Vincent J. Curtis
12 Oct 2017
If there are common elements in the government’s acquisition
of new equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces, they are tardiness, indecision,
and a lack of imagination. All three
elements are at play in the selection of interim replacements for the CF-18
fleet, or more precisely a lack of replacements.
The Liberal government boxed itself into a mess. To spite the legacy of the Harper government,
the Trudeau Liberals announced that the F-35 would be the last aircraft on
earth that the government would buy to replace the CF-18. Instead, a prolonged and detailed examination
of potential replacements was ordered, postponing a final decision. The time would be filled by requiring
world-renowned aircraft manufacturers to prove to the satisfaction of the
Canadian government their capabilities to produce a world-renowned fighter
aircraft, and then to have them teach our experts in the RCAF the art of
sucking eggs in precise and excruciating detail.
Trouble in paradise arose when it became clear that the
existing fleet of CF-18s on NORAD deployment would not last long enough for the
Trudeau temporizing to play itself out.
An “interim replacement” needed to be found.
The obvious choice was to acquire more F/A-18s. However, Boeing had moved on and the closest
new thing to the old aircraft was the F/A-18 E/F Super-Hornet, built on an
airframe some twenty-five percent larger than the original Hornet model.
No problem. The
Super-Hornet was being sold by Boeing as completely interoperable with the
older Hornet, and training and transition disruption to the new model would be
minimal. Then, the Trudeau government
made very public its displeasure with Boeing’s demanding the U.S government
impose import duties against a Canadian government favorite, Bombardier. In October, trade sanctions were imposed,
import duties being a crippling 220 percent.
There is lots of hypocrisy to go around. Boeing is the largest client of the U.S.
Import-Export bank, and Boeing doesn’t make an aircraft that competes in the
same marketplace as the Bombardier one.
Boeing argues that it saw Airbus, its largest competitor world-wide,
start in the same way Bombardier did: as a small, regional manufacturer
supported by government subsidies. And
Boeing is doing extremely well, so well in fact that it could well do without
an order for Super-Hornets from Canada.
The Trudeau government would be eating a good deal of crow
to have to purchase Super-Hornets from Boeing, and has started to look around
for something else. There is talk of
buying used Hornets from Australia, and Lockheed-Martin is devilishly offering
F-35s as “interim replacements.”
The obvious solution that is being missed requires an
entrepreneurial mind to see. That
solution is to truly embrace the interim notion, and to buy new F-16s to
replace the old CF-18s, committing to employing them in the NORAD role for the
next ten to twenty years, postponing a decision on Gen 5 fighters for, well,
the next generation.
The F-16 is still being produced by Lockheed-Martin, and is
presently in its V for Viper model.
Because the Fighting Falcon is made by Lockheed-Martin, we are keeping
alive the company that may yet deliver us the F-35 – in twenty years’
time. The F-16V is configurable as an
air-superiority dogfighter, or as a ground-attack aircraft; and the F-16 remains
a front-line aircraft today in either role.
It will remain a first-line fighter aircraft for the next decade or
two. As a fighter platform, it
outclasses the Super-Hornet and the F-35; neither aircraft would want to engage
an F-16 in a dogfight. The F-35 would
need to rely on its stealthiness and long-range missiles to defeat an F-16 in
aerial combat, i.e. before the F-16 saw it.
The chief reason the RCAF chose the F/A-18 Hornet over the
F-16 thirty-five years ago was because the Hornet and two engines and the Viper
one. The second engine was supposed to
be a margin of safety when flying over the high Arctic. But these thirty-five years of practical
experience demonstrated the perfect reliability of the engine of the F-16, and
the F-35, which possesses only one engine, did not find its singularity an
obstacle to acceptance by today’s RCAF.
Looking back, choosing the F/A-18 over the F-16 was a mistake.
The solution to the Liberal government’s fighter dilemma is
to fully embrace the interim idea. The
perfect shouldn’t become the enemy of the good.
There is no tactical reason for the Canadian government to buy a
stealthy Gen 5 fighter for immediate service in NORAD. But for the age of its airframes, the CF-18
Hornet would be adequate in that role for the foreseeable future. F-16Vs new off the production line can fill
the same role as the Hornet, and still be a relevant aircraft anywhere else in
the world.
The government could buy F-16s in blocks of twenty at a time,
with the intention of converting the RCAF over to that aircraft as its mainline
fighter as the Hornets age out. The
project would have a timeline of twenty years, with the intention of reviewing
the status of fighter aircraft technology at that time. Commitment to the interim idea addresses the
issue of retraining and multiple parts lists.
Interim, in this case, means twenty years and not five.
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A version of this appeared in Esprit de Corps magazine Vol 24 Issue 10.
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