They cannot be trusted, that much we know. We need to become independent and not reliant
We shouldn’t have caved back in the Arrow days.
Existing provokes Trump.
Bring back the avro arrow. Let’s do it.
We should throw some cash at Saab and see if they can come up with a stealth gripen or something.
Careful, that’s how you end up with cool sedans and hatchbacks.
Europe already has a program for a 6th gen in the works for 2040 or 2050. Saab should join it! However in the meanwhile the gripen-e is an excellent aircraft yes.
As should europe. Clearly you can’t trust the USA anymore. What is the long-term prospect for spare parts?
From what I’ve heard you need a password that changes on the daily to start a F-35 and that the US are the only ones that can provide it. If that is true, it’s a tremendous oversite for any sovereign state.
wait…WHAT??? it doesn’t sound unlikely (tesla can be disabled remotely by tesla), but why would you buy it in such case? That’s why I voted the piracy party a couple of times. Not because I fully agree, but just to get people with at least some IT knowledge in
There’s no way that’s true, right?
Quick search seems to say that US planes might have the code thing but exported planes don’t. Although they do have control over updates and the code for everyone except for Israel that requested access to the code before buying.
and could we ever trust Canada or Europe? doubt it duh
Idiot moron piece of shit retard. Go give Putin a footmassage and the keys to your house you bootlicking degenerate creature.
Where do your doubts come from? Please be specific.
Spoken like someone from the very very shallowest side of the gene pool. You’re a mouth and an anus and not much else.
Yes we can. - an actual patriotic American not in a cult
I hope your country survives people like you
Fak u
Kindly - shut up. All those countries you don’t trust followed America into Afghanistan, many into other wars. All lost citizens in support of American and joint interests, we did our part, as allies should. Guess we now know who is the real untrustworthy partner, and I doubt any of us will forget the betrayal anytime soon.
“No u” come on with the childish shit. Yes we could trust Europe you dumb dumb. America literally wouldn’t exist without French support but you wanna be a contrarian so bad you just ignore everything and type out this moronic dribble
You can even look into much closer history - look at the participants of Enduring Freedom. Nice to see how respected the life’s of our citizens, who died in Afghanistan or elsewhere, are to people like that.
Let’s do it and replace them with MiGs 🤨
The aircraft has significant security risks for sure and makes sense to cancel. But canceling the order won’t be on Trump’s radar unless it affects his inner circle of evil billionaires who have funneled dark money to him.
Canada should cancel the F-35 contract and their are better fighter jets from reliable NATO allies. The F-35 is a $2 trillion USD turd that is still not 100%. If Canada continues to purchase US weapons, this would be like Poland buying weapons from Nazi Germany. I am hoping the US MIC becomes pissed off.
2 trillion is a fuckload of drones!
The PM agrees with The Globe and Mail once and now they think they’ll get two in a row?
Goddamn right we should. Take the French up on the offer to build the Rafale here. Or the Swedes. And get a few demo units for short term.
Fuck 'em on any cancellation fees too. Consider it partial compensation for the ridiculous trade war.
There was an article last week discussing how that plane calls home every day and that it can be blocked by the Americans. They can shut all of them down within 24 hours.
Time to nope right out of that contract.
None of those airplanes even have similar capabilities. Why do you think the entirety of Europe has ordered so many F-35.
The only alternative is to wait 15+(realistically 20+) years for a 6gen plane from Europe. And with the alliance dying, who knows how much longer it will take now
Rafale and Gripen are more expensive and in many ways, less good. There is a reason why noone is buying them, or even if they did, they still want to buy more F-35.
Alliance isn’t dying, just the US isn’t really part of it anymore. The need for alliance is all the more stronger and it’s imperative to remove all dependency on the US defense industry within that alliance. The US dropping military aid for Ukraine proves the US is a dishonourable country and shouldn’t be trusted for anything anymore. By all indications, the US is surrendering to Russia because Trump is afraid of Putin.
The capabilities of the F-35 only represents the capability of an adversary now. We should use the ones we have to develop radar systems so we can shoot them down, and reverse engineer it’s capabilities to improve the fighter aircraft produced by the free world (which no longer includes the US).
Both are cheaper than F35… Do you have an access to the internet? The reason people were buying US planes is they thought the US walked the talk. They clearly don’t, so they won’t sell those anymore.
F35 is far more expensive to operate, so you end up paying more over the lifetime if you actually use it.
Of course the other aircraft don’t have a bunch of fancy features of the F35, but maybe we don’t need them, particularly in light of the US hostility and unpredictability. And the benefit of building our own is a factor as well.
As I undertand it, the F35 has only about 55% readiness and suffers SW problems as well.
The US is not the only game in town, and we need to be clear about that.
It is a little princessy(what stealth aircraft isnt) but it doesnt cost that much to run. It only requires specialized facilities.
F-35 readiness is on par with other comparable planes and will only get better (superior to other fighters) the more infrastructure is built. You would be shocked if you saw the readiness levels of other planes but that doesnt sell.
It is important to note that much of the bad reputation of the f-35 is because
- Outdated data from early development of the plane. The F-16(or any plane), the (currently) cheap, reliable and available workhorse had an even worse start.
- Because there is free press in the West, you hear about everything that goes wrong. This is not the case for planes from authoritarian countries.
- A lot of the misinformation comes and/or is amplified literally from enemy state propaganda.
- A lot of the issues of the F-35 are about the vertical takeoff variant(F-35B). Or about a new updated version(block) of the F-35 that is still in testing.
- “F-35 bad” is(though less so nowadays) an internet meme. I am still waiting for the internet to explain how this terrible fighter can do 20 to 1 kill ratio vs non stealth planes in exercises.
Ask yourself why is the F-35 the best selling fighter. Why is noone buying F-15, F-18 or F-16. Those planes still sell but on much more limited quantities and mostly because F-35 production cant catch up with demand(or because not all american allies are allowed to buy the F-35).
Now obviously if America is hostile to Europe, shit is gonna get really weird. While the Rafale and Gripen are capable planes, they cannot replace the F-35.
Look what is happening in Ukraine. The air space is extremely hostile to non stealth planes. This is the kind of environment that the F-35 can fight in, though ideally you want B2 to bomb most antiair defenses. Non stealth aircraft can fight too but it is infinitely risker and with significantly reduced capabilities.
The F-35 is the start of a new doctrine(for non american airforces), not just a plane.
You forgot to mention the difference in maintenance costs. The F-35 is the most expensive fighter jet not only to acquire but also to maintain. It’s a money pit. It’s beautiful and 6th gen and all that’s grand. But it’s not good enough to justify the difference in prices.
The critical tradeoff is not F35 or a worse plane. The critical tradeoff is American or not.
The gripen is more agile than the f35 and capable of austere landings. Arguably more important traits than the ability to carry American nukes.
Being agile is kinda irrelevant if one can detect, lock and launch missiles tens of kilometers before the other plane can even detect it. Real life is not Top Gun. This is why everyone is buying the F-35.
There is a reason why China is spending billions designing and making stealth fighters, bombers and drones.
Agility isnt useless but it is highly overrated mostly by Russia, because they cant afford to produce(in relevant quantities) a stealth plane.
Russia has a different approach to the problem: Very aggressive jamming. Sure, you can see them before they can see you, but those missiles are gonna be much less effective at tracking and destroying targets.
Stealth is being as quiet as possible, Russian jets are so damn “loud” that you don’t know which target is the real one.
Once within range for a more traditional dogfight it’s basically a coin toss, mostly down to the pilots and the reliability of the plane’s hardware.
They buy F35 because the US is the premier supplier of arms for NATO bar none.
Why do you think the entirety of Europe has ordered so many F-35.
The reason for Germany is that other aircraft, by choice, have not been certified for use with US nuclear weapons.
Nuke capability is irrelevant for most countries(rafale has a nuke capable variant, though only for French nukes). Take a look at its operators
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II_operators
Everyone who can get it(allied to the US), has already ordered it or will soon. The only exceptions are Sweden and France, who wanted to maintain some degree of strategic independence and not lose their jet fighter building capability. And Spain, though Spain was also kinda thinking of getting F-35 too(before Trump).
Canada was like Sweden and France, they could manufacture capable planes. But this is immensely expensive. Thats why Canada(and most countries) stopped doing it. This is why the F-35 is cheap, economies of scale, and why countries are willing to wait 5+ years to get it(while rafale and Gripen are basically readily available).
Europe wanted to coast through 5gen planes by using the F-35 while skipping ahead and developing, 2 completely different apparently, 6gen planes by 2040ish.
Every country knows the US changes faces faster than my ex girlfriend.
At this point other countries just need to deal with 4 years of this bullshit.
If Trump were to take over the government like Hitler did, which looks to be the case, only then would countries start looking at dropping the USA.
No. There’s no telling what comes after these 4 years. The US has proven that they aren’t an ally worth relying on, we should look to more reliable partners and building them up and vice versa. Any concession or help offered by the next administration isn’t worth the paper it’s written on (just look at trump ripping up his own trade agreement for this nonsense.)
We need allies not a neighbour that on a whim might try to throw us into a recession.
Exactly. With a Presidential Monarchy, no deal or treaty can be trusted past the next election (assuming they’ll still have those).
More than more Trump, we are also seeing a complete abandonment of the US much vaunted system of checks and balances. You simply can’t deal with them except in 4 year periods.
If you look back at the history of the US, it’s been fairly reliable in it’s first world alliances.
Yeah, they’ve pretty strongly turned from recent history though. No one in NATO believes the US could be trusted to uphold article 5 anymore. That’s the whole issue.
Hell, why doesn’t Ukraine have the nuclear deterrnet that it had after the collapse of the Soviet Union? Because they foolishly believed American security promises, which were given in exchange for them releasing their nukes.
Exactly. But it also shows it’s more about Trump than America.
Plus we got other stuff to worry about, and playing nice with America is probably better in the long run.
What? Ukraine was first invaded before trump and then again without him there. In both cases, the security provided was less than what was originally guaranteed. Ukraine got screwed by believing America.
It’s not just trump, there’s a whole Senate and Congress cheering him on. I would not gamble our future by relying on it to only be a trump phenomenon. If Americans had elected him once and horrified of their mistake, never came close again, that’d be one thing. But we has elected with a plurarlity of votes.
America has proven an untrustworthy ally and that thwir promises aren’t worth the paper their written in.
I don’t think Canada’s security should be “well, let’s just hope they don’t do it yet again!”
@MyBrainHurts @x00z yeah its a harsh lesson here in Europe as well. But a Trump that was slightly more patient and subtle would have been far more dangerous for us all.
Oh absolutely, thank heavens trump is cartoonishly cruel and selfish, it’s quickly united everyone else. A clever, subtle and patient trump would’ve been much more dangerous.
I just fully disagree with the earlier comment that this is a one off trump only aberration.
When the us comes crawling back we should make them pay reparations for any economic or other damages before they’re welcomed back.
What would they do instead? Get a bunch of J-35s, like Egypt?
Dassault makes jets…
I’m confused.
That’s not a poem.I was assured that Sprog bestows awesome poems upon the masses.
I don’t think I can anymore.
I don’t blame you, man. We live in unhappy times, it’s no place for happy rhymes.
That’s sad but I understand.
You brought joy to a lot of people but it must have been a ton of work.
J35 or the new Turkish planes. Or develop their own plane.
Fighter planes are very expensive to develop.
The F-35 program cost something around $1.7 trillion. That’s several times the annual GDP of Canada. A better bet would be to enter some joint development program with partners in the EU.
That is not several times Canada’s GDP. Maybe you meant many many times Canada’s annual military expenditure.
Regardless 1.7 trillion Is a lot of money
Join GCAP (Global Combat Air Program) or FCAS (Future Coma=bat Air System). They are both multi-country projects to develop next gen fighter jets. Off the top of my head, GCAP is UK, Japan and Italy where FCAS is Germany, France, and… I’d have to look it up, and I’m feeling a bit lazy.
Assuming there is no schedule slippage, they won’t deliver aircraft until 2035 and 2040 respectively though, so we would still need a stop gap. I’m partial to Gripen, and Sweden has flirted with joing GCAP as well, so that might be a good way to reivigorate Canadian aerospace, in cooperation with the other GCAP countries and Sweden.
Typhoon/EF2000/Rafale. Not stealthy, but still a superb multi role aircraft.
(Yes, I know Rafale is technically not the same aircraft, but it sprang from the same initial plans, so it’s pretty close)
#buyeuropean, I guess
From what I understand, those are fine if you’re going up against enemies that don’t have stealth (and all the ancillary technologies that go with it).
The general military analysis is that the F-35 and J-35 are superior to anything else in the air and are similar in capabilities to each other. Conflicts between them will come down to who can make more of them faster. Conflicts between one of them and an older generation fighter seems to be, they’ll blow you up before you can see them.
EU better get cracking and start making stealth planes.
That’s assuming stealth stays effective much longer.
Stealth planes can already be detected, it’s a matter of doing it fast enough and small enough to work in a missile.
Tempest and FCAS are supposed to be coming.
Probably be some laid off government contractors soon with stealth expertise.
100% TODAY! Do not pay a fucking dime of any amount owing for these. (good job on Globe and Mail for a change)
FYI, the Israeli version of F35 does not have this “US permission for every flight required”
F35 is a POS plane, with low uptime, in addition to “broken ownership”. Even US military does not get manuals on how to repair/maintain them and must hire Lockheed consultants to do the job. The whole program was a boondoggle to pay Lockheed the most money possible instead of getting good military equipment, and any corrupt POS that was involved in approving this purchase for Canada should be jailed for treason.
There’s nothing stopping Canada from getting the manuals and patching the software. Most of the FUD about it’s performance abilities is propaganda. So getting them and just locking out Lockheed and the US would be a pretty good middle finger too.
This is the one that starved pilots of oxygen, right?
That was the F-22 and it was over a decade ago. The problem has since been fixed.
Ah okay. But that spreads the worry without diluting it. Are the people who didn’t check the box “don’t drown the pilot” on the raptor q/a form also now on the fluffy-Amy team? What kind of drunken shenanigans can we anticipate?
The performance metrics are criticisize by US military journals.
There’s nothing stopping Canada from getting the manuals and patching the software.
If US military can’t get them or patch the software, Canada can’t either. Israel is special for not putting up with US BS.
I haven’t seen that. I’ve only seen blogs saying stuff. And if you have the literal hardware in your hands then changing the software isn’t going to be hard as a country.
8m lines of source code for F35 OS, afaiu. Vendor is intentionally crippling your access/functionality, and USMCA calls that “proper pro business attitude”. Again, Lockheed has accomodated Israel in not crippling their version. It’s not as though you have open source hardware to which to code your own OS ontop.
Only dumping the POS is appropriate. Call it a negotiation position.
I don’t think Canada should be basing their defense decisions on the opinion and thin skin of the American government. Trying to force Canada, in any way, to purchase F35’s is fishy - not that that’s happening, of course.
Canada’s interests are for Canada. Not them. Also, maybe Canada should reboot their ventures into the Avro Arrow program again. That’ll ruffle some feathers. Canadian engineered military = quite formidable, I think.
Canadian engineered military = quite formidable, I think.
Here’s the bad news. It’s not. Sure, we’re good at peacekeeping, and we deploy to support (militarily) our allies. But we’re using US gear and we’re woefully underfunded because war budget has been declared a waste by even the parties who strut and posture about a strong military. We only needed to fulfill our NATO obligations, for decades, and even that has been a struggle we haven’t won consistently with the low budget.
And while we’re skilled enough and gung-ho, and our 1st Pioneers are about the most scary bunch of lumberjack commandos you’ll ever see, there’s just so few of them, and again their gear has been called old and out of repair by every administration campaigning because the last one never did a thing about it.
We’re gonna need a lot of funding and training and gear to make up the shortfall in people and powpow toys, and that’s a slice of gov pork that Milhouse is gonna latch onto knowing that he doesn’t need an army once he gives the country over. Justin doesn’t want to spend that, but he - and please God let it be Mark next - is really gonna have to.
But how do we sell it to the “hair guy bad” flatlanders steeped in 12 years of hating Justin for not being a pseudo-aristocratic milquetoast conservative?
