Wildcat
Major
If you guys don't want it, I'm sure there's a few companies down here that want the business!
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FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Good points Marcel, and I'm sure your leaders looked at that was well as what other NATO support would come your way in time of crisis. The 1/3 (a 66% MC rate) is a guess right now, personally I think your country will be operating closer to an 80% MC rate, but this is a guess until the aircraft is fully deployed and the supply system fully matured.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
My thoughts keep going back to capability/survivability.
Do we want 30 aircraft that can compete in a real fight - or 100 aircraft that are in deep trouble vs. a capable opponent.
Lucky13
Forum Mascot
Wildcat
Major
Latest article from Australian Aviation RE the RCAF and the Super Hornet/F35.
Canada to bridge fighter gap with interim Super Hornet acquisition? | Australian Aviation
Canada to bridge fighter gap with interim Super Hornet acquisition? | Australian Aviation
fubar57
General
That's the way I would have gone in the first place. Canada does not need "stealth" to sneak up on a boat trying to smuggle human cargo in from Asia
The question is what they will be used for. How big is the chance that our superb F-35 aircraft will meet a worthy opponent? Its great capabilities will be wasted on bombing those Isis a'holes.
Don't get me wrong, the F-35 is the best aircraft we can buy. I just hope we'll either buy a cheap type or maintain and upgrade a couple of F16's for missions where we don't want to risk one of those few F-35's.
The aircraft does look impressive. This is the demo at Leeuwarden, this weekend:
There might be a time when the F-16 is too risky to use period. People that scoff at 'stealth' blow my mind. As if it's a binary quality. Imagine scoffing at 'speed' or 'firepower' ...
I don't know much about modern threats and their countermeasures ... but I wonder if current fighters will just be glorified COIN aircraft in the near future with more advanced systems getting into the hands of more and more factions all the time.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLXjfYDdYUo#t=0m56s
On the other hand, the F-35 is only stealthy when it doesn't use the points on the wing, so only carying 2 bombs in the inner bay. When you use external points for carrying additional bombs, the advantage for stealth is gone. So stealth is not an issue in these missions. or you have to fly 3 times as often as the F-16, or have 3 times more aircraft to deliver the punch. As it will be now, we only have 3 times less F-35's as we have F-16's so the that won't work. External carying it should be then, making the F-35 about as vulnerable as the F-16, but much more expensive.
I'm no expert but I'd bet money that that is a gross oversimplification of all the systems that make the F-35 more survivable than the F-16. The purpose of the F-35 with internal-only ordnance is to give you the option of hitting a target that the F-16 can't.
F-35: two bombs.
F-16: zero bombs (read: zero F-16. No chance of penetrating modern air defence network)
But I am not talking about a modern air defence system. I am talking about the low-tech wars we have been fighting the last few decades. Yougoslavia, Afghanistan, Syria.
Ah, explain the use of an A10 then.
A10, simple aircraft, no fancy stuff, but carries a big punch.
All depends on the mission: do you have to sneak in or do you want to deliver a big punch seems to be the question at the moment. Do you allow for losing an aircraft? How much use is stealth when doing close support? I have my doubts on that. It doesn't deliver a big punch when stealth and when not stealth it is no better than an upgraded F-16. Why risk a 100 milion euro aircraft while a much cheaper one could do the same?
All depends on the mission: do you have to sneak in or do you want to deliver a big punch seems to be the question at the moment. Do you allow for losing an aircraft? How much use is stealth when doing close support? I have my doubts on that. It doesn't deliver a big punch when stealth and when not stealth it is no better than an upgraded F-16. Why risk a 100 milion euro aircraft while a much cheaper one could do the same?
Well the A-10 is probably already a glorified COIN aircraft I'm afraid. It was demonstrated to be too vulnerable to the Iraqi air defences in 1991 and pulled out in favour of the F-16.
EDIT: Not quite the correct picture. The A-10 was pulled back from going up against the Republican Guard units - it still went after regular Iraqi units.
Buying all kinds of aircraft to suit all kinds of roles doesn't seem to be the reality in the near future. Especially for countries with small militaries.
EDIT: Not quite the correct picture. The A-10 was pulled back from going up against the Republican Guard units - it still went after regular Iraqi units.
Buying all kinds of aircraft to suit all kinds of roles doesn't seem to be the reality in the near future. Especially for countries with small militaries.
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There was some A-10 discussion way back on page 31 of this thread, but this was a bit I found interesting.
Interview with Lieutenant General Charles A. Horner, Central Air Forces commander
June 1991
Q: Did the war have any effect on the Air Force's view of the A-10?
A: No. People misread that. People were saying that airplanes are too sophisticated and that they wouldn't work in the desert, that you didn't need all this high technology, that simple and reliable was better, and all that.
Well, first of all, complex does not mean unreliable. We're finding that out. For example, you have a watch that uses transistors rather than a spring. It's infinitely more reliable than the windup watch that you had years ago. That's what we're finding in the airplanes.
Those people ... were always championing the A-10. As the A-10 reaches the end of its life cycle--and it's approaching that now--it's time to replace it, just like we replace every airplane, including, right now, some early versions of the F-16.
Since the line was discontinued, (the A-10's champions) want to build another A-10 of some kind. The point we were making was that we have F-16s that do the same job.
Then you come to people who have their own reasons-good reasons to them, but they don't necessarily compute to me-who want to hang onto the A-10 because of the gun. Well, the gun's an excellent weapon, but you'll find that most of the tank kills by the A-10 were done with Mavericks and bombs. So the idea that the gun is the absolute wonder of the world is not true.
Q: This conflict has shown that?
A: It shows that the gun has a lot of utility, which we always knew, but it isn't the principal tank-killer on the A-10. The Maverick is the big hero there. That was used by the A-10s and the F-16s very, very effectively in places like Khafji.
The other problem is that the A-10 is vulnerable to hits because its speed is limited. It's a function of thrust, it's not a function of anything else. We had a lot of A-10s take a lot of ground fire hits. Quite frankly, we pulled the A-10s back from going up around the Republican Guard and kept them on Iraq's (less formidable) front-line units. That's fine if you have a force that allows you to do that. In this case, we had F-16s to go after the Republican Guard.
Q: At what point did you do that?
A: I think I had fourteen airplanes sitting on the ramp having battle damage repaired, and I lost two A- 10s in one day, and I said, "I've had enough of this." It was when we really started to go after the Republican Guard.
Interview with Lieutenant General Charles A. Horner, Central Air Forces commander
June 1991
Q: Did the war have any effect on the Air Force's view of the A-10?
A: No. People misread that. People were saying that airplanes are too sophisticated and that they wouldn't work in the desert, that you didn't need all this high technology, that simple and reliable was better, and all that.
Well, first of all, complex does not mean unreliable. We're finding that out. For example, you have a watch that uses transistors rather than a spring. It's infinitely more reliable than the windup watch that you had years ago. That's what we're finding in the airplanes.
Those people ... were always championing the A-10. As the A-10 reaches the end of its life cycle--and it's approaching that now--it's time to replace it, just like we replace every airplane, including, right now, some early versions of the F-16.
Since the line was discontinued, (the A-10's champions) want to build another A-10 of some kind. The point we were making was that we have F-16s that do the same job.
Then you come to people who have their own reasons-good reasons to them, but they don't necessarily compute to me-who want to hang onto the A-10 because of the gun. Well, the gun's an excellent weapon, but you'll find that most of the tank kills by the A-10 were done with Mavericks and bombs. So the idea that the gun is the absolute wonder of the world is not true.
Q: This conflict has shown that?
A: It shows that the gun has a lot of utility, which we always knew, but it isn't the principal tank-killer on the A-10. The Maverick is the big hero there. That was used by the A-10s and the F-16s very, very effectively in places like Khafji.
The other problem is that the A-10 is vulnerable to hits because its speed is limited. It's a function of thrust, it's not a function of anything else. We had a lot of A-10s take a lot of ground fire hits. Quite frankly, we pulled the A-10s back from going up around the Republican Guard and kept them on Iraq's (less formidable) front-line units. That's fine if you have a force that allows you to do that. In this case, we had F-16s to go after the Republican Guard.
Q: At what point did you do that?
A: I think I had fourteen airplanes sitting on the ramp having battle damage repaired, and I lost two A- 10s in one day, and I said, "I've had enough of this." It was when we really started to go after the Republican Guard.
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FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Not true - it is still stealthy but its RCS is increased and detectable on radar, but compare that RCS with an F-16 with wing stores and its a lot less
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