F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

[MarkOttawa]

Quote from WingsofFury on May 01, 2013, 12:50:56:
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/22809/post-1227530.html#msg1227530

...
With regards to the numbers that MarkOttawa is ballyhooing about, it is clear that he's trying to show that there isn't interest in the plane internationally which is extremely erroneous.  If he has a bias against the F-35 or against the Conservative party, then fine, but don't knock the program when everything that you've posted has your own obvious spin to it...

A post elsewhere, note third comment:

Big F-35 Win in Australia?

http://cdfai3ds.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/mark-collins-big-f-35-win-in-australia/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MilEME09]

In a bit of a comical situation the group behind the http://www.superarrow.ca/ project apparently have begun soliciting Peter Mackay and DND to be included in the procurement. By the projects head Joe Green own admission it would be a miracle if this worked but he wanted to present a made in Canada option. Even had an engineer at McDonnell Douglas help out with the design. Kinda too little to late, maybe if it was 2000, something like this could be considered.


In regards to the topic at hand with the UK and Australian purchases, considering the time frame for the F-35 should Canada consider a stop gap like Australia?

 

[HB_Pencil]

In a bit of a comical situation the group behind the http://www.superarrow.ca/ project apparently have begun soliciting Peter Mackay and DND to be included in the procurement. By the projects head Joe Green own admission it would be a miracle if this worked but he wanted to present a made in Canada option. Even had an engineer at McDonnell Douglas help out with the design. Kinda too little to late, maybe if it was 2000, something like this could be considered.


In regards to the topic at hand with the UK and Australian purchases, considering the time frame for the F-35 should Canada consider a stop gap like Australia?

Australia and Canada are in different situations. When we undertook our life extension programs in the last ten years, we made them open-ended. So we can extend our CF-18 life for more years if necessary... but the RCAF believes that it won't be required as the fleet can fly until 2022 or so. The Aussies didn't maintain such a facility, so their legacy hornet fleets will start crapping out soon after 2017 or so. The issue is that everybody wants to buy the aircraft at the $85~95 million price point, which is 2019 or so. That's the gap they face, which is unlike ours.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

In a bit of a comical situation the group behind the http://www.superarrow.ca/ project apparently have begun soliciting Peter Mackay and DND to be included in the procurement. By the projects head Joe Green own admission it would be a miracle if this worked but he wanted to present a made in Canada option. Even had an engineer at McDonnell Douglas help out with the design. Kinda too little to late, maybe if it was 2000, something like this could be considered.


In regards to the topic at hand with the UK and Australian purchases, considering the time frame for the F-35 should Canada consider a stop gap like Australia?

Made by a consortium of Viking Air and Bombardier no doubt...

 

[OldSolduer]

In a bit of a comical situation the group behind the http://www.superarrow.ca/ project apparently have begun soliciting Peter Mackay and DND to be included in the procurement. By the projects head Joe Green own admission it would be a miracle if this worked but he wanted to present a made in Canada option. Even had an engineer at McDonnell Douglas help out with the design. Kinda too little to late, maybe if it was 2000, something like this could be considered.


In regards to the topic at hand with the UK and Australian purchases, considering the time frame for the F-35 should Canada consider a stop gap like Australia?

I may be out of my lane here, but IMO the SuperArrow is a non starter. You have to obtain a building to make them and as far as I know invest heavily in technicians and machines to build the things,,,,for what? For us to say "look what we did!"  :facepalm:

 

[Jarnhamar]

Super Arrow concept looks really long, but lots of room for missles and bombs and different kinds of guns.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Note what the UK defence secretary has just said:
http://news.sky.com/story/1086720/philip-hammond-unsure-about-f-35-order

Philip Hammond Unsure About F-35 Order
British pilots test the F-35 fighter in the US, as Philip Hammond tells Sky News it is unclear how many jets the UK will buy.

…Philip Hammond has given the clearest indication yet that the UK may not now buy all the jets it had planned.

Speaking exclusively to Sky News, Mr Hammond pledged that the first 48 aircraft on order at a cost of around £100m each would be bought to service the new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers from 2020.

But he would not commit to a further 90 planes, which had originally been proposed.

He said: “It’s dependent on politics, money and the state of the world, but it’s also dependent on what is not yet clearly known, what the mix between manned fighter jets and unmanned aircraft is going to be.”

Mr Hammond said there were two trains of thought, one suggesting an 80/20 split of manned to unmanned aircraft in future, the other suggesting the exact opposite.

He said the final decision would determine how many manned F-35s the UK could buy…

From July 2012:
http://www.janes.com/products/janes/defence-security-report.aspx?ID=1065969970&channel=defence&subChannel=business

UK slashes F-35B numbers but might look to split buy with F-35As

UK Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has signalled a major revision to the UK’s plan for procuring the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), with a sizeable cut in the expected number of F-35B short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft purchased and the possible acquisition of a second variant: the conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) F-35A…

Hammond was in the US to attend the handover of the UK’s first F-35B (BK-1) at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth facility. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed his comments, telling IHS Jane’s : “The defence secretary said that initially the UK would buy 48 jets for the aircraft carriers and announce at a later date what the final numbers would be. We will not finalise our decisions on the F-35 programme until SDSR in 2015.”..

Mark
Ottawa

 

[NavyShooter]

The Super Arrow is an interesting concept, but I think it will only ever be that....a concept.

 

[Kirkhill]

I wonder if anybody in Canadian industry in interested in starting to develop an unmanned bomb truck for delivery to the RCAF in 20 years..... on their own nickel.

Something that can deliver a package from the depot to the object at a high rate of knots or that could stooge around in the general vicinity of a patrolling FAC - the FAC either on foot or in a LAV, helo, NGF , LRPA, a ship, sub or boat.

They could even call it a Super Arrow if they wanted.

 

[HB_Pencil]

I think the window for that opportunity has started to pass. In the 1990s and early 2000 you had a lot of early entrants to the UAV game... probably best illustrated by General Atomics. Consolidation has started to occur and you're seeing development work once again being done by the primes in both Europe (Saab, Dassault and BAE) and America (Nortrop Grumman, LM and Boeing.)

A better approach is to offer incentives for companies to encourage in R&D in the second manufacturing tier (as subcontractors), so as to get in early on the ground floor for these programs. That would give them the best opportunity for future success.

 

[Jarnhamar]

The Super Arrow is an interesting concept, but I think it will only ever be that....a concept.

Agreed, but it's very mention is probably enough to send the more fanatical F35 supporters into a rage.

 

[NavyShooter]

Aye.

 

[PuckChaser]

Agreed, but it's very mention is probably enough to send the more fanatical F35 supporters into a rage fit of laughter.

FTFY.

Super Arrow is a pipe dream that would take decades to develop. In which time our CF-18s will be dropping from the skies or grounded for more than a few years.

 

[MilEME09]

FTFY.

Super Arrow is a pipe dream that would take decades to develop. In which time our CF-18s will be dropping from the skies or grounded for more than a few years.

You mean like the lawn dart we call the F-104?

 

[Loachman]

FTFY.

Super Arrow is a pipe dream

And that is not regular tobacco in that pipe.

 

[OldSolduer]

And that is not regular tobacco in that pipe.

I would agree with that.

 

[Haletown]

The Super Arrow sits at the crossroads of the romance of aviation and economic reality.

Reality will trump romance in this case.

 

[Loachman]

It's not on the crossroad. It's upside-down in the ditch and submerged in the muck at the bottom.

 

[Old Sweat]

It's not on the crossroad. It's upside-down in the ditch and submerged in the muck at the bottom.

Forgive the sidetrack, but it would be the same as reviving the Bobcat program for the CCV project.

 

[Jarnhamar]

How has the F35 performed when firing live weapons? Are there any weapons related issues?