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Canada's F18 replacement news & updates

Indus Falcon

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Canadians should ideally buy Rafales, but they will tuck thier tails between their legs and buy ex-Aussie, at best ex-Aussie and a Sqn or two of new Super Hornets to appease Trump.
 

Joe Shearer

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Canadians should ideally buy Rafales, but they will tuck thier tails between their legs and buy ex-Aussie, at best ex-Aussie and a Sqn or two of new Super Hornets to appease Trump.

This, honestly, seems to be the likeliest scenario. Trump is too crazy for anyone to make any departure from toeing his line. Of course, they can always stall for time and keep going around in circles and wait for Trump to leave.
 

Khafee

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This, honestly, seems to be the likeliest scenario. Trump is too crazy for anyone to make any departure from toeing his line. Of course, they can always stall for time and keep going around in circles and wait for Trump to leave.
This planet...?
 

Joe Shearer

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This planet...?

Just the White House will do, for now. And there's another idiot who needs to leave, but he's much closer to home.

One of our members, who always has his ears to the ground on political matters, has pointed out that the saffron balls have lost 12 more seats to the Congress, this time, in municipal elections. It seriously looks like the honeymoon is over and people are letting their disappointment be seen plainly. The hard core followers (I could have called them 'bhakts', but the climate is changing, and 'bhakt' is no longer politically correct. It sounds like the One Who Need Not Be Named will lose Rajasthan and MP, and perhaps Chhatisgarh as well. Easy come, easy go.

There is also a school of thought that he might get desperate and do something rash, very rash.

Horrible situation.
 
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Khafee

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Canada names suppliers approved to bid in future fighter competition
By: David Pugliese
24.02.2018

VICTORIA, British Columbia — Five European and U.S. aerospace firms have been approved to take part in the upcoming competition to provide Canada with a new fighter jet.

Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Saab, Dassault and Airbus were all named Thursday to Canada’s official fighter jet supplier list, which allows them to receive information about plans to buy 88 jets and ultimately bid on the program.

“We are pleased with the responses received from foreign governments and commercial entities that have the ability to meet Canada’s needs,” Procurement Minister Carla Qualtrough said in a statement. “Our government is confident this will result in a robust competition.”

The project is estimated to cost CA$19 billion (U.S. $15 billion).

The approved suppliers don’t come as a surprise. Over the course of the last five years, those companies have all indicated their interest in providing new fighter jets to Canada.

The aircraft expected to be offered to Canada include Lockheed Martin’s F-35, Boeing’s Super Hornet, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale and Saab’s Gripen.

There were some questions about whether Boeing would put its name forth in the aftermath of a messy trade dispute with Canada and its main domestic aerospace firm, Bombardier.

In the midst of that dispute, Canada canceled a plan to buy 18 Super Hornets as a stopgap measure until the new fighters could be acquired. It will now instead buy used F-18 aircraft from Australia to fill in as “interim” fighters.

“Boeing and the US Government have taken the first step in Canada’s Future Fighter Capability Project (FFCP), and the Super Hornet is among the aircraft included on the FFCP Supplier List by the Government of Canada,” Boeing spokesman Scott Day noted in an email.

“We will continue to evaluate our participation in the FFCP as the Government of Canada outlines the procurement approach, requirements and evaluation criteria.”

A request for proposals for the new fighter jets will be issued in 2019, Canadian government officials say.
A winning bidder is expected to be selected in spring 2021.

The first aircraft would be delivered sometime in 2025. Deliveries could take place between then and 2031. The new aircraft would replace the Royal Canadian Air Force’s existing CF-18 fleet.

https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/02/23/canada-names-suppliers-approved-to-bid-in-future-fighter-competition/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DFN DNR 2.23.18&utm_term=Editorial - Daily News Roundup
 

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US, Canada talks underway to decide if the F-35 will be pulled from Canada’s fighter competition
By: David Pugliese   20 hours ago
08 May 2019
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The sun sets behind an Australian F-35A Lighting II at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., June 27, 2018. (Staff Sgt. Jensen Stidham/Air Force)

VICTORIA, British Columbia — The U.S. is threatening to pull the F-35 from Canada’s fighter jet competition if the ally to the north doesn’t change requirements for the winning bidder to stipulate specific industrial benefits for domestic firms.

The U.S. government is arguing that since Canada is a partner in the F-35 program it cannot request guaranteed industrial benefits for its companies.
Canada has pre-qualified four aircraft for its fighter jet project worth up to 19 billion Canadian dollars (U.S. $14 billion): the Lockheed Martin F-35, Boeing Super Hornet, Eurofighter Typhoon and the Saab Gripen.

The Canadian government plans to purchase 88 new jets to replace its aging CF-18 fighter aircraft fleet. Canada will require that a robust package of guaranteed industrial benefits or offsets be provided by the winning bidder, government officials have said.

But the U.S. government has objected to that, as Canada is still a partner in the F-35 program, which does not guarantee participating nations a set number of contracts. Work on the F-35 program is based on best value and price.

U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Mathias Winter, program executive officer for the Joint Strike Fighter, wrote Canadian procurement officials Dec. 18, 2018, pointing out that the F-35 agreement prohibits partners from imposing requirements for industrial benefits.

“We cannot participate in an offer of the F-35 weapon system where requirements do not align with the F-35 Partnership," he noted in his letter.
Winter’s letter was leaked this week to defencs analysts and the Canadian journalists.

The letter has prompted ongoing discussions between Canadian and U.S. procurement officials in an effort to work out some kind of solution, multiple industry and government sources told Defense News.

But the Canadian government will also respect any decision by the U.S. to not bid the F-35 if an agreement can’t be reached, sources added.

The Canadian government is putting the final touches on the bid requirements for new fighter jet project. That bid package is expected to be issued sometime this year.

Asked about the U.S. ultimatum, Ashley Michnowski, spokeswoman for Procurement Minister Carla Qualtrough, said feedback from aircraft suppliers is continuing to be collected by the Canadian government. That process has yet to be finished and a final request for bids is expected to be released soon, she added.

Michnowski said Canada continues to be a member of the Joint Strike Fighter program, giving the country “the option to buy aircraft through the program, should the F-35 be successful in the competitive process for the future fleet.”

Lockheed Martin Canada noted in a statement that Canadian firms have earned more than $1.2 billion in work on the program, resulting in hundreds of domestic jobs.

“We continue to provide our feedback to the U.S. government, which leads all government-to-government discussions related to the Canadian fighter replacement competition,” the statement added.


 

Lieutenant

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Trudeau is risking it all I would say he should wait until he is out of office which is not very far. The conservatives know how to negotiate.
 

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Why America and a Key Ally are Going to 'War' Over the F-35
May 13, 2019

The kerfuffle over industrial workshare is just the latest embarrassment for the Canadian government as it struggles to acquire new fighters.

Canada’s faltering effort to buy a new fighter jet for its beleaguered air force has run into yet another serious obstacle.

The Canadian government in May 2019 backed down from a requirement that the supplier of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s new fighter also channel work on the planes to Canadian companies.

The United States had objected to the requirement and threatened to pull the Lockheed Martin-made F-35 stealth fighter from the Canadian competition to replace 85 aging F/A-18A/B Hornet fighters with as many as 88 new jets.

The F/A-18s in RCAF service are known as CF-18s.

Reciprocal industrial benefits are common in fighter competitions. The idea is that a company that builds airplanes for a foreign country also should ensure that companies in that country get subcontracts to supply parts to the main production effort. That way, a government tender to a foreign company also supports some domestic jobs.

But there was a catch as Ottawa relaunched its $19-billion competition to the replace the 1980s-vintage F/A-18s, which lack key upgrades and rapidly are becoming obsolete, according to the Canadian government’s own auditors. The RCAF wanted the F-35 to compete in the contest alongside Sweden’s Saab Gripen, the European Eurofighter and the F/A-18E/F, a radically enhanced Hornet, from American firm Boeing.

But Canada is already a partner in the international F-35 program. After paying $500 million into the plane’s development effort, Canada became eligible for portions of the production process. Canadian aerospace companies over the past 20 years have received contracts worth no less than $1.5 billion to build parts for the F-35.

The F-35 program office in the United States claims it apportions work on F-35 production strictly by merit. In requiring that the F-35 program guarantee to Canadian firms a certain amount of work as a term of competing for the RCAF fighter contract, Ottawa violated its agreement with the F-35 program.

After Washington threatened to pull the F-35 from the Canadian contest, Ottawa backed down. “The Canadian government will allow a ‘flexible approach’ in determining industrial benefits for the new fighter jet program, making way for Lockheed Martin and the U.S. government to bid on the project,” National Post reported.

The kerfuffle over industrial workshare is just the latest embarrassment for the Canadian government as it struggles to acquire new fighters.

In 2010, Canada's Conservative Party government announced plans to acquire 65 new F-35 stealth fighters by 2020. But the government never fairly compared the F-35 to rival fighter types such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Auditor General of Canada concluded in a 2018 report.

"National Defense did not manage the process to replace the CF-18 fleet with due diligence."

In 2015, Liberal Party candidate Justin Trudeau made the F-35 a major issue in his campaign for prime minister. Trudeau won. And in 2017, Ottawa backed off its proposal to purchase F-35s and, instead, launched the current competition to acquire 88 fighters.

The aircraft would enter service in 2032, meaning the old Hornets would have to continue flying 12 years longer than the government originally planned. Ottawa briefly considered acquiring 18 F/A-18E/Fs from Boeing in order to bolster the early-model Hornets, but the government canceled the plan during a U.S.-Canada trade dispute in 2017.

Canada was left with its original Hornets. In December 2017, the government announced it would spend around $500 million buying up to 25 1980s-vintage F/A-18s that Australia was declared surplus as it acquired its own fleet of new F-35s.

But the government has no plan to keep its Hornets combat-ready as they enter their fourth and even fifth decade of service." We found that the CF-18 had not been significantly upgraded for combat since 2008, in part because [the Department of] National Defense expected a replacement fleet to be in place by 2020," the government auditors found.

Further delays could be the worst case scenario for the Canadian air force. It badly needs new fighters.

 

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In pursuit of $19B contract, Sweden's Saab offers to build fleet of fighter jets in Canada
Saab's offer further ups the ante on the competition that will see the federal government purchase 88 new aircraft
May 29, 2019
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Saab is offering to build the Gripen E fighter jet in Canada as part of its pitch to win the Canadian competition to supply 88 aircraft.Saab
A Swedish aerospace firm that hopes to supply Canada’s new fleet of fighter jets says it could build the aircraft in this country, making maximum use of the expertise of domestic firms and creating high-tech jobs.

Saab’s pitch to build its Gripen E fighter jet in Canada further ups the ante on the $19-billion competition that will see the federal government purchase 88 new aircraft.

The Liberal government has been emphasizing the transfer of new technology and expertise to Canadian aerospace firms as well as the creation of high-tech jobs as among its key goals for the fighter jet program.

Another European firm, Airbus, has hinted it could also build its Typhoon fighters in Canada, but Saab said if the federal government wants the planes built on a domestic production line its commitment is solid.

For the Canadian program, Saab is hoping to follow the same process that helped it win a recent fighter jet competition in Brazil. The first batch of Gripen E fighter jets are being built in Sweden but the technology is then being transferred to Brazilian firms so they can assemble the remaining aircraft.
“We think that is the model that makes sense for Canada,” Patrick Palmer, senior vice-president of Saab Canada, told Postmedia. “We’re going down that path but we’re also looking at how the (request for proposals) is written and what the customer values. Certainly if that is what the customer values for Canada that is something that we can easily do.”
Aerospace firms have been told that the federal government will request their proposals in mid-July.

The fighter jet competition was launched on Dec. 12, 2017 and at this point four aircraft are to be considered. Those include the F-35, the Super Hornet, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Gripen.

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The Gripen E is the newest of the fighter jets being offered to Canada. The first Gripen E for the Swedish military is expected to be delivered later this year. The first of the 36 aircraft ordered by Brazil in a $5-billion program will be delivered in 2021.

The first delivery of jets for the Canadian program is expected in the mid-2020s with the full capability available in the early 2030s, according to documents produced by the Department of National Defence.

The issue of industrial benefits for Canadian companies will have a high profile in the competition.

In early May the Canadian government told potential bidders it was making changes to its fighter jet competition to allow the U.S. to enter the F-35 stealth fighter.

The changes, which industry sources say allow for a more flexible approach in determining the value of industrial benefits for the competition, came after a series of discussions with the U.S. government and threats by the Pentagon to withdraw the F-35 from consideration.

Canada is a partner nation in the development of Lockheed Martin’s F-35, and U.S. officials had warned that the agreement Canada had signed prohibits partners from imposing requirements for industrial benefits as firms from those nations compete for work on the jets. Over the last 12 years, Canadian firms have earned more than $1.3 billion in contracts to build F-35 parts.

Per Alriksson of Saab Aeronautics said the Gripen is designed specifically for operations in the Arctic, giving it a leg up on other planes. “Sweden has air force bases in what you call the far North,” he added. “We operate there daily. (The Gripen) has Arctic DNA built into it.”

Alriksson said the Gripen E can operate from remote airfields in the north, landing and taking off on runways less than 800 metres in length. It has a quick turnaround time for missions, with technicians able to reload and refuel the planes in 10 minutes. “It is pretty good in operating in dispersed locations as you have in Canada,” he added.

Alriksson said the company can integrate U.S. and other equipment on the Gripen E so it is interoperable with American forces, another consideration for Canada. “Moving forward with the Gripen E, we see no problem whatsoever to integrate that fighter into a NORAD context.”

 

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One Nation May Have No Choice But to Buy the F-35 Stealth Fighter
October 1, 2019
Canada may simply have no choice. Here's why.
by Michael Peck


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Canada may be the next nation to buy the F-35 stealth fighter.

The F-35’s competitors are dwindling.

In August, Britain’s Ministry of Defense and European manufacturer Airbus withdrew the Eurofighter from Canada’s competition to pick a replacement for its 35-year-old CF-18 fighters. In 2018, France’s Dassault withdrew the Rafale from the contest.

That just leaves three contenders: Lockheed Martin’s F-35, Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet and Swedish manufacturer Saab’s Gripen. The winner is slated to receive a CA$19 billion (U.S. $15 billion) contract for 88 jets in 2022.

David Pugliese, who covers defense for the Ottawa Citizen, has chronicled how the F-35’s competitors have dropped out one by one. In May, Canada’s Department of National Defense changed the procurement rules after the U.S. warned that the F-35 program barred the aircraft from being sold to nations who promised industrial benefits in return for selecting the Lightning II.
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“Under the F-35 agreement, partner nations such as Canada are prohibited from demanding domestic companies receive specific work on the fighter jet,” Pugliese explained. “Instead, Canadian firms compete and if they are good enough, they receive contracts. Over the last 12 years, Canadian firms have earned more than $1.3 billion in contracts to build F-35 parts. But there are no guarantees.”

“Airbus was willing to outline and guarantee specific industrial benefits for Canada,” Pugliese added. “That was the way previous defense procurements had worked.”

Another hurdle was a new requirement that the winning fighter must show it would be integrated into the joint U.S.-Canadian air defense system. While probably not an issue for the Super Hornet, it would surely have been one for the European contenders. Canadian media pointed out that “Airbus would have been required to show how it planned to integrate the Eurofighter Typhoon into the U.S.-Canadian system without knowing the system’s full technical details.

But even Boeing may be having second thoughts. In July, Reuters reported that the American defense giant may drop out of the fighter competition. Boeing and the European manufacturers “have already complained about the way the contest is being run, and expressed concern some of the specifications clearly favor the U.S. firm, industry sources have said in recent weeks,” said Reuters.

This is just another twist in a drama that has lasted for years, amid infighting between Canadian political parties, economic tensions between Ottawa and the Trump administration, and even a Canadian plan to buy used Australian F/A-18s as a stopgap.

Perhaps this was inevitable. Canada has sometimes charted a different defense procurement path than its Big Brother to the south, such as selecting Germany’s Leopard tank instead of a U.S. vehicle. Nonetheless, the fact is that the F-35 will be the dominant warplane of the West for the next several decades. Not just of the United States, but of more than 15 nations, including key NATO allies such as Britain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well Japan, Australia and Israel. Given the enormous amount of prestige that the U.S. government has put behind the F-35, and the numerous sweeteners and pressures for a deal, it would be tough for F-35 competitors to compete and tough for Ottawa to resist the F-35 juggernaut.
 

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State Dept OKs $862M Sidewinder Block II Missile Sale to Canada
Brenda Marie Rivers
June 17, 2020
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The State Department has approved a potential $862.3M foreign military sale of updated AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air tactical missiles, associated equipment and support services to Canada.
Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX) and its Collins Aerospace business, Boeing (NYSE: BA) and General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) will be the prime contractors on the FMS deal, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Tuesday.
The transaction includes 50 Sidewinder Block II missiles, 38 APG-79(V)4 active electronically scanned array radars, 46 wideband radomes for the F/A-18A aircraft and other associated items such as joint standoff weapons and guidance kits, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Tuesday.
Canada also requested logistics and technical support for AESA radars, software development and integration equipment for F/A-18As along with other related program mangement and technical assistance.
The proposed agreement would allow the Canadian air force to maximize aircraft systems adoption and modernize its F/A-18 fleet as part of the Future Fighter Capability Program.

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space cadet

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Upgrading their old F18's because they can't make a decision on a new fighter, they should just order F15ex and be done with it
 

Gripen9

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So why are they not going for F-35 if they are part of the consortium?
plus interoperability with other NATO members?
 
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