Forum: Program and politics

Just a follow up to my note above - one can expect that, once deliveries of the F-35 begin and the RCAF meets their IOC number, any overseas deployment will see the F-35 utilised and the CF-18's remain at home to perform NORAD support.

With increased numbers of F-35's in the RCAF inventory, the number of flight hours for the CF-18's will be reduced - thus increasing their life expectancy accordingly.

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Sounds reasonable, thanks again for the good input. Good luck and one can hope RCAF's recap works out as planned and priced. As you might have detected, I'm remaining hesitant going all in to date and have some concerns of gaps for more than one operator, given possible delays or other uncertainty issues to come up.

And now the government response...why can't anyone just say that the Hornets will be around doing NORAD missions in the high north until after the JSF's have the upgrade done? It's not like we're going to retire all of our CF-18's the second we start receiving the -35's...

Quote:

Tory procurement chief vows fighter jets will be up to the job in Arctic

Jane Taber
OTTAWA— Globe and Mail Update
Posted on Monday, October 24, 2011 11:48AM EDT

Stephen Harper’s minister in charge of military procurement is assuring taxpayers the communications system on costly new F-35 stealth fighters will “meet or exceed current capabilities.”

Julian Fantino, the Associate Minister of National Defence, told The Globe and Mail on Monday the government will “ensure that our men and women in uniform have the best equipment to do their jobs safely and effectively.”

Mr. Fantino’s statement, sent by email from his director of communications Chris McCluskey, is vague amid a dramatic weekend report that the 65 jets the government is purchasing will not be able to communicate from the Arctic.

However, the minister may be forced to reveal more as the opposition plans to pursue the story in Question Period later Monday.

The government’s justification for the new fighter jets is, part, for patrolling the Far North and protecting Canada’s airspace. The Conservatives have made Arctic sovereignty a main plank of their government.

“Reasonable people agree that we need aircraft to defend Canadian sovereignty,” Mr. Fantino said in his statement. “We expect communications for our aircraft in the north to meet or exceed current capabilities.”

The Canadian Press report says the F-35s – which will cost between $16- and $35-billion, including long-term maintenance – will likely not have the communications capability in the initial stage of production and then not until production reaches its fourth phase in 2019.

That ability is key to working in the Arctic where military aircraft now rely on satellite communications, according to the report.

The F-35 purchase has proved controversial of late, given the awarding last week of the $33-billion shipbuilding contract. The bidding process was at arms-length from politicians and politics and has been hailed as a template for future contract awards.

Some opposition politicians, including Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae, have asked the Prime Minister why this same process couldn’t have been used on the jet purchase. The opposition has been very critical of the fact that the fighter contract was sole-sourced.

The Liberals vowed in the May election to cancel the commitment to buy the jets if they were elected and ton instead hold an open competition.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... le2211518/

I think its a monthly cycle here in Canada, bad press for the F35 that is. We just spent $30+ billion on naval ships and no one is complaining this much. I hate reporters.

For the CF-18 issue, we will be keeping them until at least 2025 with another structural upgrade most likely in the works - not for every jet. You will also see another avionic upgrade to R3. The RCAF has a long history of flying their fighters decades past anyone else in the world and the CF18 will continue this tradition.

hotrampphotography wrote:

And now the government response...why can't anyone just say that the Hornets will be around doing NORAD missions in the high north until after the JSF's have the upgrade done? It's not like we're going to retire all of our CF-18's the second we start receiving the -35's...

I've said this before... the government's PA strategy is simply broken. Public opinion has been largely defined by the critics. I don't blame Hawn either... I think its indicative of a larger problem within DND on how it deals with public relations that has brought it to this point.

SpudmanWP wrote:

That's just the antenna aperture for the eventual SATCOM. Just like that AA-1 radar dome (or gun blister, or EODAS windows, etc), there is no hardware in it and no radio to drive it (yet).

I meant the little vertical one not the flat LO aperture. The vertical one is just a commercial Inmarsatt installtion for basic satcomm capability.

No reason RCAF couldn't fit similar until the full capability is ready to go.

pushoksti wrote:

1st503rdsgt wrote:

I'm sick of all the Canuk's bitching. I'm don't see how a lousy 65 plane order is worth having to deal with constant fabrications about the aircraft's price and performance. Let them buy something else if they're so desperate to prove that they aren't American. I would love to watch them struggling to keep 65 Su-35s operational.

Our media is mostly comprised of left-wing idiots, simple as that. They wouldn't know the difference between a F35 or F22 if they were sitting in it. They just don't like the idea of their worthless news stories not holding any weight because of the Conservative Majority.

If you didn't know any thing about hockey, baseball, or football would a news organization let you be a sports reporter? Probably not! But we have reporters trying to cover the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter who know absolutely know nothing about aviation never mind jet fighters.

Really how hard is it to call Aviation Week or Flight Global to get news commentary from Amy Butler or Stephen Trimble on the F-35? It's not very hard at all.

The problem is that they have no ability to judge who are the authoritative voices in this area. I've seen people quote Bill Sweetman, Carlo Kopp and Windslow Wheeler as experts... with no understanding of where they sit on spectrum. Instead they are looking for the squeaky wheel and they get it.

Conan wrote:

I meant the little vertical one not the flat LO aperture. The vertical one is just a commercial Inmarsatt installtion for basic satcomm capability.

No reason RCAF couldn't fit similar until the full capability is ready to go.

I am not sure of the details, but I asked LMAggie about those and she said they appear only on the first couple of SDD jets. I will see if I can track down the specifics.

Satellite project might fix F-35 radio woes The Canadian Press : Monday Oct. 24, 2011

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/201110 ... es-111024/

"OTTAWA — A potential solution to the F-35's northern communication woes has been grinding its way through the federal bureaucracy for three years and has yet to receive the green light, The Canadian Press has learned.

The Canadian Space Agency has been studying polar communications and determined in September 2008 that a pair of satellites over the High Arctic would vastly improve not only aircraft communication, but broadband access and climate change weather forecasting.

A decision on whether to build the satellites as part of the Polar Communications and Weather project is unclear because agency, in partnership with National Defence and Environment Canada, is still consulting on the socio-economic impact.

The Canadian Press has revealed that software, which allows the F-35 stealth fighter to communicate in the Arctic, won't be installed on its operating system until at least 2019 -- at least three years after Canada takes possession of its first plane...."

Conan wrote:

The vertical one is just a commercial Inmarsatt installtion for basic satcomm capability.

I sent LMAggie a PM about this and got this in return.

Quote:

I will, however, confirm that the shark fin antennas on early SDD jets were very basic VHF/UHF antennas.

Sorry, no SATCOM Wink

Canada’s F-35: What’s the cost of communication? Oct 25, 2011 by Colin Horgan

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2011/10/25/cana ... unication/

"Over the weekend, the Canadian Press reported that Canada’s F-35s won’t initially be able to communicate from the Arctic. On Monday, the opposition took the government to task yet again for choosing the F-35, saying that this recent issue is just one in a laundry list of problems that ought to make everyone re-think buying the plane at all.

That evening, defence minister Peter MacKay told the CBC that all related costs to modifications that will be necessary to make sure the planes can communicate from the high north are built into the $9 billion that the government has allocated for the program.

Over at the Department of National Defence, they said much the same thing: “There will be no unique additional cost to Canada, as Beyond Line of Site (BLOS) communication is a nine nation partner requirement for the F-35 aircraft,” an official from DND wrote iPolitics in an email. He added that the long lead time that Canada has before it receives its planes will be sufficient to deal with the issue.

“This satellite communications capability continues to be discussed within the various Joint Strike Fighter program working bodies made up of representatives from all partner nations,” he said...."

Forum: Program and politics

Canada F-35 Artic Radio Silence - Perhaps