Former CF-18 Pilot: Super Hornet wrong decision for RCAF

By: Matthew Fisher

A recently retired senior air force officer says he knows of no emergency that would require Ottawa to buy Super Hornets as a stopgap.

“This gives Canada the wrong aircraft forever, or certainly for the next generation,” says the veteran who spent decades flying fighter jets.

“The fact is that there is no urgent need to bolster the fighter force right now.”

A photo released by aeronautical manufacturer Boeing shows Super Hornet fighter jets during tests at an unidentified location.

By deciding to buy the Super Hornets without a competition, Ottawa is not waiting for the findings of a defence policy review that was supposed to seek input from Canadians about the country’s strategic needs and procurement priorities.

Even if new fighter jets were urgently needed, there is still time to hold an open and fair competition, says the former officer, who flew CF-18s and CF-104 Starfighters in the High Arctic and Europe before holding key staff positions.

If the F-35 won such a competition — and it has won every competition where other air forces have pitted it against the Super Hornet and older European fighters — the U.S. Air Force would be willing to slow its acquisition of F-35s to enable the Royal Canadian Air Force to jump the queue and get enough of them within three years to fill any alleged gap in Canada’s ability to defend the Arctic and assist NATO in a time of war.

The RCAF had told the government and a parliamentary committee it could safely operate the current CF-18s until 2025 and meet all Canada’s obligations to NORAD and NATO with a $400-million life extension program the Conservative government approved.

It has been reported that the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau is intent on buying Super Hornet fighter jets from Boeing rather than F-35s from Lockheed Martin.

“I assess the situation as entirely political,” the retired officer said. “Nobody will even have this discussion a year from now.”

This is because with nearly 200 F-35s already flying and solutions being found for initial technical problems with the software and high-tech pilot’s helmet, “it is becoming more and more obvious every day that it is the best aircraft.”

More and more obvious every day that (F-35) is the best aircraft

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan suggested several months ago there would be an open competition to choose the next fighter. A few weeks ago, he indicated another shift in policy: the government would fill “a capability gap” by seeking an interim solution and would make a final choice later on.

But the retired pilot said it was “disingenuous” of the government to hint that after buying Super Hornets it would buy another type of fighter jet at some point.

One of the reasons long cited by the Liberals for excluding the F-35 — also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) — was that it cost a lot more than the Super Hornet. That is no longer true because the JSF has dropped dramatically in price. Finland recently costed the Super Hornet at about $92 million each, compared to $85 million for the JSF, he said.

Related
Trudeau says F-35s are ‘far from working,’ as Liberals, Tories spar over fighter jet strategies
Michael Den Tandt: Liberals must get on with job of modernizing Canada’s rapidly aging air fleet
Liberals planning to buy Super Hornet fighter jets before making final decision on F-35s, sources say

Repugnant, deceitful and dishonest are some of the milder words used by others in the defence community when asked to describe how the Liberals have handled the fighter jet file.

While much more polite, the former fighter pilot was highly critical of the government for leaving the defence of Canada for the next 40 years to an aircraft developed more than 40 years ago and rebuilt 20 years ago, instead of acquiring the cutting edge F-35, which has been designed to be invisible to enemy radar. That, he said, was a critical issue in the Far North, where other air forces, including Russia, will soon be flying only stealthy aircraft.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has warned of a pending "gap" in Canada's military capabilities.

Debunking the myth that the twin-engine Super Hornet was a wiser choice for Canada’s vast north than the single-engine F-35, he noted engine technologies had greatly improved since Canada bought its CF-18s in the 1980s and jets seldom fly at low altitude any more, rendering them less vulnerable to bird strikes.

The U.S. has such confidence in the F-35s, they were the only jets being based in northern Alaska.

Ottawa has argued that by buying Super Hornets as a stopgap measure it would only be following Australia lead, but the retired pilot said, “there is no comparison to be made. That was a very different situation.”

Australia bought Super Hornets to fill a gap created by the retirement of its F-111 jets. But it had already decided to buy F-35s as its front-line fighter and had remained committed to that purchase.

“If you do get the Super Hornet in 2016 that would be an upgrade on our CF-18s. Nobody would argue with that,” the officer said. “But it is not going to be updated. The manufacturing process is shutting down and pretty soon the Super Hornet will be frozen in time.

“The F-35s will have parts and be maintained for five decades. The beauty of the F-35 is that 15 to 20 countries are getting it. Many of them will be working on better radars and more stealth.”

CAF Preparing for Possible UN Mission to Burundi, Mali, Niger, or Burkina Faso and NATO Mission in Libya

Published today in the National Post, Matthew Fisher outlines where the Canadian Forces could possibly be deployed next.

When the Trudeau Government was elected in November of 2015, they indicated that they would return Canada to a Peacekeeping role internationally; and while I will not debate the notion of Peacekeeping here, it seems that at some point in the near future (believed to be in the mid-late 2016 calendar year) the Liberals will announce that the Canadian Armed Forces will deploy on at least one UN Peacekeeping Mission in Africa; despite the regions high risk, and the budget cuts to DND that are expected in today's 2016 Budget.

Matthew Fisher writes that the CAF could possibly see itself in Burundi, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, or Libya. Is there a possibility that the CAF could end up in more than one of these positions? Yes it is highly likely. While Minister of Foreign Affairs Dion has said the CAF will not enter Libya unless there is one Government; Minister of Defence Sajjan has indicated that as long as NATO has a long-term plan in Libya he would consider a training mission to help stop ISIS' advance in the country. Especially as  reports indicate support for the Government of National Accord (GNA), Libya's U.N.-backed unity government, is growing. However, opposition does still remain.

A Canadian Armed Forces Tactical Aircraft Security Officer provides a ring of security around a Canadian Armed Forces CC-177 Globemaster III aircraft at the airport in Bamako, Mali. (February 2013: CAF Combat Camera)

Here is Matthew Fisher's article:


There is no clear consensus in the military community about how the biggest spending ministry in the federal government — the Department of National Defence — will fare Tuesday when the Trudeau government unveils its first budget.

But there is agreement that Ottawa soon will commit the armed forces to a hazardous UN peacemaking mission in Africa. It is unlikely that funding for such an undertaking would be included in any calculations announced in the budget. If such a project is announced during the next 12 months, it probably will be taken, to use military parlance, “out of hide.” That is, from existing military spending.

The mission almost certainly will involve a country in French West Africa that many Canadians will never have had heard of, let alone know where it is on a map. It will be regarded in New York as the opening shot in Canada’s declared bid for a seat on the UN Security Council in 2021.

Many of those who serve reckon that after only five months in power it is too early for the Liberals to have figured out what military programs they intend to slash, delay, realign or cancel. But there may be news about spending on new navy ships and hints about creating what the government has described as a more agile force, which is widely regarded as code for downsizing.

The senior brass has been tightlipped about this. The official and unofficial line is that all is well between National Defence headquarters and the new leadership on Parliament Hill. That seems to be the case, notwithstanding disappointment over the withdrawal of RCAF warplanes from the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and the dubious declared logic behind it.

Conversations over the past few months with scores of soldiers outside the senior ranks and with those who served until recently indicate a widespread dread that serious cuts are likely in next year’s budget. And that by then, it will have become obvious that to pay for other government priorities, defence spending in Canada will be in retreat at a time when allies such as Britain and Australia — which face different but serious political and economic problems — have jacked up defence spending to deal with emerging threats to western security from Russia, China and ISIL.

The upshot, which will become known following a pending defence review, is a force intentionally designed to be less combat capable.

Of equal concern is how the government intends to pay for its pledge to return Canada to peacekeeping and establish closer relations with the UN. My experience with the UN in Africa, the Middle East and Asia is that it does a good (and thankless) job of providing food and humanitarian aid to those afflicted by war and natural calamities. But its peacekeeping operations have been a shambles.

Nowhere is this more true than in Africa. It is not only the rampant allegations of rape and corruption that have undermined UN peacekeeping operations there. It is that almost all of the troops are from Third World countries such as Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Togo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Nepal, Thailand, Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe. They are ill-equipped and most of them are poorly led and woefully unprepared to fight wars.

UN troops in Africa have either tended to stay in their barracks while collecting what for them are princely UN wages or have gone out into hazardous situations with bravado but not much else.

More than 1,300 peacekeepers have died worldwide since 2002 with more than 100 a year since 2008. About 40 per cent of the deaths have been in Liberia, Congo, Sudan, Mali and the Ivory Coast.

A mission in Burundi has been touted by some peacekeeping advocates in Canada. But even the African Union has refused to contribute troops to such a UN mission because the regime still in power has said any blue berets would be regarded as an invasion force.

The preferred option, given the growing danger posed by Islamic extremists in North Africa, is to be part of a UN or UN-approved mission in Libya. But Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion, who seems to have the lead on defence decision-making for the government, has said Canada will not go unless Libya has only one government. Right now there are two and they detest each other.

A safer bet would be to fold Canadian troops into existing French missions in Mali, Niger or Burkina Faso. It is something France would heartily welcome.

With France committing more resources to fighting ISIL in the Middle East, the Germans, Belgians and Swedes are helping Paris out in Mali against ISIL’s new affiliate, al-Mourabitoun, and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Wherever the Trudeau government sends its troops in Africa, and however it eventually plans to pay for them, it will be a difficult, inevitably hazardous undertaking.

Canada in Iraq: Trainers should build on Afghanistan Experience

Written by: Matthew Fisher, National Post
Published the Monday February 9, 2016 Ottawa Citizen - NP Section 

IN AFGHANISTAN, MOST OF THEM HAD NEVER BEEN TO SCHOOL SO EDUCATING THEM WAS A CHALLENGE. IF THEY CANNOT UNDERSTAND BASIC MATH, IT IS GOING TO BE AN EXTREMELY LONG TIME FOR THEM TO UNDERSTAND THEIR GUNS. — RETIRED COL. GREGORY BURT

A soldier who ran Ottawa’s training mission for Afghan soldiers and police battling the Taliban believes the 500 Canadian Forces trainers bound for the Middle East to work with Iraqi forces fighting ISIL should mentor them on the battlefield as well as in garrison, as Canadian troops did in Kandahar in 2006-11.

A CAF Member instructs Afghan National
Guard how to load a riffle

That candid assessment by Col. Gregory Burt, who retired last summer after more than 30 years with the Royal 22nd Regiment, the Van Doos, comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that Canadians being sent to instruct Iraqi forces would not be involved in combat.

“Motivating them in a secure training base where someone is not firing at you is a lot different than when the enemy has a vote,” said Burt, who took me several times to see his troops mentoring Afghan forces in dicey situations on the battlefield.

“When the enemy is going to the other flank, you’ve got to be able to say, ‘You don’t want to go there’ … Our stellar actions under fire were a motivating factor, Afghans saw us out there when the s--- was going down everywhere. It was a demonstration that we were with them.”

When they accompanied Afghan troops into battle, the Canadian trainers also directed artillery fire, called in airstrikes and arranged for helicopters to get the wounded to hospital quickly.

However, Burt says no trainers were with him when he saw action for the first time and everything he had learned about combat came from training behind the lines. The career infantryman is gung-ho about the new training assignment.

“The reason we can do well on every kind of mission is that I don’t think any other army trains as well as we do,” said the 52-year-old Newfoundlander. “It is in our doctrine and the way we give our junior ranks independence. Our maturity is above and beyond that of others.”

Canadian forces spent five years helping train in Afghanistan. The situation is different in Iraq, where they will start with “a blank sheet.”

It sounds prosaic, but a key part of the process will be to establish how good the Iraqi students are at mathematics, says Burt, who adds he has not been briefed on planning for the mission.

“To do the nuts and bolts to train an officer to take a platoon down range, you have to first establish a baseline about where they are in their training and the level of their education,” he said. “In Afghanistan, most of them had never been to school so educating them was a challenge.

“If they cannot understand basic math, it is going to be an extremely long time for them to understand their guns. Even to blow up a mine requires (detonation) cords and there are equations that go with that in order to be able to get safely to cover. Anything technical — and that includes the logistics of water and food for soldiers in the fight — requires math.”

He warns there will be no quick fixes for the Iraqi security forces.

“It took us hours in garrison to teach the Afghans skills before we crossed the line of fire with them. It requires patience.”

The rule of thumb is that it takes 40 to 50 weeks to train new recruits to become infantry officers, and 2½ to three years to get those officers on to the battlefield.

OP ATTENTION - Canada's Training Mission in Kabul, Afghanistan. CAF members training Afghan National Guard Members on the firing range. (Photo: OP ATTENTION - DND)

But because of the urgent need to field troops quickly in Afghanistan, the timelines were much shorter. The same is likely to be the case in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Among the top priorities, Burt says, will be to quickly establish a close rapport with the Arab-speaking interpreters, and cultural and linguistic advisers who will provide the vital link between the Canadians and their Iraqi students.

“I guess they will be creating a mini-Gagetown,” Burt said, referring to the army’s combat schools in New Brunswick.

“There will be firing ranges, basic mine awareness, how to conduct road sweeps (for improvised explosive devices), how to issue basic orders and call in their own fire support, map reading skills for leadership, manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre, first aid, training for medics, arranging medevacs for the injured, and teaching how to establish headquarters command and control.

“There will be teams to coach brigade-level intelligence in how to work and to prepare reports, and to give operations officers a common understanding of how coalition forces work.”

Teaching such skills would be even more challenging if the Iraqis’ morale was low or if most of the troops were conscripts.

Burt says that training Afghan forces was the highlight of his career, which included deployments to Somalia, the Balkans and Germany during the Cold War. While he was envious of the challenge facing those receiving orders to deploy to the Middle East, “others now carry the flame and they will succeed.”