American airplane manufacturer Lockheed Martin’s sales staff had a marker event last month. They found that Switzerland wanted to buy 36 F-35 stealth fighter jets. It makes you wonder though when you compare the area of Switzerland of 41,285 km² with the 190 million km² of Canada. When you hear Canada is considering ordering maybe 88 of the fifth-generation fighters, the question is ‘Why?’
The problem is that ordering the jets has more to do with economics than the performance promises of the plane’s manufacturer. After all, why would Canada want a relatively short-range jet to protect its borders? By the time an F-35 got from a southern Canada base to the Arctic, it would need air-to-air refueling before confronting any threatening aircraft. And nobody is building stealth aircraft to do refueling.
In fact, why is Canada considering stealth aircraft for defensive use? The time of the fighter dogfights over the English Channel is long-gone. To-day, the fighter aircraft carries air-to-air, seeker missiles to discourage the airborne interloper. Guns on these aircraft are used more in ground support situations.
But with who is Canada going to go to war? Who would we invade? Are we only going to use our military as a sub-set of American forces? The U.S. Air Force is planning to have either 20 or 30 squadrons of F-35 aircraft. What would Canada’s couple squadrons add to that force?
If Canada gets serious about peacekeeping again, we are going to need planes for air transport not fighter squadrons.
But back to economics, Canada is a cash contributing partner in developing the F-35. That means at least $150 million is provided by Canada towards development costs. Then, if all goes well, there is an exchange in technology and Canada gets up to $17 billion in component production orders and 150,000 high technology jobs.
If all those supposedly Canadian companies getting this revenue, were actually Canadian, it would be a good deal—provided we put all the aircraft Canada purchases in museums, rather than fly them.
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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
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