A TABLE OUTLINING AN internal Royal Canadian Air Force 2021 study on the F-35 fighter jet versus Sweden’s Gripen has magically shown up in the press at just the very moment it might most influence the choice about to be made. The confidential internal document lands as Ottawa continues to review its deal of purchasing the full contingent of eighty-eight American-built F-35s following United States president Donald Trump’s threats to Canadian sovereignty—a process now bogged down by concerns inside the RCAF that the purchase is becoming harder to justify.
Using bright colours to drive the message home for the hard of thinking, the table—which was reportedly obtained by Radio-Canada—shows that the F-35 (represented in very nice and inviting green) is head and shoulders above the poor Gripen (represented mostly in a forbidding and dangerous red). Supporters of the F-35 have made much of the table; I mean, how can you argue with actual numbers?
Well, colour me skeptical. The table compares the two aircraft according to broad criteria such as: “Mission Performance,” “Upgradability,” “Sustainment,” and others. But no explanation is provided as to what these categories mean or how the numbers for each aircraft were arrived at. This raises questions.
For example, did the study compare the actual capability of the F-35 as it was in 2021, or the envisaged capability when its latest upgrade (known as “Block 4”) is applied? This is important, because it is the Block 4 F-35 which has the capabilities the RCAF envisages for the airplane it will eventually acquire.
The problem is, the Block 4 upgrade is, according to a September 2025 study by the US government’s General Accounting Office (GAO), more than five years behind schedule and over $6 billion (US) over cost—and counting.
“Using bright colours to drive the message home for the hard of thinking”
Was it released by the conservatives?
Release by the kindergarteners
So, same thing?
It is no secret that our DND likes the F35 a lot more for its capabilities…
But do we want to tie our air force to another American digital subscription?
Canada should take all the money that’s going to be spent on F-35s and use it to develop an autonomous drone swarm that can hunt and destroy F-35s.
Maybe we should do this anyway. Here is a thought:
Can we build out competencies in drones and use them for cargo payload delivery in territories to subsidize delivery and drive down costs for food, medicine and other goods in the north?
This wouldn’t necessarily be cost effective for the Canadian government, but it would be strategic in that we would…
be developing technologies (batteries, computer vision, flight),
having utility and real world usage.
expressing Northern sovereignty.
A thought, I’m not fully versed in the logistic challenges in remote communities.
You’ll need a lot more money than that to develop a new airframe from scratch …
We’re talking somewhere over 50 billion dollars. It’s not easy to do, but with that kind of money, money is not the problem. What’s more, the profits will be enormous: There’s a market for that product all over the world.
We’re talking somewhere over $200 billion dollars.
That certainly would be enough, you’d need at least $100 billion to start developing a new 6th gen airframe.
In contrast, the current deal for the F-35 is only for $27 billion.
I revised it down to $50 billion after posting, having looked up the actual estimate I’d seen (74 billion), but either way it’s plenty.
I suspect that requirements for the airframe design for a swarm of drones that don’t need to carry human pilots around can be made somewhat less than those for the most expensive airplane ever made.
Yeah, no. Even if they were extremely efficient, 75 billion might get you a prototype or two, but you still haven’t acquired a single plane or paid for its operating cost or maintenance. Developing an manned vs unmanned fighter also doesn’t make much difference, though you will save on the cost of pilot training later.
The F-35 contract includes all of that already.
So no, just using the money that is set aside for the F-35 would get you nowhere. Especially considering Canada doesn’t have much experience with developing domestic fighter jets and would also need to build all the infrastructure from scratch as well.
Unmanned makes a huge difference in many ways, surely. There are all kinds of constraints added by the need to carry around a squishy human, and evaluating what can be done without them is not something I’m going to attempt in a comment here but there are a whole lot of possibilities, many of which might not cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Starting from scratch is not necessary. Starting from the point of view of making fighter planes obsolete, rather than building the best possible one, is what I have in mind. Somebody is going to do it. Shame it won’t be Canada. Even if the attempt failed it would be a better use of the money.
Unmanned makes a huge difference in many ways, surely. There are all kinds of constraints added by the need to carry around a squishy human, and evaluating what can be done without them is not something I’m going to attempt in a comment here but there are a whole lot of possibilities, many of which might not cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
We’ve been keeping squishy human humans alive in planes for a while, we already know how it works. An autonomous aircraft would require you to develop a high sophisticated computer/AI model that can do basic pilot tasks which will be a big part of your development cost. For now, sticking a human in his much cheaper. Sure, you might save money per unit and in the long run, but the development cost will most certainly be much higher.
You also need a reliable way to communicate with them, so you’d want a constellation of military communication satellites. Not sure Canada currently has that, so factor in the cost for satellite development a bunch of rocket launches.
Even if the attempt failed it would be a better use of the money.
If the attempts failed, Canada would be left without a fighter jet. If that is an acceptable outcome to you, you might consider not spending money on it at all.
But if you want to have an operational fighter jet in the short term, buying one is the only option.
It’s called a SAM.
This is nonsense. If you’re talking about doing it in the air, then you need supersonic drones that can lock on, predict the aircraft’s movement, and adjust during interception … i.e. you’re talking about a SAM system like the Patriot missile system or Russia’s S400.
If you’re talking about hunting them down at base, then you need to be able to penetrate hundreds of kms of air defenses to make it to them in the first place, and you’re just talking bout a cruise missile like the Tomahawk.
Ukraine used the element of surprise with those box trucks, it won’t be easy to pull off again.
And as an fyi the National Security Journal jumped on the F-35 bandwagon just in time.
Canada already has thousands of jobs tied to F-35 production. Splitting the fleet to chase industrial offsets would weaken deterrence and further erode Canadian credibility.
Canada will absolutely buy the F-35 cost and capabilities are of little consequence. What matters is a bribe to trump.
Only way Canada goes grippen is if the Canada pension plan makes a huge Blockchain investment in Melania and Trump coin.
If the US moves to annex Canada, or if Canada starts making noises about enacting laws the US disagrees with, those F35s will come in handy
In case that’s not sarcasm
The weapon system of every F35 is lock behind a server in Texas « for security ». So if the US attacks this F35 won’t do shit
Handy for the US, I think, because they will turn off the Canadian air force with a switch.
