It’s been awhile since I last had anything to say about Canada’s procurement of F-35 Lightning II jets for the Royal Canadian Air Force, or RCAF. The combat aircraft, all 88 of them, were purchased as replacements for Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18 Hornets, in service since the 1980’s.
Things were so bad with the Hornets that, although a very capable aircraft and much better than none at all, we had to literally buy additional Hornets from Australia more for the spare parts they represented rather than the flying platforms themselves. The Australians, as well, have gone the way of the F-35, but were ahead of Canada in the ordering of them, making their F-18’s available to Canada as we struggled to maintain a competent fighter-interceptor presence over Canadian skies while we waited for the new planes.
The Canadian F-35’s have always been the topic of scepticism. Canada was one of the first countries that signed on to the original consortium of nations that plugged into the program that was to design and build what is officially known as the Joint Strike Fighter, a fifth-generation stealth fighter that would combine the very best of the F-15, F-16, and F-18 fighters into one platform that could also double as a networking attack quarterback capable of managing the entire battle space.
But then politics took hold and we became one of the last of the original group to receive them. The jets were first selected by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper back in the late 2000’s, but then quickly ran into massive cost increases that had the price tag for each fighter north of $130 million/plane, which anyone would recognize as being pretty expensive, even for a state-of-the-art military fighter. With a price tag spiralling out of control, the F-35 became an easy target for the Liberals under Justin Trudeau, who vowed to scrap the F-35 program should they ever win power, something they did in 2015. That, right there, cost us time.
Unfortunately for the Liberals, Canada still needed a replacement fighter aircraft for the antiquated F-18’s, so we went through the motions of going through a procurement process all over again, with Air Force generals and high-ranking experts out shopping for aircraft from a selection of French Rafales, the German/British/Italian Eurofighter, and the Swedish Saab Gripen. The first two of these were twin-engine fighters, while the Gripen was a single engine craft. All of these are considered fourth-generation aircraft because they don’t have a full stealth package and all three carry their weapons packages externally, meaning they show up on radar more than an F-22 or an F-35 would.
The outgoing F-18’s were twin-engine fighters, and it was felt that any replacement would have to have a double engine component as well, especially given Canada’s vast distances and cold temperatures. So goodbye Gripen, and for that matter the F-35, which is also a single-engine beast.
The American F-22 Raptor is a twin-engine bird but is so sophisticated that the United States won’t allow it to be exported, so no hope for that plane, which is even more expensive than the F-35. Plus, the Americans stopped making them even for themselves after producing a shade under 200 of them, again because of cost.
Canada poked and prodded and kicked the tires and finally arrived at a short list of fighter jets that they were going to consider buying: the Saab Gripen and the Lockheeed-Martin F-35.
Yes, you read that right. Canada had short-listed two single-engine fighters, including one that the very same Liberal government had given up on due to cost overruns. Go figure.
I guess you can give props to folks who are able to change their minds if it’s the right thing to do, but holy smokes, this is the kind of about-face that would make you a perfect target for opposition criticism, except for the fact that it was the Conservatives themselves who had originally signed on to the F-35 in the first place. No matter, by the time we eventually selected the F-35 as the winning bid, the aircraft had already begun proving itself in combat, mostly through the Israelis and their Adir variant, which is unique only to Israel. As well, advantages of scale had reduced the F-35 to about $70-$80 million per unit, down from the original $135 million. There are currently around 1000 operational F-35’s in the world today, which helps drive the price/unit down quite a bit. Had those costs remained above $100 million/unit, I believe that Canada would have seriously considered the Gripen, which is an awesome plane, but not stealthy. It’s also cheaper than the F-35, can take off and land on highways, and can be re-fitted and re-fuelled from remote settings in around ten minutes. Given Canada’s military needs as I saw them, I believe I may have argued that Canada had no real need for stealth aircraft and that the Gripen would make a wonderful replacement for the F-18, plus the lower price tag would allow us to buy more of them than the F-35’s.
The Conservatives had placed the original order with around sixty aircraft in mind. If that were the case, I argued, then Canada could snag maybe 90 Gripens for the same money.
But the Liberals surprised me on two fronts. First, they included the F-35 in the procurement process, which I thought was just for show, and then they followed that up by actually selecting the same aircraft that they had “scrapped” back in 2015. And then to really blow me away, they ordered 88 of them!
Some would argue the Liberals went back on their word. Others would say that the Liberals lost face by going back to the very same fighter they criticized. You can take your pick or you can take both. All I know is that Canada is going to come out of this with 88 F-35A’s, and that’s nothing short of awesome.
And not only are they less expensive now — probably the reason we were able to get 88 of them — but the ones we’re getting are the very latest and most advanced of them, which in a back-handed way kinda made everything work out just great, even after flopping around playing politics with the selection process. So, egg on face or not, the government did select and did purchase the right jet. Our next fighter aircraft will be the lord of the skies, and we’ll have 88 of them, putting us behind the US itself with some 1700 of them, Japan with 147, the United Kingdom with 138 Italy with 115, and Australia with 100. Also, as I said earlier, ours will be the very latest version. So in the end, it all worked out great.
While it’s the best plane for the buck — it’s the best plane period — I’m going to give the federal Liberals absolutely no marks for business savvy, since in my mind they lucked right into the whole thing. I will give them credit, however, for taking whatever hits they took for changing their minds.
Canada is scheduled to receive its first four F-35’s in 2026, just over a year away. Six more follow in 2027, followed by another six the year after in 2028, giving us 16 of them within the next three years or so. The full fleet is scheduled to be here and operational by 2032. If somebody were to tell me that Canada would have 88 operational F-35’s within the next seven years, I wouldn’t have believed them, yet here we are, or at least, there we’ll be.
This will put the RCAF right back to where they’ve been a couple of times before in our history, among the very best and most capable air forces in the world.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 