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

[Czech_pivo]

Aside from OPSEC considerations what you're asking is really difficult to say.

You can look at how many personnel are posted in Cold Lake (about 2000) and Bagotville (1400). But that doesn't tell you how those Wings scale with number of aircraft. There's the overlap with 2 Wing in Bag. And none of this tells you about the overhead across the supply system, tech authorities, ops airports or even infrastructure. Some of those personnel are not even RCAF. Also doesn't speak to how much more would be added with the F-35, given the coming addition of the Security Forces and the mission planner trade.

Beyond that, the F-35 is such a data hoover that we're creating new IT architectures and new intelligence frameworks to collect and exploit the spectrum, imagery, etc with that aircraft. These are capabilities that the RCAF really doesn't do today, but are really essential in the 5th Gen world. The intelligence and IT ramp between the F-35, P-8, MQ-9 and space is pretty substantial. We're talking about billions and hundreds of people. How much does that count towards the F-35 specifically?

What about the training chain? How much of that counts towards the fighters? Can't have a fighter force without FLIT. And if you increase the numbers of fighters those fleets have to grow.

So you tell me what your exact definition is and then we can work on an estimate.

But also, like I've said earlier. It's not raw numbers. Just because you allocate more, doesn't mean you'll have them. It takes at least 4 years of military and flight training to produce a new line pilot in a fighter squadron. Adding RMC, that's 7 years total. 5 for an engineering officer. 2-3 years for most techs. This means, that in a best case scenario, we're taking recruits today who will become techs in 2029, engineers in 2031 and pilots in 2033. So if we're adding more than the 88 forecast jets or doing mixed fleet (which drives inefficiency), then we literally have to start training all of these people today. But hell, right now we don't even have a FLIT to train our pilots. We send them to Texas and Italy.

Thanks for the reply.

Lots to chew on and think about my next set of questions.

 

[Swampbuggy]

Ok, small point of pedantry, directed at no one in particular (in that I’m sure I’ve used it multiple times too), but can we give the “Elbows Up Crowd” diatribe a bit of a break. We all know why we’re in this mess regarding equipping and manning the CAF. The public didn’t care or even know enough to care. I get it, we all do. But, for whatever reason, good/bad/cynical they’re on board with spending and growing right now. Personally, I would prefer the full 88 or more fighters to be F35. I can absolutely understand the argument about 70 or whatever to get us to GCAP. Makes sense to me too. But, the US government is doing everything to derail the purchase as publicly as possible. Can you really blame the average Canadian taxpayer (who granted doesn’t probably know how or why the two aircraft are different) for not wanting to spend money in a store where the proprietor is shit talking your people in boxcar letters? Yes, people should have been more supportive for years, yes they don’t typically know f*#k all about the military, but it’s still them picking up the tab. Right now, they’re willing to do it. Let’s give them credit for that much at least.