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

[Furniture]

If the F-35 was all that and a bag of chips, Harper would have moved ahead with the buy when he had the chance.

I feel like the RCAF's game was exposed when the CBC carried a story about the GlobalEye maybe not working in NORAD because it doesn't have MADL like the F-35... Then the story went on to explain that no AEW&C aircraft had it, and neither did our F-18, or the USAF's F-22s...

So how much of the F-35's winning was based on a capability exclusive to the F-35? If even America didn't think it was worth adding MADL to their actual air superiority fighter, perhaps, it's not critical to NORAD operations...

 

[GR66]

You also (and several others here) tend to gloss over issues that have been brought up here repeatedly.

1) Creating a Gen4 Manufacturing facility in Canada isn’t going to be economically viable.

2) Saab has no Gen 5 Experience and at this point is an aimless orphan sitting around in the Gen 6 area (to be fair Canada is still sitting at the door).

3) At this junction in time no one is going to invest in a Gen 4 Fighter, as a new addition.

Those three points should be enough for anyone to get off the Gripen hype train.

The ship sailed, the only viable option is the F-35 for Canada.

Now, the future - the F-35 fleet won’t last forever, and the other aspect is those pesky ‘loyal wingman’ concepts.

If Canada wanted to be a serious player it would jump into GCAP (the realistically most viable 6 gen option at this point, beyond observer status and pony up as a full partner. - heck sell it as Elbows Up whatever for all I care.

That is a much more practical and effective use of Canadian Tax Dollars than throwing it on some sort of Saab Gripen boondoggle bonfire.

I’m not throwing shade at Saab as a whole, they do have a lot of products that are useful to Canada, and partnerships that can expand — but buying a new gen 4 aircraft at this juncture is just throwing money away to say F Trump and will hurt Canada in the long run.

I'll start by saying (yet again) that I am 100% in favour of an F-35 buy of at a minimum of the original planned 65 aircraft (and ideally the full 88). It is the only current aircraft available to Canada that is survivable in a non-permissive peer conflict. If open war were to break out between the West and Russia or China...or even a non-peer country with any significant AD system we will need the F-35. Full stop.

That being said, the most realistic requirement in the NORAD role is plenty of platforms that can cover as much airspace as possible to shoot down incoming cruise missiles. We will not be dog fighting SU-57's over Hudson Bay. A 4th generation fighter is fully capable of fulfilling that role as demonstrated by the USAF using F-16's and F-15's. Yes they would do well quarterbacked by F-35's (and other sensors) and yes, eventually we could likely replace them with CCV's but that technology is not quite there yet.

A split F-35/Gripen buy (of say 72 each) would do two things. It would give us a large enough fleet that we could deploy a significant number of F-35's to an expeditionary fight were the 5th Gen/Stealth capabilities are essential and still leave enough Gripens to patrol and defend our airspace.

The 2nd thing it would do would provide an advanced domestic combat aircraft production/assembly ecosystem. Combined with the R&D centre that Saab has included in its IRB offerings we could leverage that to the development of a CCV platform that meets the unique requirements of the defence of Canada (extreme range, arctic operations, etc.) that we could build domestically once we have completed our Gripen production (plus any possible foreign sales to non-G7 countries that can't afford F-35's).

At the same time we should look to partner with GCAP for the eventual 6th Generation replacement of the F-35's. So we start with an F-35/Gripen fleet and transition to a GCAP/CCV fleet.

 

[suffolkowner]

Can the Gripen even manage range wise vs an F35 or even an CF-18?