The coming $26 billion windfall for the Canadian Armed Forces. What to buy? (1 Viewer)

[Admiral Beez]

I am now recovering from an operation to fix a ruptured aortic aneurysm. You have no idea of how glad I am to be Canadian at the moment.

It is fashionable to gripe about our healthcare system, but having had family go through childbirth, cancer, burst brain aneurysm (St. Mike's was great for that), injured backs, heart attacks, Covid, and a host of things, my family has always been okay with the care we get. Now, we used to live in New Brunswick, and there it was very difficult to get care.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Holy crap! And you are alive! Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Good he ain't going broke staying alive, too.

 

[Howard Gibson]

... (St. Mike's was great for that)...

I went to St. Joseph's Hospital. They sent me by ambulance to to St. Mike's. It can be so nice to be in a big city.

 

[Howard Gibson]

We should never have made the Avro Arrow. It was a dumb move by Ottawa, Avro and its British owners at Hawker-Siddeley. In the world of ICBMs, none of Canada, NORAD or NATO needed another large interceptor to chase the increasingly non-existent threat of strategic bombers. What we should have built is a multirole competitor to the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II, which first flew in 1958, the same year as the Avro Arrow.

I have two thoughts about the Avro Arrow.

1. Canadian literature generally states that the Arrow was as fast as or faster than current aircraft. This is true, because in the late fifties, turbojet powered aircraft were approaching the maximum possible speeds for turbojets. The new generation of aircraft that came out in the seventies took advantage of experience in the Vietnam and the Middle East to learn all the stuff that actually matters in jet combat, like manoeuverability, and vision out of the cockpit.
2. The F4 Phantom was originally designed as an interceptor that would protect carrier groups. It turned out to be good at all sorts of other stuff. The Phantom and the Arrow may not look similar, but if you check out Wikipedia, they turn out to be very similar aircraft. Two big engines. Pilot and radar operator. Performance way above mach two, etc. Based on playing with the Arrow model on Flight Gear, the view out of the cockpit was awful, and would require redesign before going anywhere near hostile aircraft.

Canada is a big place with a small population. There is a lot to be said for a fast, long ranged aircraft. Inevitably, this would be a big, twin engined aircraft. The F-35 meets our NATO commitments. It does not protect Canadian sovereignty.

Canada has a requirement for a national interceptor. Since it is primarily defensive, stealth is not important. The requirement would be for range, speed, manoeuverability, and good electronics. Australia has similar requirements, and might be interested in participating in the project.

I am not sold on stealth technology. People are claiming that they can detect stealth aircraft. Stealth is nice if it does not cost you anything, but if it increases cost and reduces performance and view out of the aircraft, it might not be a good deal.

There is a massive difference between no radar signal, and a weak radar signal. I have worked on LiDAR. In LiDAR, you fire a laser at something, and you look at the backscatter. You expect a strong signal, so you filter out noise. Radar must do the same thing. How about we don't filter out noise. We examine the noise, and see if any of it is not moving around. A stealthy aircraft cannot use its radio, its radar, its LiDAR, or anything else we can detect.