Random
Only logged in members can reply and interact with the post.
Join SimilarWorlds for FREE »

Time to finally commit to ditching the F35 boondoggle.

I really hope the Grippen offer goes somewhere as someone who grew up in an RCAF family and hopefully this will go the way of the F18 in the 80s (the original plan was to buy the F 16).

For one the F 35 is not a fighter it is a strike aircraft or CAS plane. Useless unless we are tagging along with the USAF and bombing yet more countries we have no fight with.


As early as 1996 the Pentagon acknowledged the F22 and F35 projects were already using obsolete stealth tech designed to defeat 1980s air defense but were going ahead with production anyway.


Stealth is a crutch that is very very quickly becoming irrelevant. New air defense designed to track and shoot down plastic drones will make a fighter as easy to track as a cargo plane at the current pace.

One lie that has been going around is that joining the F35 program will be an in for the F22 replacement which is nonsense. That line of plane are banned from export so that is nonsense.


The F35 should be immediately dismissed as a security risk after Trump mused about getting Lockheed to put backdoors into the systems to "turn off" jets if a country pisses him off.

The F36 has the worst readiness stats of any US combat aircraft even within the USAF.

They are astronomically expensive to the point that we cannot afford enough of them for it to not be a total waste of time and money.

Furthermore you don't buy weapons from countries that threaten to annex your country. It is idiotic.



Whereas Sweden is a country that actually knows what winter is so there is no question of whether the Grippen can handle cold weather.

The RCAF Already postponed a Reaper drone order because they could not figure out how to winterize them.


With the Grippen the engines would be made in Canada by Rolls Royce, not in a country that started a trade war with us and threaten annexation.


The Grippen is actually a fighter plane not a light bomber.

They are all around cheaper and can be produced in numbers that are actually useful.

You don't have all the security risks of buying American.
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
swirlie · 31-35
Another problem with buying the F35 is that the USAF has full control of the software that goes into their own jets, which means they can remotely de-rate the thrust levels of the engines of any F35 located anywhere in the world so that any F35 they sell to foreign countries will actually fly slower than the F35s that are used by the USAF. This also means the USAF will maintain air superiority if they can control the speed and flight capability of any jets they've sold to foreign nations who may potentially attack any US assets.

I don't think I have to send a personal memo to Mark Carney to bring this to his attention because I think greater minds than mine are already onto this deceitful tactic used by the Americans.
@swirlie That is theoretically possible but the software is controlled by Lockheed not the USAF but the security issue remains the same. Something I mentioned. But it is also why almost half the USAF fleet was at Lockheed sitting around waiting for software updates even though on paper they were already released to the USAF.

All US weapons systems also already give the US government control of the system even after sale. So even basic sales terms diminish sovereignty.

There is also a problem with American weapons systems in general being WAY too dependent on technology toys and software.

When Canada first considered the F35 the weapons were non functional because the code was not completed yet. This was 15 years ago. But think about that. A weapon that is completely non operable without a computer program is an issue.
swirlie · 31-35
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow
If the weapon is non operable, then what would be the relevance of even flying the F35 around in Canada in the first place? And if that was 15 years ago, then the aircraft technology itself is bordering on total obsolescence by now.
@swirlie ABC News reported in 1996 that the F22 and F35 were obsolete but they were going to go ahead with the program. That tells you how outdated it is.

And for planes 30 years ago they were still basically prototypes 15 years ago and the F35 was supposed to be a cheap "budget" counterpart to the F22 and is the most expensive jet program in history.

The whole thing is a joke.
swirlie · 31-35
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow
That would also explain why I've always had a hard time believing that American ingenuity put a man on the moon, which to this day I don't believe ever happened.