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Do it Canada! Purchase the SAAB and your pilots will have more seat time. The F-35 is a maintenance pig.
It’s what happens when you harm and betray a peaceful ally. Let’s do this! 🍁
Canada buying F35s would be like Ukraine buying Su35 from Russia.
Whilst being told those Su35 will be 10% less effective
I hope we snub those unhinged fash. Fuck them.
JK, fuck American tech
Why doesn’t Canada design and build its own fighter jet?
I don’t think I can understate just how ridiculously expensive it is to start up your own jet fighting industry from basically scratch.
In the entire world, there are only 5 countries that produce fighter jets. USA, Sweden, France, China, Russia.
Look at Sweden over here punching above its weight class!
(going strictly by population size)
Sweden has nearly a century constant fighter aircraft making experience but by the time of the gripen it all became so costly that it’s heavily made of tech from like the UK and other European countries. Engines from the US. A big problem with trying to develop a modern engine without having all the research and industrial experience transferred from another country, it would take tens of billions of USD of research to accomplish even with good industrial espionage
Like the big hiccups for Russian 5th gen fighters are the engines. 30+ years of development and it’s just barely looking like it’s coming to readiness and that’s with decades prior of other engines developed. For today’s modern engines that became competitive at the high end competition, for China, research really started in the 70s. India had been trying since the 90s. It’s an insanely expensive research project. Canada would likely have a worse time funding it than India.
South Korea and Turkey are likely a good aspiration for Canada while a Sweden a model they can better emulate. Canada would be far behind those SK/T in terms of domestic technology they can draw from though. Canada has Bombadier at least
I was just watching some informative stuff about jet engines the other day, so I appreciate what you’re saying even more than I normally would, lol.
It requires a massive investment in research and development of advanced aerodynamics, material science, supply chain, skilled mechanics, etc. You just don’t pop out a plane from a group of engineers like we did during WW1. Creating a fighter jet that is capable enough to defend against today’s adversaries will require a couple decades of investment to start from scratch. And yes I know you probably think that we can just use the knowledge already available from previous fighter jet programs like older American jets but even if they had de-classified designs they still don’t have the supply chain and technical experts to pull it off in a few years.
I don’t think 20 years is enough especially for countries without the experience to fall back on. Not counting licensed builds. Engines and materials science. Also all the software. Digital and analog instruments. Modern fighters operate in connection with ground data links, satellite data links, other partner aircraft data links. All incredibly expensive and time consuming to develop
Countries with experience in Europe are all trying to partner up because of the financial costs and different part specialities for a 6th gen fighter and mockups make them look more like they’d be a gen 5.5 and they’re pretty much all targeting ~2035 operationally when serious planning started between 2015-2020. I would not bet on any of the european gen 5+ being operationally ready for serial production by 2035.
Yeah, that’s kinda like asking your mechanic neighbor “why don’t you design and build your own car”. Sure with enough time and money somebody could do this but it’s likely to cost more, take longer, and have issues that an experienced producer has already come across and accounted for.
We tried once. Our government lacks vision sometimes.
We should bring back the program! And in the name of true Canadian patriotism, I vote we call it the Avro Lavigne.
Giant waste of money. Much smarter to buy a product someone else already wasted all the money to develop. Current-generation fighter jets are incredibly complex, Russia can’t even figure out how to mass-produce one at all, even before the sanctions, and they’re a very militarized state. Why spend 5x as much to develop something worse than what they can just buy?
What Canada really needs is a massive drone program. Drones from the size of a 747 to the size of a dime, and everything inbetween. The entire Russia-Ukraine war is a drone war.
Why redesign the wheel when we can build the wheels our allies designed? And I don’t mean our former allies to the south. I wouldn’t want to import Gripens, but it would be fantastic if we started building them here
Will require a lot of research and developement and spending and i am not ready to sacrifice services for it
Why dump more resources into something, that you don’t need to, because there’s a very serviceable option already prepped for sale?
I hope they do it. Maybe the arms manufacturers will turn on Trump when they start losing trillion dollar clients.
What’s to consider. Do we need to hire an american consultant? (Canada’s “go to” action in the past). Also, let’s get those decisions made on the Chinese EV’s and get that Canola flowing. Win-win for all Canadians. We can’t be politicking all the time, can we? Pull up those sleeves, put away the middle-school insults, join hands, and get the hell to work!
I assume it’s a bargaining chip for a reduction in tariffs. The problem as I see it is that any deal with Trump is not worth the paper it’s written on, so I’m not sure much is to be gained.
Militarily procurement has always been massively corrupt in Canada.
If you want to make America piss itself, station J-35S.
And the Gripen will be built here in Canada!!!
To be fair, we’ve manufactured a lot of parts for other country’s F35s so far. That’s quite standard for defense contracts. Still, if Saab commits to bringing more guaranteed manufacturing jobs than the F35 program, it could be worth it. If this gives us a leg up in F35 manufacturing bids, that could also be worth it. Feels like a strong play regardless of outcome.
As a Linköping native, I can tell you right now how this is going to go down.
Saab will offer a really sweet deal including Canadian factories that can produce everything that Sweden makes for the Gripen. It will be on a short timeline and a good price. Canada will be locked in to help co-design the next generation of Swedish fighters.
Canada will use this as leverage against the USA. Then the USA will finally set their foot down and tell Canada in no uncertain terms that if they buy Gripen they’ll get locked out of various US weapons systems indefinitely and end up on the US’s shit list. But if they stop their ridiculous outburst they can get on the shortlist for some really cool destructive toys.
Also, aren’t we all supposed to be one team America, you me and Mexico, guy?
Canada will most likely cave and Gripen will have fulfilled its role as a bargaining chip. I wouldn’t even blame Canada, this is how it’s gone down almost every time in the past 30 years and Canada has much better reasons than most to keep on the US’s good side.
Yeah, I saw that. I’m not sure how that 10k number relates to the number created by F35-related manufacturing so far.
We might not lose any jobs with dropping the F35. Canada is just allowed to bid on contracts to build parts for all the F35 production, not just our own.
Yeah, we might not. We could still bid on F35 production runs. I think the specifics will be quite important to determining what’s a good outcome.
Regardless, I like that we’re courting other options even if it just results in leverage elsewhere.
I fucking hope so
Please do
Now that the US is sending them to Saudi, how secure will they be from investigation by foreign adversaries?
Plus, the entire supply chain system of relying on the US for software and hardware updates, having to physically send the planes to the US for maintenance, all while the US continues to talk about annexing us is completely fucking bonkers.
Even without the annexation threats the setup would be stupid.
I know it’s a fancy and advanced plane, but knowing how the US military industrial complex works I’m pretty sure you’re paying a high multiplier for no reason too.
Super advanced, so advanced that Iran shot what 3 down?
I wanna remind everyone that THIS was one of the pictures Iran released to prove they shot down an F-35.
It was actually more like 0.
There have been no confirmed downings of F-35’s.
While it’s fully possible that the US is lying about that, it’s equally possible that the claims from Iran are also lies, because half of military action is information and misinformation. I wouldn’t lean on foreign propaganda any more than I would domestic propaganda.
If you want a laugh, go look up the photos Iran doctored up for this bit of propaganda. I remember one had an F35 with cockpit the size of a school bus on it. Another had the tail section on backwards. Probably AI slop, but fake photos to be sure.
Oh I remember that one well.
Not only did they take down an F-35, they took down the biggest F-35 ever made!
It’s like defeating the Queen F35, now they can’t produce more little ones.
There have been no confirmed downings of F-35’s.
Several “oops this plane just fell off the flight deck, oh well, shit happens” articles in recent memory. A great way to explain why the Navy is suddenly down a vehicle without having to explain to anyone in the general public what happened.
I wouldn’t lean on foreign propaganda any more than I would domestic propaganda.
Americans are putting these jets into service and a surprising number of them are failing.
Whether Iran/Yemen have successfully struck any of them or the Navy can’t get them on and off the flight deck reliably is almost a moot point. A downed plane is a downed plane.
Several “oops this plane just fell off the flight deck, oh well, shit happens”
Those were F/A-18s.
Oh so this is the part where we provide no sources to our claim. Then claim the sources are unreliable!
Sure, that all may be the case, but counterpoint: ospreys.
Is this a contest to crash the most aircraft?
Because my man, the GOAT, John “New Plane” McCain would like to have a word.
