13 minute read
Fighter Jets
Is it time for Canada to step up to the F-35 plate?
The day will soon arrive when the Government of Canada must decide on which fighter jet it will purchase for the RCAF. Other countries have recently been facing a similar choice, and in many cases they have been opting for the Lockheed Martin F-35.
Advertisement
The R&D program responsible for the slick plane was established by a consortium of nine partner countries: the U.S., the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Australia, Norway, Denmark and Canada. Turkey was set to buy 100 F-35A conventional takeoff-and-landing models, but was given the boot in 2019 by the U.S. after accepting delivery of the Russian S-400 air defence system. The removal of Turkish parts suppliers, whose high quality components come at a good price, drove the cost of the engines up by as much as 3 per cent, according to engine builder Pratt & Whitney.
Fighter jets of any variety, like all military hardware, are on the opposite side of the soft launch scale from consumer software. Game developers, for example, will drop new products on to the market, bugs and all, and issue patches as needed in response to consumers logging issues with tech support via automated reports. It’s a free way to test the minutia, and it don’t much matter if the evolution of your city-state in Civilization VI gets stuck in a hierarchical strange loop. But fighter jets have to fly, and they have to fight, and their bugs are big and costly, so you don’t want to get stuck with a
turkey of a plane; ergo, the extreme caution by governments, especially good ol’ Canada.
The feds can take comfort in knowing that many of our allies, and even nice, neutral Switzerland have been ordering the F-35. NATO pals, including the United Kingdom, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Denmark, have purchased 49 to date, according to Lockheed Martin’s website. U.S. Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, NATO’s supreme commander for Europe, recently predicted that as many as 400 more 35s could be deployed on the continent by 2030 as the coalition continues to build its fifth-generation fighter capability.
In 2018, the Royal Navy conducted the first-ever Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL) with an F-35B Lightning II joint strike fighter jet, which touched down on the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth without having to jettison fuel or weapons, and while carrying a heavy load.
It was an impressive maneuver, and part of the first combat mission from the new ship, striking Daesh targets in the Middle East. Britain originally planned to buy 138 jets, but has yet to commit to numbers and a timeline. This fall, RAF Base Lakenheath, located 130 kms northeast of London, will become the first permanent UK-based home of a U.S. F-35 fleet serving Europe.
Last fall, Norway announced a new Long Term Plan for its armed forces and increases in spending to strengthen its preparedness. It shares many of the same defence concerns, commitments and territorial needs as Canada. New
LEFT: Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II MM7360 Fighter jet aircraft at Zeltweg Air Base.
(PHOTO: iSTOCK)
aircraft systems will have priority for its air force over the coming years, including the ongoing implementation of the F-35 Lightning II. Purchases were made in small orders beginning with 6 jets, plus 3 more in 2018 and 6 more in 2019. They are kept busy regularly intercepting Russian antisubmarine and other combat aircraft. Norway plans to expand its fleet of fifth-generation stealth fighters to 52 by 2025, at which point it will retire all of its F-16s.
Lockheed Martin recently delivered the F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) to the Italian Air Force, bringing its total to 123. The singleseat, single-engine jet was manufactured at Lockheed Martin’s Final Assembly and Checkout facility in Cameri, which was challenged by the country’s severe lockdown. Facing calls for cancellation, the coalition government marketed the purchase and domestic manufacturing of the planes as being crucial to the economic recovery of a country profoundly devastated by the pandemic.
The Netherlands first purchased the F-35A in 2016 to replace its F-16 fleet that has been in service for more than 30 years. The first arrived at Leeuwarden Air Base the following year. The Dutch Ministry of Defence touted the involvement of the Dutch commercial sector, with more than 25 suppliers participating in various technology projects for the aircraft. The initial order of 37 planes was boosted that same year to a total commitment of 46.
Denmark’s F-35 purchase of 27 F-35A aircraft is being built at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas, with the first being completed and revealed this past April, before heading to Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, where Danish pilots and maintenance personnel will begin training. Two Danish companies, Terma A/S and Multicut A/S, are manufacturing pylons, advanced composites, software solutions, radar components and horizontal tail edges.
The F-35 is picking up where the retiring F-16 is leaving off, ensuring strategic integration of Denmark with other NATO member air forces. It is, in effect, a force multiplier for Denmark,
allowing its pilots to train and serve alongside NATO allies to amplify its deterrent capabilities.
Vladimir Putin recently inspected Russia’s new “Checkmate” warplane. The prototype of the Sukhoi fifthgeneration stealth fighter can cruise at supersonic speed and incorporates artificial intelligence to assist pilots. It’s designed to counter the F-35 and be an attractive option for buyers in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.
The Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea may be far off our radar, but remember this. If you ever visit Alert, the planet’s most northerly settlement, perched up there on top of Ellesmere Island, you only have to stand on a roof to see Denmark to the east, and Russia just over the curvature of the Earth.
For all NATO members, and Canada is no exception, dovetailing with U.S. air dominance is exceptionally important. As Greg Ulmer, executive vice president, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics has stated: “The F-35 will ensure Denmark’s [insert Canada’s] sovereignty and air dominance, enhance its multi-domain and network-based coalition operations, and play a pivotal role in keeping the Arctic a secure and stable region.” g
Suffering from hair loss?
WE GROW HAIR!
Ottawa’s most trusted Hair Loss Clinic offers you the latest hair loss solutions for men and women!
real client Curtis Jones
BEFORE
contact us today
344 Gladstone Ave. PAIHAIR.COM 613-594-5652
The 2017 defence policy, Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE), is Canada’s 20-year road map to defence policy. At the time of release, the document was well received by most with a commitment from the government to fund the numerous large procurements identified in the document. So, we have a plan, and we have a commitment to fund the policy aspirations of SSE.
That all sounds great, but execution is key, and it will take sound decision making and fiscal discipline if the objectives of SSE are to be realized.
Two of the biggest procurements laid out in SSE are the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) and the Future Fighter Capability Project (FFCP). Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, CSC has already sailed off to the land of massive cost overruns, but FFCP still has a chance to deliver a product that will satisfy our military requirements, support Canadian Aerospace, and help to rebuild our economy while respecting the taxpayer.
For years, the fan favourite to replace our CF-18s has been the Lockheed Martin F-35A. The aircraft has a colourful history, and one could seriously debate whether the aircraft will ever deliver the capabilities it promised over 20 years ago. Or, if some of those capabilities are even as effective with the continuous evolution of the threat. The reality is it doesn’t matter as the F-35 is simply beyond the fiscal capacity of FFCP and there is overwhelming evidence to support this claim.
Earlier this year, Adam Smith, the Chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee said, “the sustainment costs (F-35) are brutal.” Mr. Smith and his committee have clearances and access to the goods. His opinion should raise eyebrows.
In early July 2021, a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report further confirmed the F-35 remained, unaffordable. In fact, the promise of $25,000 an hour, “in 2012 dollars” is realistically unattainable given sustainment costs for the aircraft are in fact increasing, according to the GAO report. Even the F-35 Joint Program office (JPO), which is usually very bullish about the F-35 program estimates an increase in F-35A sustainment cost per tail from $7.1 million in 2018 to $7.8 million in 2020.
From a practical perspective, what do we see that corroborate the claims of F-35 unaffordability? Most countries involved in the program are buying greatly reduced numbers of F-35 airframes than originally identified in the projects program of record. The recent Swiss down select of the F-35A to replace its legacy F/A-18 solved its own budgeted $55,000 an hour sustainment cost problem by relegating pilots to more simulator time and less flying.
As an aside, this is a bad idea for air forces with a pilot generation and retention problem. Finally, the second biggest Air Force in the world, the U.S. Navy, is buying more Super Hornets and upgrading their Block II to Block III configuration. This would hardly make sense if the F-35C was more capable and cost-effective than the Block III Super Hornet.
So where do we go from here? Realistically, of the remaining contenders being considered in the FFCP, the Block III Super Hornet makes the most sense.
This aircraft can easily deliver the capabilities required to support both NORAD and NATO operations. It is 65 per cent compatible with current Canadian infrastructure and presents the easiest transition from what we currently fly. It ushers in massive increases in both network and computing capability, a state-of-the-art pilot-machine interface, two engines and satellite communications right out of the box. It also provides a buddy tanking capability that would greatly increase our ability to force employ in the Canadian north.
From an economic benefits perspective, Boeing’s offering is second to none with an impressive $61 billion and 248,000 jobs injected into the Canadian economy over the life of the program.
Canada’s proud legacy of superb tactical fighter capability can only be ensured if we choose a solution we can afford to obtain and operate. The Block III Super Hornet is that solution g
Why Boeing?
Stephen Fuhr was the Chair of the Commons Standing Committee National Defence in Canada’s the 42nd Parliament. He also served as a CF-18 pilot, NORAD and NATO evaluator and worked in CF-18 fleet management for 1 Canadian Air Division, RCAF.
What is happening in Afghanistan
The sudden Taliban offensive and the apparent collapse of the Afghan security forces has shocked those of us who have had extensive dealings with that country and its peoples. At this point we are inundated with a plethora of simplistic analogies: ‘Afghanistan is Vietnam’ predominates and constant memes, Gifs and pictures of helicopters in Saigon bombards us on social media.
That is not useful and it should not be a guide for Canada as we struggle to come to grips with the situation and its implications. And those implications are dire for the people we worked closely with, particularly for our interpreters and our locally employed people and their families. I am in contact with several of them. They tell me there were 300 executions in Spin Boldak alone this week. I was told 80 educated, young Afghans, male and female, were rounded up and murdered in the parts of Kandahar City the Taliban controls. I am told that surrendering Afghan security personel are told to go home… and then are dispatched later at night by men with small calibre pistols.
The Taliban employ biometric databases that use fingerprint scanners and laptops to identify and kill anybody who worked for the NATO forces and, significantly, the International Community: Red Cross, Red Crescent, deminers, aid workers and so on. There is essentially a network-enabled Nazi Einsatzgruppe. We are observing the blood chilling effects of 21st Century technology wedded to a medieval ideology.
The Canadian Armed Forces departed Kabul in 2014 after the decision was made by the Canadian government to end our training mission. I was on that last Chinook helicopter to Kabul International Airport. We are now seven years later, twenty years since Canadian troops first put their boots on the ground in that country. When we departed there was still an insurgency, but nothing on the level of activity and violence we experienced in 2006-2011. What happened in Afghanistan?
In February of this year I rewrote the epilogue to the to-be published threevolume history of Canada’s war in Afghanistan. I contacted people I knew there and got caught up with the events of 2014 to 2021. The insurgency, I was told, resembled what the insurgency looked like when I was there in 2005, or early 2006. It was troublesome in specific areas, but it was manageable.
Why was this so? From 2011 to 2021, the Taliban movement fragmented into at least three parts after the death of Mullah Omar in 2013 and remnants of Al Qaeda allied themselves with some of the groups. The ISIS affiliate, Islamic
State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) fused deeply radicalized members of Al Qaeda, Pakistan TTP and others who wanted to emulate ISIS. This dangerous movement even beheaded Al Qaeda personnel for video distribution. Another group, the Islamic Emirate High Council of Afghanistan, emerged from a Taliban faction in western Afghanistan and fought the antigovernment clans in Helmand province.
Major operations were undertaken against Al Qaeda in 2016 which destroyed their attempt at gaining a foothold in Kandahar Province. In 2019, the Afghan government focused their efforts on ISKP and dealt a fatal blow to that organization in 2019. Between the fall of 2020 and July 2021, however, some entity has welded together the disparate Taliban remnants, equipped them, organized them, enabled them, and provided them with a strategic design. Indeed, the recent assault on Kandahar City is the exact plan the Taliban used in 2006…the one we stopped cold as the combined effects of Task Force Orion’s operations in the summer and the Medusa battles in the fall of that year.
This situation would not exist without outside influences. Yet all I see are bitter recriminations about how the army we helped train is not fighting effectively or at all, about how Canada failed in Afghanistan, that it was all a waste.
In many ways, this is blaming the victim. I could easily point fingers at corruption, greed, tribal politics, the survivalist aspects of Afghan tribal culture. These are contributing factors. But indulging in that obscures the facts: there are outside entities that want to murder our project to help the people of Afghanistan and attack our values system. They want to convince us and others that our projects to help will inevitably fail and that we should stay contained on our North American island so they can do their dirty work.
We are not doing enough to identify, call out, and confront such entities and those who lead and fund them. Meanwhile, I am helping people that I know get out before it is too late. And you and I don’t like guilty parties getting away with mass murder, do we? g
Sean M. Maloney is a Professor of History at Royal Military College and was the Canadian Army’s historian for the war in Afghanistan.
