New RCAF Aircraft to be Operational in 2026; but No Decision on Replacement Yet

By: David Puligese,

The Royal Canadian Air Force will be operating the first nine aircraft from its new fleet of fighter jets starting in 2026, Department of National Defence officials say.

But at least one member of parliament questions whether the federal government will be able to meet its timetable to replace the CF-18 fighter fleet with advanced aircraft.

MPs on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts received more details on Monday about the Liberal government’s plan to buy 88 new fighter jets. Aircraft expected in the competition include Lockheed Martin’s F-35, the Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab’s Gripen and the Boeing Super Hornet.

Pat Finn, assistant deputy minister for material at the DND, told MPS that the formal request for proposals will go out in the spring of 2019. Negotiations would be held in 2021 and a contract awarded in 2022.

“We have tried to be very judicious and not have too risky a schedule to try to achieve some of that,” Finn explained to MPs. “But from the bids until the signing of the contract is where we’ve given ourselves two years for the competitive dialogue, the final negotiations and the various approvals we need to get, signing the contract in 2022.”

The first aircraft would be delivered in 2025. Finn said this schedule has been shared with all the potential bidders and “they’re comfortable with that approach.”

Jody Thomas, the DND deputy minister, told MPs that the plan is to “achieve initial operating capability by 2026 with nine advanced fighters ready to fulfill the NORAD mission.”

But one committee member, Conservative MP Pat Kelly, was wary of whether the aircraft acquisition would proceed as scheduled.

The plan, he told Finn, doesn’t leave a lot of margin for error. Everything would have to run like clockwork to meet the timetable and Kelly questioned if that would even be possible given the track record of defence procurement over the years. “We just don’t have time in this for the kinds of delays and the kinds of failures of procurement that we have seen in other programs,” Kelly said. “I shudder to think of what many Canadians listening to this hearing might think about. What has the potential to go wrong to get to 2025? I’m going to leave it at that.”

RCAF to Fly CF-18s until 2032

By: David Puglise, The National Post 

Canada will squeeze even more flying time out of its aging CF-18s, keeping the jets operating for another 15 years.

There had been plans to take the jets out of service shortly after 2025.

But representatives from companies who took part in a Jan. 22 industry day outlining the Liberal government’s program to buy new fighter planes were told the RCAF will now keep the CF-18s operating until 2032.

The jets, first received in 1982, will be retired after 50 years of service.

Some aerospace industry sources, however, question whether the 2032 retirement is set in stone since any delays in the purchase of new jets could alter that schedule.

The first replacement aircraft for the CF-18s will arrive in 2025 but the deliveries of the 88 planes would not be completed until 2030, according to the federal government documents distributed to industry representatives at the Jan. 22 meeting in Ottawa.

A CF-188 Hornet from the Canadian Air Task Force Lithuania perform manoeuvres over Lithuania on September 15, 2014 for the NATO Baltic Air Policing Block 36 during Operation Reassurance. Cpl Gabrielle DesRochers

The CF-18s have been upgraded over the years. In 2001 a modernization project was launched to allow the planes to continue operating until 2017-2020.

Structural improvements to maintain the fleet have also been ongoing and another upgrade program is in the works, with the aim to keep the planes flying until 2025, according to the RCAF.

That will provide the planes with various systems to allow them to operate with allied air forces as well as meet new rules to fly in domestic and international airspace. There could also be upgrades to weapons, the RCAF says.

It is unclear if yet another upgrade would be needed beyond that to keep the planes flying from 2025 to 2032.

Canada is in also in discussions with Australia to purchase 18 used F-18 aircraft to augment the existing fleet of CF-18s. While the exact cost of that deal won’t be made public until the contract is signed, the Liberal government has set aside $500 million for the project.

In November 2016, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan acknowledged that the CF-18s might have to keep flying longer than planned, suggesting they could even continue until 2030 or perhaps beyond. The briefing to industry representatives was the first official government confirmation that the RCAF would stretch out the life of the aircraft until 2032.

Seen from the window of a Canadian Forces CC-150 Polaris tanker, a CF-18 Hornet fighter jet refuels in the air over Vancouver during Operation Podium on Feb. 18, 2010. Master Corporal Andrew Collins, 14 Wing Imaging

The Liberals have committed to buying 88 new fighter jets in a program that could cost as much as $19 billion. That price-tag does not include long-term maintenance.

Troy Crosby, director general of defence major projects at Public Services and Procurement Canada, said in an interview with Postmedia that a request for proposals from companies for the new fighter jets is expected to be issued in spring 2019. A contract would be signed in late 2021 or early 2022.

André Fillion, chief of staff in the materiel branch at the Department of National Defence, said the Jan. 22 meeting provided a way to brief industry on how the purchase will unfold. “This was an opportunity for us to start talking to industry about the context for the fleet in terms of its operation, sustainment and acquisition,” he explained in an interview with Postmedia. Fillion said attendees were given “a bit of an appreciation of where we are headed so they can start thinking about their solution.”

Further details of the purchase will emerge over the next year.

Canada is compiling a suppliers list which will include aircraft manufacturers and the foreign governments or defence agencies associated with those planes. The deadline for submissions to that list is Feb. 9.

The Canadian government will then evaluate the responses and a formal list will be drawn up by March. Only suppliers on the list at that time will be invited to take part in the competition and to submit proposals.

Canada Signs EOI to Purchase Australian F-18s

DefenseWorld.Net News 

The Canadian government has submitted an expression of interest to buy used Boeing F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets from Australia amidst a trade dispute with the United States.

"Canada expects to receive a response by the end of this year that will provide details regarding the availability and cost of the aircraft and associated parts that Canada is considering," the Canadian government said in a statement yesterday.

Australia is replacing its fleet of 71 F/A-18A/B Hornet jets with 72 fifth-generation F-35A Lightning II aircraft from 2018 onwards.

The Australian government and Canada began discussions to assess the potential sale of F/A-18 fighter aircraft and associated parts earlier this year.

The Canadian government has now confirmed that on 29 September it submitted an expression of interest, formally marking Canada’s interest in the Australian equipment, various reports said.

Last year, Canada announced plans to buy 18 Super Hornets as an interim solution for replacing a subset of the CF-18 Hornet fleet due for retirement within five years, but talks with Boeing over the planned acquisition were suspended by Canada after Boeing accused Bombardier in April of dumping its jet into the US market after receiving unfair subsidies from the Canadian government.

Matters worsened in recent months with the US Commerce Department recently levying a 219 per cent tariff on Bombardier’s CS100 sale to Delta Air Lines.

Earlier, Canada pulled out from a planned F-35 fighter jet purchase citing budgetary issues. A section of Canadian politicians have voiced against overspending on military acquisitions since the country does not face any direct threats.

Will Super Hornet Acquisition Affect Arctic Sovereignty?

By: Matthew Fisher, The National Post

If the Liberal government goes ahead with its decision to purchase Super Hornet fighter jets instead of stealthy F-35s, Canada may be giving up its sovereignty over the High Arctic as it comes to depend on U.S. jets flying from airfields in Yellowknife, Inuvik, Rankin Inlet, Iqaluit and Alaska.

That was the unanimous opinion of half a dozen retired fighter pilots I spoke with recently, pilots with decades of experience flying over the continent’s northern margins and in senior positions at NORAD headquarters in Colorado: that Canada would be relegated to “second-tier status” in defending its own territory.

U.S. war planes such as the F-35 and F-22 would defend the bulk of Canada’s vast northern air space because they would be invisible to Russian radars and would be able to seamlessly share data and sensor information with each other and with airborne and ground command posts, the retired Canadian pilots said. Canada’s CF-18 Hornets and Super Hornets, operating much older technologies and much less able to deliver such complicated data fusion, would likely be tasked with defending North American cities far to the south or with shooting down any missiles that managed to penetrate the first line of defence, they said.

The 18 Super Hornets the Trudeau government has said it intends to buy are expected to cost between $5 and $7 billion. On Tuesday, the Canadian government sent a letter to its U.S. counterpart outlining what it’s looking for in a potential Super Hornet purchase, which the jets’ manufacturer, Boeing, will use to draft a formal proposal by this fall. If the price and timeline are right — and if the purchase would provide enough economic spinoff benefits for Canada — the Liberals hope to sign a contract by late this year or early next. The plan has drawn plenty of criticism.

“Will Canada be surrendering sovereignty? The simple answer is yes,” said Lt.-Gen. George MacDonald, who flew CF-18 Hornets from Bagotville, Que., for NORAD for five years and was the binational military alliance’s deputy commander before 9/11 and then served as vice chief of the defence staff in Ottawa before retiring in 2004. (He now works for CFN Consultants, which has as a client Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35.)

“The Russians would be delighted to see Canada flying Super Hornets in the north,” said Gen. Tom Lawson, the retired former chief of the defence staff and ex-deputy commander of NORAD, who sometimes works as a consultant for Lockheed. “The Super Hornets will be a big, bright object on the radars of Russian early-warning aircraft. With the F-35, the Russians will not see them until they are too close.”

Gen. Jean Boyle, a former chief of defence and fighter pilot who was Boeing’s vice-president of international business when the Super Hornet was coming online nearly 20 years ago, says he can see the argument against using Super Hornets in the Far North. “In times of increased tension there is no doubt that NORAD would put its best assets, the (U.S. Air Force’s) F-35 and F-22, forward instead of a Super Hornet, to ensure the defence is thorough.

“My position, even when I was chief and ever since I was a colonel and started to understand national security, is that Canada should have a defence capability where we can defend all the northern and maritime approaches to our country, 100 per cent, that it is fully paid for by us and that there are no arguments on that point.”

“I am loathe to say we should buy the F-35 but skeptical about the capabilities of the Super Hornet,” Boyle said. “Having been with Boeing when it was developed, I am relatively aware of what the Super Hornet can do. It is fourth-generation compared to fifth-generation.”

Related
Liberals take next step toward buying 18 Super Hornets, hope for deal by year’s end
Buying ‘political insulation’: Liberals to call for bids in 2019 for permanent fleet to replace CF-18s
Retired air chiefs urge Liberals to ditch ‘costly and unnecessary’ plan to buy Super Hornet jets

A fourth retired Canadian air force general, who had not worked for either Lockheed or Boeing but whose company does not allow employees to be quoted by name, concurred. He highlighted “survivability issues” for Super Hornet crews because they could be seen by enemy radars, and warned that new Russian cruise missiles would be “a game-changer” if not confronted by a fighter with cutting-edge technology.

None of the former pilots interviewed for this article were among the 13 retired air force three-star generals who recently sent a letter to the prime minister decrying the Super Hornet purchase.

“I don’t know what the government’s calculus is but if they look to the threats in the future we should go to a competition quickly,” Lawson said. “Enough information is already available to develop an operational requirement to have a competition within one year to 18 months and to have the first aircraft delivered within three years.”

That is approximately the same timeline the government has been using to justify the need for an emergency purchase of Super Hornets rather than F-35s. The RCAF told parliamentarians last year that it can safely fly its existing CF-18s until 2025.

The F-35 and Super Hornet were both “tremendous airplanes,” Boyle said. “My position is to not buy from an interim proposal. We should move forward with an open competition. Put them up against each other and make a decision.”

F-35 Dominates At Red Flag With 15:1 Kill Rate

Lara Seligman | Aerospace Daily & Defense Report - Aviation Week 

The U.S. Air Force’s F-35A made its debut at the toughest Red Flag yet, and not only dominated the air space but made the legacy aircraft in the force package even deadlier, according to pilots.

The F-35’s participation in the Air Force’s capstone training event at Nellis AFB, Nevada, which is known as one of the world’s most realistic and challenging air-to-air combat exercises, marked a crucial test for the fifth-generation fighter. This year, pilots went up against the most aggressive threat laydown ever seen at a Red Flag: more surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), more jamming, and more red air, said Lt. Col. George Watkins, 34th Fighter Squadron commander.
The exercise began Jan. 23 and will continue until Feb. 10.

Despite the stepped up threat, pilots lost only one F-35 to every 15 aggressors killed in action—an impressive kill ratio for an aircraft that is not designed as an air-to-air fighter.
Where before an F-16 would not even see the advanced threat on the battlespace—the blue forces would take them out ahead of time with standoff weapons—now with the F-35 added to the mix, pilots can detect and pinpoint multiple threats at once, Watkins said.

Faced with three or four different advanced SAMs in one scenario, F-35 pilots gather and fuse data from a multitude of sources. Then the stealthy aircraft slips undetected within range and takes out the threat. If the F-35 runs out of munitions, F-22 and fourth-generation pilots still want the aircraft to stay in the vicinity, vacuuming up targeting information and transferring it to the rest of the force.
“Before where we would have one advanced threat and we would put everything we had—F-16s, F-15s, F-18s, missiles, we would shoot everything we had at that one threat just to take it out—now we are seeing three or four of those threats at a time,” Watkins said. “Just between [the F-35] and the [F-22] Raptor we are able to geo-locate them, precision-target them, and then we are able to bring the fourth-generation assets in behind us after those threats are neutralized. It’s a whole different world out there for us now.”

The F-35 and the air superiority F-22, in particular, make a deadly team, the pilots said.
“When you pair the F-22and the F-35 like together with the fourth-generation strikers behind us, we’re really able to dominate the air space over the Nellis test and training range,” Watkins said.

As of Feb. 3, 13 F-35s from Hill AFB, Utah, had flown 126 missions and only lost three or four aircraft. They had not lost a single sortie to maintenance. Although there have been issues with the F-35’s 3i software load—the aircraft’s systems occasionally shut down and need to be rebooted and there were also problems with clutter and repeating targets—none of the aircraft at Red Flag have experienced any system failures. That is a huge improvement over the F-16s, Watkins said.

“It’s been pretty eye-watering here for me to go out every day and have every single mission system operating,” Watkins said. “Tie that sensor fusion and that situational awareness with the survivability of the platform [and] it’s really a game-changer.”

A Deeper look at the necessity of a mixed RCAF Fighter Fleet

By: Alexis Amini, NATO Association 

Despite the military and economic benefits of having a mixed fighter fleet composed of the 5th generation stealthy F-35 and the 4th generation non-stealthy Super Hornet, some critics argue that Canada cannot afford such an aerial force structure. Therefore, some experts suggest that the RCAF should opt for a sole purchase of either the Super Hornet or the F-35. Nonetheless, with the return of great power competition, by having a single fighter fleet, Canada will have difficulties in upholding its two mandates defined in its current defense policy: the defense of North America in cooperation with the US and contributing to international security through expeditionary operations within coalitions like NATO.

Regarding expeditionary operations, peer and near-peer competitors are looking to counter Western air forces’ supremacy by developing land and air-based weapon systems that can be used in an Anti Access/Area denial (A2/AD) fashion aimed at making an airspace off-limits to an enemy air force including stealth fighters. Indeed, it is necessary to bear in mind that stealth has been developed to avoid detection from high frequency radars optimized for targeting, against which non-stealthy aircrafts are vulnerable. However, stealth planes with tail fins like the F-35 are visible to low-frequency radars used for early warning and surveillance. Being aware of this F-35 vulnerability, revisionist countries like Russia and China are developing low frequency surveillance radars able to cue high frequency targeting radar toward the F-35’s location in the sky. Such a radar system can detect and target both non-stealth and stealth aircrafts at greater distances. It is being integrated into ground A2/AD weapons like surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) batteries as well as aerial A2/AD assets like fighters such as the Russian non-stealthy Flanker and the stealthy T-50 PAK-FA. Such a development is quite revolutionary since low frequency radars are voluminous compared to their high frequency counterparts. Usually, airborne low frequency radars are installed as radar dishes on top of large airframes acting as Airborne Early Warning (AEW) platforms such as the E-3 Sentry or the E-2 Hawkeye. That said, the Russian aerospace industry managed to miniaturize these low frequency radars and fit them on fighters in addition to their onboard high frequency targeting radar. Current Western fighters like the 4thgeneration Super Hornet and the 5th generation F-35s are only equipped with high frequency targeting radars which only permits them to detect and engage non-stealthy platforms while enemy stealth jets may operate unopposed.

To counter this rising A2/AD threat in the context of expeditionary operations, a mixed fighter fleet composed of a single type of stealth jet and a series of non-stealth aircrafts is essential. The non-stealth component would include Electronic Warfare (EW) aircrafts, airborne missile platforms (or arsenal planes) and dedicated AEW planes equipped with low frequency radars capable of detecting both stealthy and non-stealthy enemy jets. The stealth component would be composed of the F-35 that will mainly act as a survivable Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) platform as well as an airborne Command and Control (C2) node. Indeed, since near peer and peer competitors will possess a vast amount of military capabilities employed in an A2/AD fashion, stealth fighters cannot destroy those in a swift manner given their limited payload due to their stealth design. The F-35 would be armed with missiles for mostly self-defense. Therefore, to degrade these A2/AD military capabilities in the swiftest way possible, a non-stealthy platform that can act as an arsenal plane is required. As a first step to degrade the air defenses, an EW aircraft operating at a safe distance from the A2/AD envelope will jam low-frequency surveillance radars equipping SAM batteries and airborne enemy fighters. Once the low frequency radars are jammed thus preventing the cueing of high frequency targeting radars designed to guide missiles launched from opposing SAMs or jets, the F-35 can safely enter the A2/AD envelope and identify land and airborne non-stealthy targets (ISTAR role) whose coordinates will be transmitted to far-flying arsenal planes armed with long-range missiles (C2 role). Parallel to that, an AEW platform equipped with a low-frequency radar would be operating at a safe distance from the A2/AD envelope and would be tasked with searching and detecting airborne stealth fighters and then cue in F-35s and non-stealthy arsenal planes’ high frequency targeting radar toward the enemy stealth jet’s location so that they may eliminate them.

Despite the advantages of such a mixed fighter fleet in facing the A2/AD threat posed by revisionist powers, critics argue that Canada cannot afford such a force structure. Indeed, a mixed fighter fleet entails high costs given the need for distinct supply chains and training regimens, something Ottawa can ill afford with a limited defense budget. Therefore, the case is being made for a RCAF exclusively composed of either the 4thgeneration non-stealthy Super Hornets or the 5th generation F-35. However, in developing a single type force structure, Canada will not have the full spectrum of capabilities mentioned above that are necessary to degrade an A2/AD envelope. The RCAF would have to rely on other partners for certain capabilities it will not have in its arsenal. Thus, Canada will only be a second-tier partner in any future coalition in the context of expeditionary operations. Such an outcome would dash Canada’s aspiration to be an invaluable coalition partner by having military capabilities in high demand.

In addition, a single type fighter fleet would complicate Canada’s task in defending North American airspace in the context of NORAD. Since Russian aerospace forces possess 4th generation Flankers and 5th generation T-50s are equipped with a low and high frequency radar able to detect and engage both non-stealthy and stealthy jets at great distances, a single type RCAF fighter fleet composed exclusively of either the F-35 or a Super Hornet will be unable to effectively counter Russian incursions thus warranting American intervention as per the NORAD treaty.

Nonetheless, Canada can afford a mixed fighter fleet composed of a single type of stealth jets and a series of non-stealth planes if it’s a combination of one manned platform and several types of Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) given the relative low cost of drones compared to their manned counterparts.

----

Alexis Amini – editor for the Canadian Armed Forces program – is a graduate student in public and international affairs at Université de Montréal (UdeM), Québec. He has a BSc in political science from the same university. Having lived in Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates where he witnessed major geopolitical events, Alexis developed a passion for international security. His research focus revolves around geopolitics, defense policies and political risk analysis. Upon completion of his master’s program, Alexis intends to join the strategic intelligence industry.

Lawson fears Liberals Fighter Jet plan too Pricey

By: Laura Payton, CTV News 

The former head of Canada's military says the Liberal government’s plan to buy an interim fighter jet fleet will be expensive and difficult to carry out.

Retired general Tom Lawson, who served as chief of the defence staff from 2012 to 2015, says he believes Canada will end up buying Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet to replace the current fleet of CF-18 Hornets despite the government choosing Boeing's Super Hornet to beef up the current air craft.

"There are hundreds of these things flying now and they've been declared combat-capable in the United States," Lawson said in an interview with Evan Solomon, host of CTV's Question Period.

Retired general Tom Lawson appears on CTV's Question Period on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2016.

"And they'll be getting better and better for years to come. The F-35 is the way forward, not only for the United States but all the members and the partners who have bought into that program."

Lawson, a long-time supporter of the F-35, is now retired from the Canadian Forces. In an email to CTVNews.ca, he said he has done several days of work for Lockheed Martin as a strategic adviser, but noted his support for the F-35 dates back to his time as assistant chief of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

The F-35 was the source of considerable controversy during Lawson's time as Canada's top soldier, after the auditor general and parliamentary budget officer found a range of problems with a planned purchase of the Lockheed Martin jets. The problems included national defence not telling the government about the aircraft's potential drawbacks or the full costs of the program, as well as not having documents to support some of the decisions defence officials made.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised, during the 2015 election campaign, to hold an open competition to choose the CF-18 replacement, but pledged at the same time not to buy the F-35.

Last November, the government announced it was working on buying 18 Boeing Super Hornets as an interim measure while holding a five-year competition to choose a long-term replacement for the CF-18s.

Lawson, a former pilot, said that decision caught him off-guard because he believes Canada will eventually purchase the F-35.

"Every time the F-35 is in competition, it is the top -- in many cases the only choice out there, and it's becoming cheaper and developing an excellent reputation," Lawson said.

"So I think what caught me by surprise is that this putting off of that decision will of course be expensive and very difficult for the RCAF to carry out."

The current fleet of CF-18s is more than 30 years old and down from 138 planes to 76, according to numbers provided by the government.

During the 2015 election campaign, the Liberals estimated the cost of an F-35 at $175 million per plane, with the Super Hornet coming in at $65 million.

Canada has obligations to NORAD and NATO that require a specific number of jets to be "mission-ready," although officials won't say how many planes that means. Defence officials say there aren't enough mission-ready planes, but admit that is due to a change in policy under which they started counting the combined NORAD and NATO commitments. That policy changed on the day they announced the plan to purchase an interim fleet, a defence spokeswoman told

U.S. Again Pitches F-35 jet to Ottawa as Liberals aim to Replace CF-18

By: Daniel Leblanc, The Globe and Mail 

The U.S. Air Force made a last-minute pitch to the federal government in favour of the Lockheed-Martin F-35, hoping to reassure officials about the long-term viability of the stealth fighter jet that the Liberals promised not to buy in the past election, sources said.

A top American officer who leads the F-35 Lightning II Joint Program Office, based in Virginia, travelled to Ottawa on Oct. 14 to meet with Canadian officials who are working on the purchase of Canada’s next fleet of fighter jets. Lieutenant-General Christopher Bogdan discussed the ongoing development of the state-of-the-art fighter jet, which has clients around the world but is still facing a series of technological problems, officials said.

The visit from Lt.-Gen. Bogdan came at a crucial time, as a small team of Liberal ministers are set to choose one of three options to replace Canada’s fleet of CF-18s: launch a full and open competition; buy a small number of fighter jets for an interim fleet; or purchase an entire fleet of jets through a sole-sourced acquisition.

Defence-industry officials expect the cabinet committee on defence procurement to meet on this matter next week. Federal officials declined to comment on the timing of the coming meeting, but said the government does not plan to let the complex file drag on.

There are widespread concerns in the Liberal government about the short-term risks associated with the acquisition of the F-35, which is still in development.

Explainer: Breaking down the dogfight over Canada's next fighter jet

In September, 15 F-35s were grounded over the discovery of faulty insulation in avionics cooling lines in the aircraft’s wings, an issue that should be be fixed by the end of the year.

On a broader level, some Canadian officials were preoccupied by a recent report that raised a number of questions about the ability of the F-35 to achieve its promised capabilities.

Leaked to Bloomberg News over the summer, the report from the U.S. government’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation warned that the F-35 program was “not on a path toward success but instead on a path toward failing to deliver” full capabilities by the scheduled end of its development in 2018.

Lt.-Gen. Bogdan was in Ottawa earlier this month specifically to discuss the Canadian government’s plans to buy new fighter jets.

“The general provided an update on the status of the program and answered questions to help ensure officials had as complete information as possible on the F-35 program, as the Government of Canada considers all of its options to replace their legacy CF-18 fighter fleet,” said Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for Lt.-Gen. Bogdan.

Mr. DellaVedova would not give details of what was discussed at the meeting, but provided a statement by Lt.-Gen. Bogdan to dissipate concerns over the report from the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation.

“All of the issues mentioned are well-known to the F-35 Joint Program Office, the U.S. services, international partners and our industry team. … While nearing completion, the F-35 is still in development and technical challenges are to be expected. The program has a proven track record of solving technical issues and we’re confident we’ll continue to do so,” Lt.-Gen. Bogdan said.

There was no similar visit to Ottawa by American officials in charge of the Boeing Super Hornet, which is seen as the main rival to the F-35 in the race to replace Canada’s CF-18s.

Defence-industry sources said the U.S. Air Force is more supportive of the F-35 than the Super Hornet, which is operated by the U.S. Navy. Still, the Super Hornet program has had the opportunity to provide detailed information on its aircraft to Canadian officials, sources said.

During the past federal election, the Liberal Party said: “We will not buy the F-35 stealth fighter-bomber.” The Liberals promised an “open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fighter aircraft,” leading to the “purchase [of] one of the many, lower-priced options that better match Canada’s defence needs.”

F-35 exit strategy: Canada could pay about $313M to pull out of jet program

By: David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen

Canada could withdraw from the F-35 stealth fighter jet program on short notice by paying a little more than $300 million U.S., according to an analysis prepared by the defence department soon after the Liberals won the federal election.


The government could leave after only 90 days’ notice, although it would still need to pay the remaining fees the previous Conservative government committed to the F-35 program, according to the Department of National Defence documents obtained by Postmedia.

The analysis was produced four days after the election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power, pledging the Liberals would not buy the F-35, an aircraft he said was unnecessary for Canada’s needs and too expensive.

Although a Liberal government originally signed on to a research and development program for the plane, the Conservatives significantly expanded that commitment.

In 2006, Canada agreed to participate as a partner at a cost of US$551 million, according to the DND analysis. That did not commit the government to buying the aircraft, although it provided inside data about the project and a chance for domestic aerospace firms to bid on F-35 work.

“Canada has not signed a contract and can pull out by providing a 90-day written notification to other participating nations,” the analysis prepared for Deputy Minister John Forster pointed out.

“Canada’s liability would be no greater than US$346.7 million” – the difference between what it had already contributed and what was remaining of the original US$551 million commitment.

Since the analysis was produced, the Liberal government has paid another US$33 million.


The analysis noted Ottawa had also signed a separate memorandum of understanding with F-35 builder Lockheed Martin.

Under that commitment, Lockheed Martin provided F-35 work to Canadian firms on the understanding the Canadian government would eventually buy 65 of the jets.

If Canada decided not to proceed with the purchase, Lockheed Martin would not be obliged to employ domestic firms, the DND analysis noted.

“There is a risk that some contacts would not be renewed,” it added.

The Liberal government is expected to decide within months how to replace Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18 aircraft.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has talked about a fair and open competition for a new fighter jet. Despite Trudeau’s pledge that Canada will not buy the F-35, Lockheed Martin, with other aircraft firms, recently submitted information about their planes to the government.

“It looks like we’re being included so we look forward to competing on that basis,” Jack Crisler, one of Lockheed Martin’s senior F35 officials, recently told Postmedia.

The stealth fighter became a political nightmare for the Conservative government after it agreed to buy the planes. The F-35 has been plagued with technology problems and U.S. lawmakers have complained about its cost.

In 2012, Auditor General Michael Ferguson issued a report that concluded Canadian defence officials withheld key information from Parliament about the proposed purchase, underestimated costs and did not follow proper procurement rules.

In June, Lockheed Martin almost saw its hopes of selling planes to Canada evaporate. Ottawa was close to moving on an interim purchase of Super Hornet jets from Boeing and Trudeau claimed the F-35 “does not work and is far from working.”

In response, Lockheed Martin warned Canadian companies who had F-35 contracts would suffer. After that, plans for a Super Hornet interim deal seemed to disappear.

The U.S. Air Force says the F-35 is combat ready although critics say much work still needs to be done on the aircraft. Two F-35s recently visited Canada for the first time at the airshow in Abbotsford, B.C.

© Copyright (c) National Post

Liberals pay $33 million to stay in F-35 program

By: Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Canada has so far forked over more than $311 million to develop the F-35 — without any guarantee it will actually buy the multibillion-dollar stealth fighter.

The most recent instalment was made June 24, when the Liberal government quietly paid $32.9 million to the U.S. program office overseeing development of the warplane, despite having promised during last year's election campaign not to buy the F-35.

The contribution keeps Canada at the table as one of the nine partners in the project for the next year. Partners get a discount when purchasing the stealth fighter, and have access to billions of dollars in contracts associated with producing the plane.

Those potential industrial benefits are a big part of the reason why Canada continues to pay into the program, said Jordan Owens, a spokeswoman for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan. The government says Canadian companies have secured US$812 million in contracts since Canada's first F-35 payment in 1997.

"New skills and technologies gained through access to the program have helped position Canadian industry to take advantage of other advanced aerospace and defence projects," Owens added in an email.

Being a partner, however, does not guarantee future work.

U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-35, warned last month that future work would be directed to other countries if Canada chooses not to buy the stealth fighter.

Remaining at the table makes sense if there is a chance Canada will buy the plane, said former Defence Department procurement chief Alan Williams.

"But if they've already made up their mind that they're going to buy something else, then it's a waste of money."

During the campaign, the Liberals promised not to buy the F-35 and to hold a competition to replace the existing fleet of aging CF-18 fighters. Experts say that has put the government in a bind, since there's a real chance the fighter would come out on top in an open and fair competition.

The government recently launched consultations with jet fighter manufacturers to address what Sajjan has described as a shortage of available CF-18s. But some worry the consultations are more about giving the Liberals political cover to buy a plane other than the F-35 without holding a competition.

Owens said no decisions have been made in replacing the CF-18s. The five companies involved in the consultations are to submit details about their aircraft by Friday.

Sajjan: F-35 consortium agreement never seen as commitment to buy

By TIM NAUMETZ, The Hill Times 

A 2002 agreement Canada signed with the U.S. and seven other countries for development of the F-35 stealth warplane was never viewed by the partners as “a commitment to buy the F-35,” Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s office told The Hill Times.

Meanwhile, a leading expert on military affairs said the Liberal government could make good on its 2015 election promise to exclude the F-35 stealth attack plane as it wrestles with the need to replace Canada’s aging CF-18 fighter jets, but the decision would inevitably anger “a lot of powerful people in the Pentagon.”

In the wake of reports the government may be considering a sole-source acquisition of new fighter planes to replace at last part of Canada’s fleet of roughly 80 1980s-vintage CF-18 Hornets, University of British Columbia professor Michael Byers told The Hill Times Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) and his cabinet could either hold a competition, as Mr. Trudeau promised in the election campaign, or acquire more modern versions of the Boeing CF-18 without inviting other bids.

“Doing a fleet extension of Canada’s existing planes, Canada would buy a number of the latest model of the same plane,” Mr. Byers said, in reference to the fact Canada initially acquired the U.S. Boeing Corp. aircraft, under a previous Liberal government, coincidentally led by Justin Trudeau’s father, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau, in 1982.

“It would be like, let’s say you had a taxi fleet of Toyota Priuses that were all from 2010 and you decided to buy a sizeable number of 2016s, you’re buying the latest model of the same equipment, which means that your mechanics and your pilots don’t need to undergo the same degree of re-training,” Mr. Byers said in an interview this week.

Under his scenario, either through a sole-sourced contract with Boeing or a competition to replace part of the aging fleet whose life span was extended by the previous government to 2025 the year before the federal election, the Liberal government could still have an option in later years to acquire a smaller number of the new generation F-35 aircraft, sophisticated to the point some avionic experts refer to it as a “flying computer.”

Development delays, however, have been extensive.

U.S. Air Force news releases this month reported one of its major bases has yet to declare F-35As, the same model plane Canada was set to buy, fully combat operational.

Hill Air Force Base, Utah, also reported its wheel-shop technicians found a hydraulic tire-changing machine Lockheed Martin had supplied in 2015, along with the base’s first batch of F-35 planes, was designed to require four technicians to lift one wheel onto the changer.

The shop adapted its legacy changer to fit the heavy F-35 wheel.

Furthermore, the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida reported on May 24 that its technicians saved $84,000 by using locally manufactured parts and tools rather than those available from Lockheed Martin.

Mr. Byers noted Australia has already beefed up its similarly aging F-18 Hornet fighter jet fleet by acquiring Boeing F-18 “Super Hornets,” a more modern version of the original F-18, while waiting for the delayed Lockheed Martin F-35 to reach full operationally ready levels, as well as production levels that provide economy of scale prices Lockheed Martin promised as the plane was in early development and testing stages.

Canada in 2002 signed on with a consortium of eight other countries after the U.S. launched the Pentagon-led Joint Strike Fighter Program.

The previous year, the Pentagon conducted a prototype competition that defence giant Lockheed Martin Corp. won over Boeing Corp., for development and production of the so-called next generation of fighter jet warplanes.

In 2010, the former Conservative government announced Canada would exercise its option of acquiring a fleet of the costly planes—a total of 65 F-35 fighters with no timeline yet set for the actual purchase—but the Conservatives put the acquisition on hold in 2012 after a raging controversy over costs that had been withheld from Parliament prior to the 2011 federal election.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Heritage, Alta.) and his Conservatives concluded an analysis of options from among a range of fighter jet makers in 2014, including Lockheed Martin, but Parliament has received no update on the estimated cost of acquiring and operating a fleet of 65 F-35s since the last government report that year.

The 2014 update estimated a cost of $45.8 billion for acquisition, maintenance and sustainment over the fleet’s 35-year lifecycle, and the estimated price tag has since risen by at least $3 billion for acquisition and operating costs alone, due to the Canadian dollar’s lower value in exchange with the U.S. dollar.

Liberal Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan last week did not rule out the possibility that the government is set to begin replacing the declining CF-18 fleet without competitive bidding.

“The CF-18 will be extended to 2025,” Mr. Sajjan (Vancouver South, B.C.) told the House of Commons on June 7.

“We do need replacements, they should have been replaced a long time ago, we have to start the process soon because our fighters have been flying for some time, they should have been replaced,” Mr. Sajjan said.
Canada intends to pay instalment to F-35 consortium

In response to the speculation about sole-sourcing, a Lockheed Martin official raised a requirement that the Canadian aerospace industry would be able to bid on future aircraft sustainment and contracts only if Canada acquires some of the planes.

Mr. Sajjan responded Tuesday by pointing out that none of the original members of the Joint Strike Fighter Consortium are required to buy any F-35s, and Canada’s participation in the development of the plane through the consortium has led to $743 million in contacts for the Canadian aerospace industry.

“Canada remains a member of the Joint Strike Fighter program and has not notified the JSF Office about any changes to our participation,” Mr. Sajjan’s press secretary, Jordan Owens, said on behalf of Mr. Sajjan in response to questions from The Hill Times.

Ms. Owens said the government still owes an instalment to the consortium, but intends to pay it.

“To date, our participation in the JSF MOU (Joint Strike Fighter Memorandum of Understanding) has allowed companies in Canada to secure US $743 million in contracts,” the email from Ms. Owens said.

“New skills and technologies gained through access to the JSF Program have helped position Canadian industry to take advantage of other advanced aerospace and defence projects; it has always been clear that participation in the JSF MOU is not a commitment to buy the F-35.”

Canada currently has four Canadian Forces personnel assigned to the Joint Strike Fighter Office near Washington, D.C.

The Liberal campaign promise to hold a competition while excluding consideration of Lockheed Martin has come under severe criticism, including from Alan Williams, the former Department of National Defence procurement chief who was with DND when Canada joined the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program in 2002.

Mr. Byers said the Liberals, now having delayed a decision for seven months, could have delivered on their campaign promise by either sole-sourcing a CF-18 fleet extension with Boeing or releasing a competitive request for proposals whose maximum cost and desired type of fighter jet, along with required regional industrial benefits, would have ruled out the F-35.

The DND statement of operating requirements for the new plane could have established a maximum unit price, lower than the costly single-engine F-35, or a need for two engines, which the legacy Hornets as well as the modern version of the Boeing fighters have.

“There was nothing inherently difficult with the Liberal position in the campaign, but obviously it would require certainly annoying Lockheed Martin and by extension a lot of powerful people in the Pentagon,” Mr. Byers said.

He said the Liberals still have the option of sole-sourcing the Boeing plane, with no competition from any other bidders.

“That is my understanding, you are able to do a sole-source procurement, we do sole-source procurement for lots of things,” Mr. Byers said, referring to Conservative government procurement of long-range jet transport planes from Boeing, as well as short-haul cargo aircraft from Lockheed Martin.

“You can do this, and obviously it’s easier politically to do that when you’re simply acquiring the same model of equipment, that same type of equipment, in effect the same but a newer model,” Mr. Byers said. “It (the Super Hornet) is not a totally new plane, it’s based on the same air frame and a lot of the avionics are based on 30 years of experience and technological development at Boeing.”

The NDP has been insisting on an open competition to replace the CF-18 Hornets, with cost and capability among the required parameters.
“Either of those aircrafts might have pros and cons, but the only way to make that evaluation is to have an open and transparent competition,” said NDP MP Erin Weir.

“One of the things I find striking is that the federal government has not even put forward what those parameters would be for a competition,” said Mr. Weir (Regina-Lewvan, Sask.)

“We challenge the government, they say there haven’t been any decisions, there’s still a possibility of an open competition, but in seven months they haven’t taken any steps towards initiating such a competition,” Mr. Weir said in an interview.

“Certainly I would agree that one of those first steps is to lay out parameters of what the government is looking for, in terms of our defence requirements.”

tnaumetz@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times

Coyne: Fighter-jet purchases more about politics than what military needs

By: Andrew Coyne, National Post 

Ever since the Liberals promised, during the past election campaign, that they “would not buy the F-35” stealth fighter-bomber, at the same time pledging to hold an “open and transparent” competition to replace the Royal Canadian Air Force’s aging fleet of CF-18s, speculation has raged over which promise the Liberals would have to break.

It was plainly impossible to keep both. By definition, a competition cannot be open and transparent if one bidder has been excluded at the outset. But if they did hold a competition, and excluded the F-35, they faced the prospect of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from Lockheed Martin, the F-35’s manufacturer. On the other hand, if the F-35 were allowed to compete, it might well win — which would be even more embarrassing.

So it was always a certainty they would have to break one promise. The defence minister’s pointed refusal to rule out the F-35 from consideration, notwithstanding the platform’s unequivocal language, suggested to many observers it would be the former. Others leaned to the latter possibility, on the theory the competition would be “wired” in such a way as to effectively exclude the F-35, much as the process had been rigged in its favour under the Conservatives. Little did anyone suspect that in fact they planned to dispense with the competition altogether.

Yet, that would appear to be the best explanation for the news, as reported last week, that the government intends to purchase an unknown number of Boeing Super Hornets via a sole-source contract, i.e. without competitive bids of any kind. Ostensibly this is being defended as an “interim measure,” to close a suddenly discovered “capability gap” between our promises to our NATO and NORAD allies and our actual force on hand. But this has been widely dismissed as a fig leaf — the previous government had budgeted $400 million to refurbish the CF-18s, enough to keep them in the air until 2025.

The suspicion, rather, is that the purchase has been undertaken for (are you sitting down?) political reasons. By postponing the competition, neither buying the F-35 nor explicitly refusing to do so, they escape both the threatened lawsuit and the ignominy of choosing the F-35, without formally reneging on the promise to put the bulk of the purchase out to competitive tender at some later date. At the very least, they put off any difficult choices until after the next election. And if the “interim measure” should prove indefinite? Or the first in a series? Could the air force end up with a fleet of Super Hornets, acquired a few at a time?

After all, what option would remain, the initial commitment having been made? Bad enough the air force should have to maintain two fleets, CF-18s and Super Hornets, each with different training and equipment needs. But these are at least related, both using roughly similar technology, both made by Boeing (the Super Hornet is essentially an upgrade on its older cousin, originally known as the Hornet). But to add yet a third, entirely different category of plane? Possibly the military’s statement of requirements could be rewritten to justify it. Or possibly everyone would just forget there was ever supposed to be a competition.

Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, is fighting back, warning that if Canada were to choose not to participate in the multinational F-35 project it could not possibly expect Canadian subcontractors to receive the hundreds of millions of dollars in business they had been promised. You might have thought the company would stress the technological superiority and/or cost-effectiveness of its planes, but only if you were wholly unfamiliar with how military procurement decisions are made in this country.

Which is the underlying cause of this whole mess. I’m not qualified to judge which plane — the F-35, the Super Hornet or one of their several European competitors — best meets our military needs, which are themselves open to debate. But what should be clear is that, one, any major purchase of this kind should be put out to competitive tender, and two, the competition should be judged strictly in terms of which plane offers the most military value for money. Yet neither condition seems to apply.

Related
Matthew Fisher: Why the Super Hornets will force Canada out of its own north
Liberals shrug off Lockheed warnings it will take business elsewhere unless F-35s purchased
F-35 ‘ready to go,’ company says as U.S. Air Force prepares to declare stealth fighter combat-ready

Indeed, the same could be said for any number of similar procurement fiascos. Even where a competition is held, the criteria are as often political as military: that is, the “industrial and regional benefits” that are attached to every contract, in the form of local content, maintenance contracts and the like. The much-vaunted National Shipbuilding Strategy, now billions of dollars over budget and the subject of vicious inter-regional infighting, is a case in point.

Supposedly this was to be an example of a cleaned-up process, after the controversy surrounding the F-35 purchase, itself following on the EH-101 helicopter calamity, the submarine disaster and countless others. But the very decision to build the ships in Canada, at a time when there was no industry to speak of, rather than buy them off the shelf at half the cost from some other country, was a sign of what was really at work.

This remains the case, notwithstanding the government’s decision to use existing blueprints rather than build the ships from all-new designs. Defending the decision, Minister of Public Services and Procurement Judy Foote tweeted that the National Shipbuilding Strategy was about bringing “jobs and prosperity to many communities” and “leverag(ing) economic opportunities for (the) Canadian marine sector and economy.” Oh? I thought it was about getting ships for the navy.

Lockheed may shift F-35 fighter work away from Canada

By: ANDREA SHALAL,  Berlin, Reuters

Top U.S. weapons maker Lockheed Martin Corp is studying whether to shift work on its multibillion-dollar F-35 fighter jet away from Canadian firms amid uncertainty over Ottawa’s plans to buy the jet.

Jack Crisler, Lockheed’s vice president of business development for the F-35 program, told Reuters Lockheed was under pressure from other partner countries that had placed firm orders or accelerated orders to shift more work to them.

In this July 7, 2006, file photo, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is shown after it was unveiled in a ceremony in Fort Worth, Texas.
(Matthew Otero/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

“This is not anything punitive. It is just business,” he said in a telephone interview from the Netherlands, where the F-35 will fly in its first international air show on Saturday.

Canadian firms will account for development and production work on the F-35 program worth about $1 billion by the end of 2016, Crisler said.

But future work could be in jeopardy if Canada decides to skip a competition and order F/A-18E/F fighter jets built by rival Boeing Co, as indicated by recent Canadian media reports, he said.

A spokeswoman for Canada’s defense ministry said the reports were not accurate, but gave no further information.

Crisler said Lockheed had been unable to secure a meeting with the Canadian government to discuss the issue.

He said F-35 supply chain contracts were competitively awarded in rough proportion to the purchase plans of the nine original partner countries that helped fund development of the radar-evading jet: the United States, Britain, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia and Denmark.

Canada’s ruling Liberals won an election last October on a promise not to buy F-35s because the planes were too expensive. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons the opposition Conservatives had “clung to a plane that does not work and is far from being able to work.”

Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s F-35 office, said Canada remained a partner in the $379 billion program, and U.S. officials continued to provide the Canadian government information about the jets as they decided how to proceed.

More than 180 of the new jets are now flying, including an initial squadron of U.S. Marine Corps F-35 jets that were declared ready for combat a year ago, he said.

Crisler said if Canada held an open competition, Lockheed would retain contracts with Canadian firms, but it would need to rethink if Ottawa opted for a sole-source deal with Boeing.

“We are evaluating all that now,” he said. “The most important thing is that we’ve got to protect the enterprise as we get ready to ramp up production.”

However, in a note to clients on Friday, Macquarie analyst Konark Gupta questioned Lockheed’s rhetoric, noting that the company recently awarded long-term F-35 contracts to another Canadian supplier.

“(This) suggests to us that Lockheed could simply be threatening Canada to win an F-35 order,” Gupta wrote.

Sixty Canadian firms had worked on the F-35 development program, and 70 others are now involved in production of the jets, including Magellan Aerospace, Crisler said.

Canadian firms involved urged Ottawa on Thursday to hold a fair and open competition to replace its aging fleet of CF-18 fighter jets. Their supply contracts, they wrote in the joint statement, were contingent on Canada buying the F-35.

“Not selecting the F-35 will set off a chain of events that will see hundreds of millions of investment dollars lost, and high-tech jobs leaving Canada, going to countries who are buying the F-35,” they said.

Liberals Miss Membership Payment to Stay in F-35 Consortium

By: Murray Brewster, CBC News 

The Trudeau government has missed the deadline for a multimillion-dollar payment that keeps Canada in the club of nations involved in the F-35 stealth fighter program, CBC News has learned.

The $32-million membership fee was due on May 31, but a spokeswoman for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan confirmed late Monday that the U.S. project office overseeing development of the highly complex jet has not received the instalment.

But Jordan Owens cautioned not to read too much into the oversight and that Canada is still on the hook for the cash.

"We will honour our financial commitments," she said, responding for the minister who was in transit from a defence conference in Singapore.

Related:
F-35 fighter jet purchase by Liberals may still be in the mix
Sajjan refuses to rule out F-35 from fighter jet replacement competition
Canada's F-35 decision anxiously awaited, says U.S. deputy secretary of defence

It's unclear when the instalment will be made and whether there are any penalties associated with a late payment.

The policy issue is an uncomfortable conversation for the Liberals.

Earlier this year, the fact that Canada was still paying to be part of the F-35 buyers' club raised questions about their campaign pledge to purchase something else other than the stealth fighter. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it "no longer makes sense" to buy the Lockheed Martin fighter because Canada would not participate in any first strike missions.

The annual payment also gives the federal government the right to buy F-35s at a discount price and gives Canadian companies access to supply contracts for the construction and maintenance of the high-tech jet.

The missed payment does not signal Canada's withdrawal from the agreement, Owens said.
Sole-sourcing a new jet

But it does shine a further spotlight on the contradictions in the Liberal policy and comes one day after published reports stated that cabinet was mulling over the sole-source purchase of an unknown number of Super Hornets, the Boeing-built rival to the F-35.

"I was shocked," said Alan Williams, a former procurement manager at the Department of National Defence, and one of the most strident critics of the Harper government's plan to acquire the F-35 without a competition. "I don't think anyone would have expected that kind of behaviour."

Williams was one of the defence insiders most impressed with the Liberal promise of open competition and transparency in last fall's election.

He said that if the government does a sole-source deal with Boeing, it makes the Liberals no better than the government they replaced.

"There is no legal justification to sole-source this," said Williams, who noted that the use of the national security criteria would not apply.

The move would possibly open the door to a legal — or even trade — challenge by competitors, he said.

"I'm not sure companies want to take the government to court on this kind of thing, but, you know, there is no legal justification for doing this," he said.

Owens denied cabinet has discussed a sole-source deal.
Capability gap or no capability gap?

But it was less than clear where the government was headed Monday when John McKay, the parliamentary secretary for defence, said the Liberals must do something about CF-18s that are getting old and need to be retired.

​"There is a developing capability gap that needs to be managed," he said. "We have obligations to NATO. We have obligations to Norad."

Up until the last couple of weeks, the line from both the Liberals and their Conservative predecessors was that the 1980s vintage CF-18s, which have been upgraded, are still good to keep flying into the 2020s.

Indeed, a year before being defeated, the Harper government ordered a further life-extension to the fighters — worth hundreds of millions of dollars — so they could stay airborne until 2025.

In light of that, Conservative defence critic James Bezan said the so-called capability gap is fiction.

"I think it's imaginary on their part and they're trying to use that as the narrative," he said. "There isn't this need to actually go out there and select immediately."

Follow @Murray_Brewster on Twitter

Sajjan: CF-18's Need Replacement Now

By: Daniel Leblanc - The Globe and Mail 

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has pushed the purchase of new fighter jets to the top of his priority list, stating the current fleet of CF-18s can hardly fulfill its domestic and international mandates.

Minister of National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan speaks at the CANSEC conference in Ottawa, Thursday May 26, 2016.
(Adrian Wyld/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

“Our fleet of CF-18s need to be replaced now. And the fact they have not been replaced means we are facing a capability gap in the years ahead,” Mr. Sajjan said in a speech on Thursday morning.

“Now, we did not create this issue. Unfortunately I inherited it, but it needs to be dealt with quickly,” he said, blaming the previous Conservative government for failing to buy a replacement plane.

Mr. Sajjan made the comments at the CANSEC defence and military trade show in Ottawa, where the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturers are lobbying federal officials on the merits of their respective product.

Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-35 stealth fighter, has a large presence at CANSEC, despite the Liberal Party’s promise in the last election not to buy its airplane.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Sajjan refused to state whether any aircraft manufacturer will be prevented from bidding on the multi-billion-dollar contract.

“As I said from the get-go, right now my focus is on making sure that our men and women in the Air Force have the right capabilities and my focus is replacing the F-18s,” Mr. Sajjan said, refusing to lay out a specific timeline for the purchase.

Canada remains an official partner in the F-35 program, which has allowed Canadian firms to win contracts for the international production line. Still, Mr. Sajjan said that will not influence the government’s handling of the procurement process.

“This doesn’t mean that the F-35, we are going to be purchasing that,” he said. “I want to make sure that we do our due diligence before we make any decisions.”

In the last election campaign, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau promised to opt for a more “affordable” aircraft than the stealth Lockheed Martin fighter jet.

“We will not buy the F-35 fighter jet,” said Mr. Trudeau, less than two months before he was sworn in as prime minister.

However, in his mandate letter to his lead ministers on the procurement file, Mr. Trudeau simply called on them to launch an open and transparent process to replace the CF-18s.

Mr. Sajjan said time is running short.

“Today, we are risk-managing a gap between our NORAD and NATO commitments and the number of fighters available for operations. In the 2020s, we can foresee a growing capability gap, and this, I find unacceptable and it’s one thing that we plan to fix,” the Minister of Defence said in his speech.

The CF-18s were designed to last 20 years when they were purchased in the 1980s. The planes will now be used for twice as long, lasting into the 2020s, Mr. Sajjan said.

More than two dozen protestors blocked one of the main entrances to the CANSEC trade show on Thursday, denouncing the Liberal government for approving the sale of Canadian-made light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Letting only a few cars enter the facility every minute, the protestors sang songs such as Solidarity Forever and carried banners stating “Canadians Say No To Sending Weapons To Saudi Arabia.”

“He’s putting a Liberal face on the sale of weapons of destruction,” protestor Joel Harden said of Mr. Sajjan. “The Liberals can’t wash their hands of this.”

Still, inside the trade show, Mr. Sajjan toured the booth of General Dynamics Land Systems, which featured a LAV 6.0 vehicle that can be used for humanitarian work.

“That’s great,” Mr. Sajjan said as he was briefed by a GDLS official on the capabilities of the vehicle.

Liberal Officials Explore CF-18 Replacement Options

By: Daniel Leblanc - The Globe and Mail 

The chief of staff to Procurement Minister Judy Foote sat in an F-35 simulator and fought against fake enemy jets at a military trade show in Ottawa, offering a clear sense that the once-maligned Lockheed-Martin aircraft remains in the race to replace Canada’s fleet of CF-18s.

A model of the Lockheed Martin F-35 at CANSEC 2016  (Globe and Mail/Dave Chan)

Gianluca Cairo also tried his hand at Boeing’s Super Hornet simulator, later explaining that the government is simply involved in “information sharing” with all of the firms interested in the massive military contract.

Still, there has been a heavy federal presence at this year’s CANSEC security and defence trade show, as both bureaucratic and political staff showed a willingness to find out more about all of the fighter jets on the market despite the Liberal Party’s pledge not to buy F-35s.

Officials from many of the world’s largest military manufacturers were out in full force to lobby the government on the multibillion-dollar fighter-jet procurement that has been in limbo for years, all trying to prod the Liberals into launching a competition as soon as possible.

“It’s an evolving process,” said John Belanger of Sweden’s Saab, which is hoping to sell its Gripen fighter jet to the Canadian Forces.

“At this point, the government really needs to come out and tell us what they are looking for.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party said during last year’s election campaign that it “no longer makes sense” to buy a fighter with the F-35’s stealth, first-strike capability, citing skyrocketing costs for a plane that has been plagued with development problems. The Liberals vowed instead to buy a “lower-priced” aircraft and funnel the savings into the Royal Canadian Navy.

However, Mr. Cairo and other officials from Ms. Foote’s office, as well as senior bureaucrats in charge of procurement, made a point of touring all of the stalls at the fair on Wednesday.

At the Lockheed-Martin booth, former Canadian fighter pilot Billie Flynn and retired lieutenant-general Charles Bouchard greeted visitors by arguing that Canada needs the most modern fighter-jet capability to ward off security threats. Canada has been a paying partner in the F-35 program since 2001, although it remains to be seen whether the Canadian Forces will ever buy the aircraft for their own use.

“What I know is that the F-35 program continues to advance and that more countries continue to commit to the airplane with vigour,” Mr. Flynn said in an interview. “There is no wavering of commitment of the partners in the F-35 program and the momentum continues to be strong.”

Boeing is countering that its twin-engine Super Hornet is the best-equipped aircraft to patrol the Arctic, stating it offers more options to pilots in the event of an engine loss than the single-engine F-35.

“It is fundamentally important for the kinds of missions that Canada performs on a day-to-day basis,” said Roberto Valla, Boeing’s vice-president for Canada.

Mr. Valla added that Boeing is promising to invest 100 per cent of the value of the fighter-jet contract in industrial and technological benefits in Canada, whereas the F-35 program only offers Canadian firms a chance to bid on contracts for the international project.

A number of protesters arrived early at CANSEC on Wednesday to denounce Canada’s sale of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, arguing the $15-billion contract should have been cancelled over human-rights concerns in the country.

“International human-rights organizations and the United Nations have provided ample evidence that Saudi Arabia uses weaponry, specifically armoured vehicles mounted with machine guns, to kill and injure unarmed civilians in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen,” said Kevin Shimmin of a group called Homes Not Bombs.

Protesters are expected to show up again on Thursday when Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Ms. Foote both speak on the final day of CANSEC.

Lockheed Tells Liberals - F-35 Attractive option for Arctic defence

By: MATTHEW FISHER in Crystal City, Va.
National Post

THE RUSSIAN PRESENCE IN THE ARCTIC IS NOT MYTHICAL. IT RENOVATED 15 BASES THERE IN 2015.

Photo: LOCKHEED MARTIN FILES

Having remained mostly silent during the often overheated debate about Canada’s next fighter jet purchase that took place during the Stephen Harper years, Lockheed Martin has begun to pitch its F-35 as the best choice to defend the vast Atlantic and Pacific approaches to Canada and especially the High Arctic.

It’s no coincidence that Lockheed Martin has stressed the F-35’s suitability for Arctic operations, something that lines up with the Liberals’ focus on asserting Canada’s sovereignty over the Far North, writes Matthew Fisher.

It is probably no coincidence that what Lockheed has chosen to stress about the fifth-generation warplane dovetails with the Liberal government having declared that asserting Canada’s sovereignty over the Far North and the defence of North American airspace were among its security priorities.

It follows a promise from Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan that Canada will conduct “an open and transparent process to replace the CF18s.”

That reverses what the Liberals had said during the election campaign about excluding the F-35 from consideration from what will be a multibillion-dollar contract, no matter which fighter jet platform the federal government buys.

It comes after the Pentagon has said the cost of each F-35 has dropped to US$100 million from $145 million and is expected to dip to about $80 million by 2019.

The high cost of the Joint Strike Fighter had been one of the other major complaints in Canada.

Lockheed’s emphasis on the suitability of the JSF for Arctic operations against manned, unmanned and missile threats was designed to clear up “misconceptions about this airplane,” Billie Flynn, a former RCAF squadron commander who is a senior test pilot on the F-35, said at Lockheed’s offices in a Washington suburb.

The JSF has only one engine, which critics say makes it is too dangerous to fly over the vast northern expanses.

This assessment is at odds with the U.S. decision to base its entire over-the-pole fighter jet defence on the F-35 — as it has done for decades with the single-engine F-16.

Similarly, Norway intends to fly only F-35s above the Arctic Circle. Canada’s other Arctic ally, Denmark, which sometimes sends fighter jets to Greenland, is likely to opt for the F-35 soon, too.

“Think about Air Canada no longer having four-engine airplanes,” Flynn said in explaining why other countries had decided to deploy F-35s in the Far North.

“We fly across the Pacific, the Atlantic and even as far down as Australia in twoengine aircraft. It is the same with fighter engines. There is no need for two engines anymore.”

The F-35 was a better choice for Canada in the Arctic than fourth-generation alternatives such as Boeing’s F-18 Super Hornet, Flynn said, because it had more sophisticated sensors, including passive and active radars that could spot intruders at a greater distance.

“Russia is closer than you think. It is only 840 nautical miles from Alert,” Flynn said, referring to Canada’s top secret air force listening post at the north end of Ellesmere Island. “The Russian presence in the Arctic is not mythical. It renovated 15 bases there in 2015.”

The F-35 has faced hard questions over a potentially dangerous ejection seat, problems with overheating when its bomb bay is open at high altitudes, and software glitches with the helmet and with millions of lines of coding for the jet’s computer, which is meant to fuse information from its radars, infrared cameras, electronic jammers and the computers of other aircraft flying with it.

While acknowledging that there had been challenges, Flynn said they were being resolved. Where there had been about 3,000 “deficiencies,” there were now “419, which sounds like a lot, but it isn’t,” he said.

Flynn said he believed the F-35 was uniquely capable of providing the edge required to counter the “stealthy” jets being developed by Russia and China.

Having “stealth is a matter of survivability. If you don’t have it, you are an RCAF pilot who is not coming home,” Flynn said.

“You need an aircraft that can sense (other aircraft) from a long way away and then prosecute them if and when that is required.”

If Canada were to chose another aircraft, Flynn raised the prospect that the government might have “to leave the country’s Arctic defence to allies” whose F-35s would be capable of dealing with a new generation of lethal long-range Russian missiles such as the S-400, which can strike targets hundreds of kilometres away.

US Still Waiting on Official Canadian Decision on F-35

Written by: CBC-News

The U.S. deputy secretary of defence says he'd like the Canadian government to make up its mind, one way or the other, whether it will replace its aging CF-18 fleet with Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jets.

"Because Canada has been a partner in the F-35 program, if they withdraw — I think it's 65 airplanes — the price for all the other members in the coalition goes up slightly," said Robert Work, in an interview with Rosemary Barton, host of CBC News Network's Power & Politics.

The Conservative government had planned to acquire 65 F-35 stealth fighter jets for the Royal Canadian Air Force, but the procurement process was put on hold after the auditor general accused the government of fudging the project's costs and not doing sufficient research.


During the last election Justin Trudeau announced his party would scrap the Conservatives' troubled F-35 fighter jet program. (Daniel Hughes/U.S. Air Force/Reuters)

One of the new Liberal government's main campaign pledges was to buy a less-expensive aircraft and plow the savings into the navy.

However, since taking office, Canada's Minister of Public Services and Procurement Judy Foote has said Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jetsmay still be in the mix to replace Canada's CF-18s.
Most costly weapons program in U.S. history

"It's important for Canada to make the decision on the aircraft that they need for their national interest, and then the United States and Canada can work it out," said Work.

Work said he doesn't think the Canadian government is dragging its feet, but the U.S. is watching closely.

"I work in the Pentagon, so I measure time different ways than other people, so I don't believe it's been long. These are very important political decisions and defence decisions for Canada to make, and we're not trying to pressure them in any way," said Work in an interview at the Pentagon.

"We'd like to know, we're anxious to know, where exactly will you go so we can start to plan together. But these types of decisions are made in due course and we're looking forward to the final decision."

The F-35 program was developed by Lockheed Martin to promote a common system between allied partners including the U.S, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, Denmark, Norway and Australia.

In 2010, the U.S. committed to buying 2,443 aircraft, making it the most costly weapons program in U.S. military history. It's been beset with delays and technical bugs, many of which are related to the development of the fighter's software​.

In 2013, Orlando Carvalho, executive vice-president of aeronautics at Lockheed Martin, warned that Canada's aerospace industry would likely fall out of favour if Canada withdrew its intentions to buy F-35s.

"Whatever Canada's choice is we're going to be interoperable," said Work. "I mean Canada and the United States armed forces are as about as interoperable as you can imagine."
Canadian trainers could land on front lines in Iraq, Syria

That close relationship also exists in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Work said.

He told Barton that Canada will be "central" in training local ground troops who will lead the combat against ISIS in two key cities, Al-Raqqah in Syria, and Mosul in Iraq.
ISIS airstrikes by Canada to end, training forces to triple
U.S. airstrikes targeting ISIS in Libya kill Serbian hostages, officials say

Last month Canada announced it will triple the number of Canadian Forces members helping to train local ground troops. The Communications Security Establishment, Canada's electronic spy service, is also set to play a more prominent role in the fight.

When pressed about any disappointment with Canada's decision to pull its jets out, Work shook his head "no."


Libyan troops sit on an armoured personnel carrier in August 2015 in Benghazi. Libya's second-largest city has seen some of the worst fighting since the 2011 uprising against Moammar Gadhafi. (Abdullah Doma/AFP/Getty Images)

He said the intelligence Canada provides "is just as important as six fighter jets."

Work, who previously worked as undersecretary of the U.S. navy, said it's hard to say whether Canada's decision to pull its six CF-18 jets out of the bombing mission will put people on the ground at risk.

"All of the pilots who fly over Iraq and Syria are at risk every day. A lot of people focus on the airplanes, for example, and of the 66 countries in the coalition, Canada punches well above its weight," he said.

Work said it's possible Canadian troops could find themselves caught in an unexpected attack alongside Peshmerga forces.

"It's a chaotic environment, it's a very fluid battlefield. It's not like a normal battlefield with front lines. [ISIS] is very canny and very good, tactically proficient at what they do on the battlefield," he said.
Canada welcomed in Libya campaign

The coalition is also trying to figure out the best way forward in Libya, a country disturbed by civil war and mounting Islamic extremism.

Work said he expects Canada to play an important role if the coalition does decide to expand its campaign into Libya. He said things have to happen sooner rather than later.

"We would like to have a government [in Libya] we could work with. That's the most problematic part right now," said Work.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has already signalled that Canada could soon join a military coalition to take on an estimated 3,000 ISIS fighters in the country.

Canada to Remain as part of JSF F-35 Consortium

Undated/Uncaptioned photo of F-35 from The Associated Press

Published by: Steven Chase, The Globe and Mail 

The Canadian government intends to make a payment this spring to remain part of the consortium of F-35 Lightning fighter-jet buyers, despite a Liberal election promise to exclude the aircraft when selecting this country’s next warplane.

The move raises questions about whether the Liberal government is reconsidering its ban on purchasing the controversial F-35 jet.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s party announced during last year’s election campaign that it “no longer makes sense” to buy a fighter with the F-35’s stealth, first-strike capability, citing skyrocketing costs for a plane that has been plagued with development problems. The Liberals vowed instead to buy a “lower-priced” aircraft and funnel the money saved into the Royal Canadian Navy.

This week, however, Department of National Defence spokeswoman Ashley Lemire said Canada plans to pay the latest required annual instalment to the Joint Strike Fighter program. She said the upcoming payment is estimated to be $32.9-million (U.S.)

The contribution would maintain Canada’s membership in the F-35 buyers’ pool. This gives Ottawa the right to buy F-35s at a discount and allows Canadian companies to continue to bid on supply contracts for the plane.

Asked why Canada remains in the Joint Strike Fighter program when the Liberals have eliminated the plane as an option, Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan said the government is still reviewing how it should proceed on replacing the country’s aging CF-18 fighters.

“We can’t just make a very quick decision on something like this. We want to make a responsible decision as we move forward. We have to go through the proper requirements. Once we go through a proper process, decisions will be made at that,” he said.

The annual required contribution to remain in the Joint Strike Fighter program, alongside allies such as the United States and Britain, has varied between $21-million and $48.5-million over the past five years.

Conservative Senator Daniel Lang said the federal government’s decision to stay in the program is puzzling.

“Why would anybody spend millions of dollars to stay in a program they’re not going to participate in?” said Mr. Lang, who chairs the Senate national security and defence committee.

Leaving the Joint Strike Fighter program would hurt Canadian business because companies would no longer be able to bid on contracts to supply parts and software for the plane.

Canadian companies have won more than $750-million in contracts related to the F-35 because Canada has been a partner in the program for decades. Should the Liberals exit the program, Canadian firms’ contracts will wind down and they will not be eligible to bid on further work.

“At this time, Canada remains in the Joint Strike Fighter program, which ensures Canada can continue to benefit from economic opportunities resulting from the partnership while we work to determine the way forward,” the Defence Department’s Ms. Lemire said.

One procurement expert working for the federal government, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it’s unclear whether Ottawa could successfully defend against legal action should it bar jet maker Lockheed Martin and its F-35 plane from a competition. “They will have to decide whether they want to run a competition or face a lawsuit.… The easiest option for a variety of reasons is to run a competition and run it fairly.”

The Liberals inherit a military purchasing effort plagued by delays and cost overruns, from shipbuilding to aircraft.

“I will be honest with you. Our procurement system is not providing capabilities to [Canadian Forces] members in a timely manner,” Mr. Sajjan told the Senate on Wednesday.

The Trudeau government has created a cabinet committee to oversee defence procurement that will be headed by Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr, who previously served as president and chief executive of the Business Council of Manitoba.

Cayouette: Statement of Requirements for CF-18 Replacement

Fighter Replacement
The Need for a Statement of Requirements
BY RICHARD CAYOUETTE
© 2016 FrontLine Defence (Vol 13, No 1)

There is no doubt that Canada needs a replacement for its ageing CF-18 fleet – the airframe, avionics and weapon systems are getting old and obsolete. What are our future needs? Have new technologies and threats been considered? Can we make the replacement program a success story for Canada’s economy?

The RCAF CF-18 has been life-extended twice - now until at least 2025; and there is no definitive replacement plan yet.
Photo: RCAF 

The CF-18 was a ground-breaking (should say air-breaking) feat of technology when it was selected. A force multiplier, its multi-role capability is still impressive by today’s standards. The same order of magnitude of technological leap that was achieved in the early 80s is non-existent in 2016.

When we hear about manœuverability, agility and ease to fly, our military pilots express their “want’’ for a single seat aerial sports car, not a military system. Nowadays the pilot is the limiting factor in air-to-air combat as he/she is limited to pulling an 8g turn; a few will admit it. Think of all the hardware and systems needed to interface with and keep a pilot alive: cockpit, stick, throttle, pedals, visual instruments, ejection seat, liquid oxygen, redundant systems... A pilot on board means much more weight and drag for a given design; it makes the fighter jet inefficient and very expensive. Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) do not have these restrictions, they can be built at a much lower cost and can easily outturn and defeat any manned aircraft.

Highly skilled pilots are needed to command the platforms but not necessarily to be inside the platforms. Consider this scenario: Upon detection of an air threat in the Canadian Air Defense Identification Zone (CADIZ), C-130s, C-17s or other aircraft take off from various Canadian air bases. Each aircraft carries multiple UCAVs which they launch as they approach the interception point (in a best case scenario, the UCAVs takeoff on their own from small airports near the CADIZ, thereby cutting response time). Airborne intruders will see UCAVs coming at them from all azimuths, each pinging with their radars, each having multiple “all aspect’’ missiles on board locked-in for the intercept. That is a deterrent that would be fatal to ignore.

This is akin to the Bomarc tactics but the nukes are replaced with a swarming and cooperative engagement artificial intelligence capability, sophisticated communication systems, long-range detection and identification sensors and very smart and precise guidance software.

Would that scenario fulfill the NORAD air defence role? Definitely, yes.

The required technology and expertise already exists in Canada for design and construction of such a solution. Maybe a non-stealth, remotely-piloted F-35 variant with no cockpit and vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capability is the answer.

The element of surprise can be advantageous. The F-35 does not have long range capability in the Canadian context but we could deploy many of them near our border in very isolated, very camouflaged shelters from which they would take off vertically; the “shell game” tactic would be very hard to counter as no conspicuous runway is needed. VTOL fighters could be a real tactical advantage. We are about to buy F-35s without that capability. Why?

That brings me to the question of stealth. Stealth aircraft are needed for invasion, for deep penetration strikes where destruction of enemy air defence and ground assets is the primary goal. That is why the B-2 and the F-117 were developed. Does Canada need a stealth aircraft? Not unless our defence strategy includes invading foreign nations.

The primary operational role for Canada’s F-18s is NORAD air defence: the sovereignty of our airspace and borders. The enemy should see many of us coming at them fast and from far away outside the CADIZ, with the right weapon: that is the deterrent. There are many excellent options in operation around the globe. Let the discussion be about the sensors, speed and range and other capabilities of the platform, and about the weapon’s performance and quantity, not about showmanship.

Why is there a machine gun on the F-35? It does not fit the air defence scenario. The “sport’’ connotation springs again. All that is needed is a long range missile for intercept and, for self-defence, an all-aspect missile that can engage an enemy on its tail.

Ok, we have NATO and coalition requirements for ground support where only a pilot in the cockpit can make the fast decisions required by its counterpart on the ground, the Forward Observer Officer. In this mission scenario, having a big machine gun, a large number of bombs and some agility and survivability are a big plus. So why not get the drawings and build, in Canada, a bunch of A-10s with modern avionics? That would be formidable! Such designs do not require export-forbidden and foreign-owned technology like stealth and “smart skin’’, which means there is no reason we cannot build 100% of it here.

In my opinion, the F-22 Raptor is the best air-to-air combat aircraft. If we still need a manned air-to-air superiority fighter for visually identifying a commercial aircraft in distress or an unknown intruder, let’s buy a few Raptors to do that mission.

Aircraft, and all its components: engines, airframe, software, avionics, can be designed and built – right here in Montreal. Companies here produce the best military simulation and training systems in the world. All the required competencies are in our own country. We must design and build it here in Canada to own the capability and cost-effectively support platforms throughout their long life cycle. Not just in Montreal, but everywhere in Canada where the skilled labour is available.

In summary, the operational requirements for replacing the F-18 fighter jets have to be reviewed with future missions in mind. I am convinced that once completed, the Statement of Operational Requirements (SOR) will have effectively torn down the barriers preventing design and production of the platforms and weapon systems here in Canada.

Canada needs an effective air-to-air defence platform and some manned ground support fighter jets, like a modernized A-10 and a very few Raptors for exception handling (a mixed fleet mostly designed and built in Canada but only the best in class for each tactical scenario).

The focus of replacing the CF-18s should be about our safety, the health of our economy and, correspondingly, about Canadian pride.

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Richard Cayouette is the President of Martello Defence Security Consultants Inc., based in Bromont, Quebec.