Without going too far off topic.....
1) Solely relying on stand-off munitions is as stupid as solely relying on stealth. A stealthy aircraft firing stand-off munitiions is still more capable than a less stealthier one doing so. More to the point on survivability. Those same radars that will "obsolete" stealth will detect less stealthier aircraft at even longer ranges, which drastically reduces the effectiveness of your stand-off weapons options. And all this is aside from the fact that our political masters will often decide on rules of engagement which may rule out the stand-off weapons.
2) The debate in Ottawa has solely centred around the Super Hornet. I saw colleagues working at NGFC routinely get lobbied by Opposition politicians, often centred the
SH. Reasons were simplistic. Mostly centred on cost (which would rule out the Eurofighter) or cancon (canadian content/industrial offsets ...likely to rule out the Rafale).
3) As part of the US Navy agreeing to its first single-engine bird in decades, they had some exacting requirements on engine reliability. Couple this with the fact that the F-16 has similar loss rates (per flying hour) to the twin engine F-18 that we bought, and the whole "you'll lose the aircraft if the single engine fails" doesn' hold much water, because quiet often the problems are similar enough to result in aircraft loss regardless of one or two engines (think fuel contamination, mid-air, cfit, hydraulics, etc.)
4) You didn'get my point. Boeing's lobbying of our politicians (or in public) doesn't quote all-up pricing. That's purposefully disingenuous. Of course, come bid time, those Super Hornets are going to be more expensive than most expect, for this reason.... As for JSF not including the price of the engine, I'm curious how anyone would submit a bid without including an engine, please explain.....
Quoting Amiga500 (Reply 215):
Some "professionals" cannot see past all the buzzwords, shiny lights and gizmos. F-35 doesn't suit Canada in any way or form for protecting Canadian airspace. Its a logical fallacy to suggest otherwise.
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You really don't need to resort to such attacks. It's not "buzzwords, shiny lights and gizmos". It's based on engineering and data as we know it. As for "protecting Canadian airspace". We don't do that now. It's subcontracted to the Americans through NORAD with our token contribution (4 CF-18s on high alert). Whatever we buy, isn't going to change that, short of buying hoardes of cheaper aircraft, which our air force would happily support actually, but no government would realistically fund (the choice here is not between say 3 squadrons of Super Hornets or 2 squadrons of F-35s). The simplistic point of view is in somehow believing that we'll be less likely to partciipate in American adventures if we have the Super Hornet, because we'll be "defending Canada". We'll just be less safe....like that time we decided to take part in their Kosovo adventure with unsecured comms....
Quoting infiniti329 (Reply 216):
Boeing can't come out of this being all cocky, they can still see competition from both the Typhoon and the Rafale for the Canadian contract.
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It's not being cocky. It's business. They can undercut the others. They know that. But that doesn't mean they'll sell airplanes at firesale prices, particularly if they know that the government doesn't care at all about capability. In that case, just price pennies below the competition. Lowest-cost compliant will win.
Notice that rescuing Bombardier won't even enter that discussion.....
I'd love for the parliamentary committees to get testimony from the pilots and engineers at the project office. My criticism of the last government was the fact that they muzzled all public servants and resorted to politicizing all kinds of government decisions, even when they supported the concept.
Quoting planemaker (Reply 217):
They won't be getting too many additional contracts but that is not the same as a "cancellation payment". And whomever wins the tender will have to provide industrial offsets. |
Never said it was. The real tragedy of the
EH-101 fiasco (other than the lives lost and no replacement aircraft 20 years later), was the substantial amount of jobs and investment lost by our aerospace sector for what turned out to be a rather successful platform, not the cancellation payment.
By the way, the rhetoric was similar then too. Who needs this "cadillac" three-engined helicopter? Clearly a bunch of air force boys intent on blowing taxpayer money. The same Liberal government had to swallow hard and buy the same helicopter for search and resuce after seeing the analysis when they got elected (which included lower lifecycle cost projections). And in their zeal to avoid swallowing hard again, they decided that we should dumb down the specs and allow an unproven platform (at the time) to bid (and win), resulting in a decade long delay and several deaths. But you know, all that education and experience and we're just falling for the "shiny lights" and "bling"....
In any event, on topic, I think we can all agree that tying any sort of defence procurement to the rescue of Bombardier is extremely unlikely. This isn't the 80s with Boeing and De Havilland. And that means it's going to all the more interesting for this government. How will they balance votes in Montreal and several thousand jobs against subsidies that might violate public sensibilities, trade agreements, etc.?
