for the body. It was the necessary fungible carbon source.

Just as coal fuelled steam engines so sugar fuelled workers.

Chewed sugarcane in New Guinea domesticated in 8000 BC.

Juice extracted in Indonesia.

Crystallized in India by 500 BC

The technology and the crops spread to China and Persia, along with the slaves that knew how to grow it and make it, by the time of Mohammed, bless his heart.

Mohammed's Arabs then made a fortune supplying sugar, then cane, then refineries and then the black slaves that ran the economy, to the Mediterranean.

The Europeans then went looking for more places they could grow their own sugar because they were getting poor drinking sweet tea and eating Imperial Mints while the Arabs and Chinese got rich.

So the Europeans went looking for places like the islands where sugar was grown. Places like Cyprus and Crete and the Balearics.

They found Madeira, the Azores, The Canaries and hit the jackpot in the Caribbean.

We owe our current ease and comfort to refined white sugar.

It is good stuff, like coal, to keep in storage. It will supply all the carbon you need when the transportation system breaks down.

 

[FJAG]

The F35 is a trillion dollar solution to a bombardment problem that can now be solved with thousand dollar rockets and drones.

Your posts frequently have me sit back and review my own view of things. This one certainly got me reviewing my previous thoughts. Just as a background, I've been a fan of science fiction since friend's mother - our public schools librarian - got me hooked on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jon Carter series. I find it interesting that much of today's science fiction has characters roaming around with light sabres and fighting battles in space roving versions of fighter aircraft shooting bullets and laser beams and dropping bombs. Clearly a lack of imagination for most.

Sometimes I do wonder how much of the defence industry is based in lack of imagination. Rheinmetall's CEO definitely is. The "exquisite" model of engineering that Germany uses these days is the same wrong concept that caused them problems on the Russian front. Tolerances that are too tight; spare part unavailability due to manufacturing difficulties; shortfalls of equipment due to length of time required to build a unit. Who would have thought that we'd be building armoured infantry vehicles that cost in the tens of millions of dollars each?

My problem in discussing cheap hausfrau manufactured drones v the F-35 as a "solution to the bombardment problem" is that I feel the drones effectiveness is in large part enabled by several decades of investment in the wrong air defence systems. Western ground forces have for over 50 years depended on their air forces to keep the opponent's air bombardment systems at bay while ground-based bombardment was restricted by the limited range of guns and early rockets. With time - assuming we do things right - cheap, effective ground-based defences to cheap drone swarms will be fielded.

I don't think that the F-35 solution as a system which, in conjunction with a variety of UCAVs and gun and rocket artillery will be the foundation of the modern breakthrough battle, will be bested in the next decade or so. In other words, I don't think that keeping all of one's eggs in one basket is the solution. One needs a number of effectors that can work in harmony. That too is why I think that the tank isn't dead yet. It's one of the few systems that enables the seizure - especially rapid seizure - of ground . . . as long as it is accompanied by the right mix of defensive systems.

I've long ago said that we not only need an army of today and an army of tomorrow - which describes a present and future force structure - but also an army "for" today which meets our current missions, but also an army "for" tomorrow - which describes how that future force structure enables low cost day-to-day requirements in the future as well as have the ability to transform rapidly into a massive host capable of very high intensity combat.

That requires a complex and comprehensive assessment of all the tools that are and will be available in the future from recruiting and training and weapon manufacturing to how to win that breakthrough battle at the most reasonable cost that the nation can sustain.

I'm far from sold by Guillot's statement on the F-35's role in NORAD until I see a viable continental IAMD system which, at present, is pretty much nonexistent. For me, F-35s accompanied by numerous and UNEXPENSIVE autonomous unmanned systems will be the core of continental air defence for some time to come. Rather than pouring money into Grippens, Canada would be better off to set up a domestic manufacturing capability in something like the T-50 for use as a trainer, Snowbird and strike fighter aircraft and a separate fleet of cheap autonomous aircraft. It's an entry level we should easily be capable of meeting.

Meanwhile - let's build a cottage industry for ground-based drone swarms as well as CUAV systems.

 

[Kirkhill]

Your posts frequently have me sit back and review my own view of things. This one certainly got me reviewing my previous thoughts. Just as a background, I've been a fan of science fiction since friend's mother - our public schools librarian - got me hooked on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jon Carter series. I find it interesting that much of today's science fiction has characters roaming around with light sabres and fighting battles in space roving versions of fighter aircraft shooting bullets and laser beams and dropping bombs. Clearly a lack of imagination for most.

Sometimes I do wonder how much of the defence industry is based in lack of imagination. Rheinmetall's CEO definitely is. The "exquisite" model of engineering that Germany uses these days is the same wrong concept that caused them problems on the Russian front. Tolerances that are too tight; spare part unavailability due to manufacturing difficulties; shortfalls of equipment due to length of time required to build a unit. Who would have thought that we'd be building armoured infantry vehicles that cost in the tens of millions of dollars each?

My problem in discussing cheap hausfrau manufactured drones v the F-35 as a "solution to the bombardment problem" is that I feel the drones effectiveness is in large part enabled by several decades of investment in the wrong air defence systems. Western ground forces have for over 50 years depended on their air forces to keep the opponent's air bombardment systems at bay while ground-based bombardment was restricted by the limited range of guns and early rockets. With time - assuming we do things right - cheap, effective ground-based defences to cheap drone swarms will be fielded.

I don't think that the F-35 solution as a system which, in conjunction with a variety of UCAVs and gun and rocket artillery will be the foundation of the modern breakthrough battle, will be bested in the next decade or so. In other words, I don't think that keeping all of one's eggs in one basket is the solution. One needs a number of effectors that can work in harmony. That too is why I think that the tank isn't dead yet. It's one of the few systems that enables the seizure - especially rapid seizure - of ground . . . as long as it is accompanied by the right mix of defensive systems.

I've long ago said that we not only need an army of today and an army of tomorrow - which describes a present and future force structure - but also an army "for" today which meets our current missions, but also an army "for" tomorrow - which describes how that future force structure enables low cost day-to-day requirements in the future as well as have the ability to transform rapidly into a massive host capable of very high intensity combat.

That requires a complex and comprehensive assessment of all the tools that are and will be available in the future from recruiting and training and weapon manufacturing to how to win that breakthrough battle at the most reasonable cost that the nation can sustain.

I'm far from sold by Guillot's statement on the F-35's role in NORAD until I see a viable continental IAMD system which, at present, is pretty much nonexistent. For me, F-35s accompanied by numerous and UNEXPENSIVE autonomous unmanned systems will be the core of continental air defence for some time to come. Rather than pouring money into Grippens, Canada would be better off to set up a domestic manufacturing capability in something like the T-50 for use as a trainer, Snowbird and strike fighter aircraft and a separate fleet of cheap autonomous aircraft. It's an entry level we should easily be capable of meeting.

Meanwhile - let's build a cottage industry for ground-based drone swarms as well as CUAV systems.

The only issue I take is with your use of the word "wrong" in the context of air defence systems. I prefer my favourite word these days:"other".

You are playing roulette. The wheel spins. Red. Black. Is one wrong? Or is it just the other?

A canny player bets both ways and plays what they can afford to lose.

Our politicians seem to have a nasty tendency to want to either bet the farm on one or the other or not bet at all.

---

And yes. Before I met Heinlein, Clarke and Pournelle I was introduced to Rice-Burroughs, Wells and Conan Doyle.

Somebody once declared there were only 7 plots. The difference lay in how well the tale was told.

 

[lenaitch]

Nobody needs white refined sugars and it should be a controlled substance.

See what you did?

The world was built on white refined sugar.

It provided a storable, transportable source of your primary nutritional requirement: kJoules, or Calories if you prefer.

It eliminated the need to go foraging everyday. It eliminated the hunger moon in February.

It was the coal for the body. It was the necessary fungible carbon source.

Just as coal fuelled steam engines so sugar fuelled workers.

Chewed sugarcane in New Guinea domesticated in 8000 BC.

Juice extracted in Indonesia.

Crystallized in India by 500 BC

The technology and the crops spread to China and Persia, along with the slaves that knew how to grow it and make it, by the time of Mohammed, bless his heart.

Mohammed's Arabs then made a fortune supplying sugar, then cane, then refineries and then the black slaves that ran the economy, to the Mediterranean.

The Europeans then went looking for more places they could grow their own sugar because they were getting poor drinking sweet tea and eating Imperial Mints while the Arabs and Chinese got rich.

So the Europeans went looking for places like the islands where sugar was grown. Places like Cyprus and Crete and the Balearics.

They found Madeira, the Azores, The Canaries and hit the jackpot in the Caribbean.

We owe our current ease and comfort to refined white sugar.

It is good stuff, like coal, to keep in storage. It will supply all the carbon you need when the transportation system breaks down.

 

[Kirkhill]

Your posts frequently have me sit back and review my own view of things. This one certainly got me reviewing my previous thoughts. Just as a background, I've been a fan of science fiction since friend's mother - our public schools librarian - got me hooked on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jon Carter series. I find it interesting that much of today's science fiction has characters roaming around with light sabres and fighting battles in space roving versions of fighter aircraft shooting bullets and laser beams and dropping bombs. Clearly a lack of imagination for most.

Sometimes I do wonder how much of the defence industry is based in lack of imagination. Rheinmetall's CEO definitely is. The "exquisite" model of engineering that Germany uses these days is the same wrong concept that caused them problems on the Russian front. Tolerances that are too tight; spare part unavailability due to manufacturing difficulties; shortfalls of equipment due to length of time required to build a unit. Who would have thought that we'd be building armoured infantry vehicles that cost in the tens of millions of dollars each?

My problem in discussing cheap hausfrau manufactured drones v the F-35 as a "solution to the bombardment problem" is that I feel the drones effectiveness is in large part enabled by several decades of investment in the wrong air defence systems. Western ground forces have for over 50 years depended on their air forces to keep the opponent's air bombardment systems at bay while ground-based bombardment was restricted by the limited range of guns and early rockets. With time - assuming we do things right - cheap, effective ground-based defences to cheap drone swarms will be fielded.

I don't think that the F-35 solution as a system which, in conjunction with a variety of UCAVs and gun and rocket artillery will be the foundation of the modern breakthrough battle, will be bested in the next decade or so. In other words, I don't think that keeping all of one's eggs in one basket is the solution. One needs a number of effectors that can work in harmony. That too is why I think that the tank isn't dead yet. It's one of the few systems that enables the seizure - especially rapid seizure - of ground . . . as long as it is accompanied by the right mix of defensive systems.

I've long ago said that we not only need an army of today and an army of tomorrow - which describes a present and future force structure - but also an army "for" today which meets our current missions, but also an army "for" tomorrow - which describes how that future force structure enables low cost day-to-day requirements in the future as well as have the ability to transform rapidly into a massive host capable of very high intensity combat.

That requires a complex and comprehensive assessment of all the tools that are and will be available in the future from recruiting and training and weapon manufacturing to how to win that breakthrough battle at the most reasonable cost that the nation can sustain.

I'm far from sold by Guillot's statement on the F-35's role in NORAD until I see a viable continental IAMD system which, at present, is pretty much nonexistent. For me, F-35s accompanied by numerous and UNEXPENSIVE autonomous unmanned systems will be the core of continental air defence for some time to come. Rather than pouring money into Grippens, Canada would be better off to set up a domestic manufacturing capability in something like the T-50 for use as a trainer, Snowbird and strike fighter aircraft and a separate fleet of cheap autonomous aircraft. It's an entry level we should easily be capable of meeting.

Meanwhile - let's build a cottage industry for ground-based drone swarms as well as CUAV systems.

Rereading your commets I was drawn to "the F-35 as a "solution to the bombardment problem".

One aspect of the F-35 design that has troubled a lot of folks is that it is either a stealthy craft with not much hitting power or else it is a very expensive bomb truck that, when fully loaded, is just as fat and ugly as a Gen 3 fighter, let alone a Gen 4 one.

But...trends.

It turned out that you didn't need as many F-35s as was originally thought. It could see more without being seen and it could relay useful targetting information to ancient aircraft loitering safely beyond visual range with self-powered weapons that could be re-targetted in flight by the F-35s.

The F-35 became more valuable remaining cloaked and stooging around enemy airspace aa a flying FOO/FAC. It was better to minimize its weapons load to a couple of personal defence missiles, save the weight for fuel and keep it in the air longer.

...

But if that, then did the loitering bomb trucks need to be there? Or could the F35s redirect missiles from Navy ships? From Army trucks? Rolled out the rear ramp of a C130 or C17 on pallets? Or missiles strapped on to 5600 km unmanned shuttles for delivery to release points a thousand kilometers from the target?

...

Once the defences are degraded, how long can the F35s continue circling Iran? And how many are needed? Especially when supplemented by Reapers, satellites and these things: Pseudo-satellites


The Airbus Zephyr and the BAE PHASA-35 that operate at U-2 altitudes, above 66,000 feet and hang around for 12 months on a single sortie. Reportedly they sell in the 5-20 MUSD range. Five to 20 for the price of one F-35. And no humans at risk.

...

All that science fiction we read as kids?



Some of it was made real.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Your posts frequently have me sit back and review my own view of things. This one certainly got me reviewing my previous thoughts. Just as a background, I've been a fan of science fiction since friend's mother - our public schools librarian - got me hooked on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jon Carter series. I find it interesting that much of today's science fiction has characters roaming around with light sabres and fighting battles in space roving versions of fighter aircraft shooting bullets and laser beams and dropping bombs. Clearly a lack of imagination for most.

Sometimes I do wonder how much of the defence industry is based in lack of imagination. Rheinmetall's CEO definitely is. The "exquisite" model of engineering that Germany uses these days is the same wrong concept that caused them problems on the Russian front. Tolerances that are too tight; spare part unavailability due to manufacturing difficulties; shortfalls of equipment due to length of time required to build a unit. Who would have thought that we'd be building armoured infantry vehicles that cost in the tens of millions of dollars each?

My problem in discussing cheap hausfrau manufactured drones v the F-35 as a "solution to the bombardment problem" is that I feel the drones effectiveness is in large part enabled by several decades of investment in the wrong air defence systems. Western ground forces have for over 50 years depended on their air forces to keep the opponent's air bombardment systems at bay while ground-based bombardment was restricted by the limited range of guns and early rockets. With time - assuming we do things right - cheap, effective ground-based defences to cheap drone swarms will be fielded.

I don't think that the F-35 solution as a system which, in conjunction with a variety of UCAVs and gun and rocket artillery will be the foundation of the modern breakthrough battle, will be bested in the next decade or so. In other words, I don't think that keeping all of one's eggs in one basket is the solution. One needs a number of effectors that can work in harmony. That too is why I think that the tank isn't dead yet. It's one of the few systems that enables the seizure - especially rapid seizure - of ground . . . as long as it is accompanied by the right mix of defensive systems.

I've long ago said that we not only need an army of today and an army of tomorrow - which describes a present and future force structure - but also an army "for" today which meets our current missions, but also an army "for" tomorrow - which describes how that future force structure enables low cost day-to-day requirements in the future as well as have the ability to transform rapidly into a massive host capable of very high intensity combat.

That requires a complex and comprehensive assessment of all the tools that are and will be available in the future from recruiting and training and weapon manufacturing to how to win that breakthrough battle at the most reasonable cost that the nation can sustain.

I'm far from sold by Guillot's statement on the F-35's role in NORAD until I see a viable continental IAMD system which, at present, is pretty much nonexistent. For me, F-35s accompanied by numerous and UNEXPENSIVE autonomous unmanned systems will be the core of continental air defence for some time to come. Rather than pouring money into Grippens, Canada would be better off to set up a domestic manufacturing capability in something like the T-50 for use as a trainer, Snowbird and strike fighter aircraft and a separate fleet of cheap autonomous aircraft. It's an entry level we should easily be capable of meeting.

Meanwhile - let's build a cottage industry for ground-based drone swarms as well as CUAV systems.

Totally agree on the FA-50 (or Leonardo M-346) as an alternative to the Grippen. As you point out, you can use it as a trainer/light strike fighter/Snowbird replacement*. Also, the FA-50 can carry two SK developed ALCM with a 350 KM range which is pretty impressive.

* The T-50 has a dedicated aerobatic variant.

As a side note I also like the KF-21 fighter, but I haven't seen any indications of Canadian interest in the a/c.

 

[KevinB]

Rereading your commets I was drawn to "the F-35 as a "solution to the bombardment problem".

One aspect of the F-35 design that has troubled a lot of folks is that it is either a stealthy craft with not much hitting power or else it is a very expensive bomb truck that, when fully loaded, is just as fat and ugly as a Gen 3 fighter, let alone a Gen 4 one.

But...trends.

It turned out that you didn't need as many F-35s as was originally thought. It could see more without being seen and it could relay useful targetting information to ancient aircraft loitering safely beyond visual range with self-powered weapons that could be re-targetted in flight by the F-35s.

The F-35 became more valuable remaining cloaked and stooging around enemy airspace aa a flying FOO/FAC. It was better to minimize its weapons load to a couple of personal defence missiles, save the weight for fuel and keep it in the air longer.

...

But if that, then did the loitering bomb trucks need to be there? Or could the F35s redirect missiles from Navy ships? From Army trucks? Rolled out the rear ramp of a C130 or C17 on pallets? Or missiles strapped on to 5600 km unmanned shuttles for delivery to release points a thousand kilometers from the target?

...

Once the defences are degraded, how long can the F35s continue circling Iran? And how many are needed? Especially when supplemented by Reapers, satellites and these things: Pseudo-satellites

View attachment 99459
View attachment 99462 The Airbus Zephyr and the BAE PHASA-35 that operate at U-2 altitudes, above 66,000 feet and hang around for 12 months on a single sortie. Reportedly they sell in the 5-20 MUSD range. Five to 20 for the price of one F-35. And no humans at risk.

...

All that science fiction we read as kids?

View attachment 99464

Some of it was made real.

I think you are drawing an incorrect parallel on what the F-35 is for.
The stealth functions help it deal with the A2AD environment, so that either it, or non stealthy AC can come in with appropriate weapons for the mission(s).
The RCAF had decided that it was the best option (at the time) and that a split fleet was not viable.
Realistically they would need 66 aircraft for NORAD, something like the F-15EX (which wasn't available at the time), and as well a Gen5 Stealth AC for the Expeditionary role - just winging it, but something like 36-48 F-35.
Which when looking at the size of the RCAF, maintaining two fleets at that scale - it probably does make sense to simply go with a larger number of F-35.

Missiles, Rockets, LM's etc fulfill one role -- you need them, but you can't eliminate (at this point) manned aircraft. Nor do I think anyone is going to be comfortable with an airborne long endurance UAS like the Zephyr or Phase at this point simply roaming the skies for months waiting to attack -- I mean folks are deathly afraid of Predators roaming the skies around commercial aircraft, and they are significantly more mature.

Let us look at ICMB's - with the logic above -- we don't need Armies, Navies, or Air Forces, as we can just nuke the enemy right?
I know you are not arguing for sole platforms, but I think you are incorrectly judging the requirements for manned AC at this time.

If you look at Russias invasion into Ukraine, they cannot gain Air Supremacy - and only temporary localized Air Superiority near the FEBA, similar situation to the Ukrainians -- so air power, other than air launched cruise missiles, and glide bombs in not a factor.

Time on Station is always a factor with aircraft -- I am not a FAC/JTAC, but have worked in teams supported by them, but never really understood the backside math the Air Forces do to ensure availability of AC in the AO. Aircraft obviously have given endurance parameters, depending on loads and fuel, and speed. While they can refuel in flight, they cannot replenish ordnance aloft.
However having available AC (and a JTAC) fire support can be significantly quicker than Artillery (tube or rocket) and LRPF Missiles.

As much as one hears about the transparent battlefield - one can see in Iran currently - even with the most advanced sensors on the planet, as well as other sources of target detection, that enemies are still around and often not seen until they have launched -- so the ability of an aircraft like the F-35 to loiter (even with a limited bomb/missile load internally) allows for fast protection of targets as they come onto the list -- significantly faster than missiles or rockets launched from the ground. That same platform can also be used to interdict launched systems with it's cannon or AAM's.