My query is this:

How stealthy is the bugger? A Goa missile rack with a slightly awake operator knocked down an F117 in Kosovo. The internet is alive with supposed anti-stealth radar developments. The Russians have a stealthy kite, but seem less than motivated to pursue it.

It just seems like spotting the damn thing can't be difficult enough to justify spending a gazillion dollars on a self-described "3/4 Stealth." For the kind of money they're talking it should be more like wonder woman's jet!

If it weren't for Russia being a potential aggressor state with a murderous G.I.Joe for a president (for life) wouldn't we all be lining up to license-build Mig-35 and Su-35 airframes? Am I nuts or are the airforces of the west going to be fielding sneaky VW microbuses against noisy eastern GTRs.

Just because it is stealth, doesn't mean it can't be shot down.

All stealth does is reduce the radar cross section of the aircraft, not make it completely invisible. Turn the power of the radar up enough, and a stealth aircraft can still be detected, tracked and shot down.

Worse and worse, it's only stealthy when you don't hang things under the wings, yet it can't do anything useful until you hang things under the wings. Can you say Boondoggle? Sure you can.

Personally, I think that we should hang Peter MacKay under one wing and Julian Fantino under the other.

I wouldn't say that...the F-35 can carry 2 2000lb class bomb munitions and 2 short range AA internally. If your country is fielding the Small Diameter bomb, the bomb load should go up at least 8 internal ATG weapons. The F-117 was very effective with only 2 bombs mounted internally.

I think the big thing people are forgetting is that you don't need stealth all the time. Enemy forces only have a finite amount of AA defenses and once they are destroyed or suppressed, all you need are "bomb" trucks that carry ordnance for ATG missions.

The big problem from Canada's perspective is range. Without underwing tanks it just can't get anywhere, and tanks kill stealth. Then there's the lack of a second engine's redundancy (the reason we went with the F-18 lo, these many years ago). The F-35 is a politician's dream and an Air Force's nightmare.

The "these modern jets are so much more reliable" card is played at that complaint. But it's not really true is it. In fact jets are only marginally more reliable than they were in 1970. Admittedly that's still massively reliable compared to other types of motor but still. The concern is that in the unlikely event of a failure you're losing 80 million bucks. If we're desperate for a single engine kite the cost effective (and stunningly good) gripen ng (ng being the kdyword) has decent range, short takeoff and landing and can land on roads.

Plus we could field a heck of a lot more of them for the same money and the cost won't go up. It's underwritten by the ikea government. Not to mention that saab and bae would allow domestic manufacture by Bombardier (although we'd almost certainly lose the swedish government guarantee in that event.)

I suppose really, I'm dubious of stealth based on USAF behaviour. After the kosovo downing the 117 was pulled from. Combat missions and a little while later retired. The b2 is also mothballed. It looks for all the world that they went back to the question (is it actually hard to shoot one down?) and the answer was no. I feel like the stealth on the f35 is more corinthian leather than anything. A sellers tool not a battle asset.

Seriously? If your going to complain about something, please back it up with facts or inform yourself.

The B-2 wasn't mothballed...it was last used in Libyan Civil war for bombing missions. The F-117 was retired and mothballed from service in 2008, mostly due to budget issues and the introduction of the F-22 and the pending introduction of the F-35.

Stealth isn't a cloak of invisibly...all it does is make it harder for Radar to "see" the aircraft.

As for engine redundancy...there isn't any hard or fast facts that 2 engines are better then one...yes if you have one engine go out in a single engine plane, its going to be a bad day, but that doesn't mean that if the same event happens with a twin engine aircraft that you can continue on with your mission or even bring back the aircraft safely for a landing...lets also not discount the extra maintenance and fuel costs of running two engines. Your basically doubling the costs...

I realised the b2 remark was off but didn't want to post 3 in a row. I was under the mistaken impression that they'd remained on the ground after the Guam crash.

As for doubling the costs... Sure. But JSF's maintenance costs still forecast higher than the twin engine options. Still think Bombardier saabs look pretty good...

And the USAF has such a good thing in f22 that but that's now dead in the water. No more of those seem likely. And now a much more dubious aircraft with an equally big budget problem comes along to further damage the USAF. LM seems incapable of staying within budgetary reality. Lots of the neat stuff everyone wanted has been lost or watered down. Thrust vectoring is gone leaving g jsf to rely too much on stealth having lowish speed and poor maneuverability.

I would have to tend to agree that the F-35 is a bad choice for the RCAF, especially at that money.

There many other aircraft out there that can do the same job just as well as the F-35, minus the stealth part....and do we really need that?

Just to name a few,

Yes the Gripen. But I too don't like the idea of a single engine over desolate northern Canada. And for those that say we aren't intercepting Russian bombers coming over the pole....well, yeah we are. Granted not at the frequency we were in the Cold War, but it still happens. And who knows what is going to happen in the Arctic. Some say that will be the new battle ground over resources.

If you really must spend a bucket load of money on an aircraft, I think the Typhoon needs to be looked at, and at this point with German, UK and Italy reducing their orders, there might be an opportunity to get them for less than the sticker price. With the exception of the F22 stealth characteristics, the Typhoon can do everything the F22 can do, and for much less, and even quite a bit less than the F-35. Someone said $80million each for the F-35, you had better add a 1 in front of that $80mil, it is more like $180mil each.

One aircraft everyone is discounting is the Super Hornet. Bigger, faster and more capable than the Legacy Hornet, and for a fraction of the cost of the F-35, and would be an easy transition for pilots and ground crew, since it does have some commonality to the CF-18. Instead of only buying 65 aircraft, we could buy 100, and still have a ton of money left over to get a couple more C-17s and pay for the new Chinooks, with some change left over for gas, beer and nachos!

What stealth part? They've already admitted that it's not going to have the communications and satnav capability the CF-18s already have for Northern operations, so they're going to have to hang a communications pod under one wing pretty much permanently. Bingo, there goes your stealth capability out the window.

Su-35s and J-10s are not options, so it's either the Eurofighter, Rafale or F-18E. I'll bet that it'll be Refurbished second-hand Super Hornets, repeating the CF-101 scenario from 50 years ago.

Oh those voodoos... A good friend of mine growing up's father flew F86 in the air force and Voodoo for a brief period at the end of his AF career. Wasn't a fan. He felt we should've bought F106's and run with them.

TBH I think we could have gotten a really good long use of the Dagger. Good range, fast, dedicated interceptor. Precisely what we need. But the single powerplant was a no-go.

I was just a kid and never asked him about the single engine but I think he'd have had a pilot's opinion there. Something like "find somewhere flat and belly down" I suspect. I know he crashed his Sabre once and didn't eject because he apparently wanted to save the plane (not sure if he succeeded) and got a nice spinal injury for his trouble!

As for replacing the CF-18's with refurb Super Hornets... two questions: would not we also be able to fold some growlers into the mix? And if we're going down the yard sale route why not just go for the gusto and get F15's?? I mean come on! It's got longer range, it's much faster, higher altitude... THAT is what we're fundamentally in need of. Getting to the Tupolev's and shining that funny light we have on our noses at them.

I mean its not like it doesn't drop bombs too.

The interceptor Eagles don't do bombs and the bomber Eagles don't do intercept. They're too specialised

Plus, I don't think that the US likes selling Beagles abroad. I can't think of too many countries who have them.

Another thought is that the superbugs are a minimum of 25 - 30 years younger than the majority of Eagles in the USAF inventory. That's something to consider when you're talking of airframe fatigue limits.

Not sure where you get your info from Jessica, but the F-15Es have been pulling double duty pretty much from the time they came into service. Now with the F-15SE (Silent Eagle), Boeing is claiming a $100million price tag per plane, and I think would be a consideration, however I don't know if they are refurbished F-15E, or new builds.

As far as choosing the Super Bug....don't know why we would buy used ones when new ones are still rolling off the line. I doubt very much if there are that many used ones floating around since orders for the USN, USMC and RAAF haven't been filled yet, and at roughly $65million, I think would be a good deal.

As far as F-106 vs CF-101s, I doubt very much if we would have had the 106 any longer than the Voodoos, since we flew them from 1961, right through until the stand down of 416 Squadron in December of 1984. Capability wise....don't really think the 106 was any more capable that the 101 was. 106 was faster, but I think the 101 could out maneuver it easy enough, and the 101 carried one more missile, not that the Falcon or Genie missiles were all that accurate and reliable, but the 101 did carry one more Genie over the 106.

It's odd the rafale doesn't get more play. Even odder the dassault people aren't kicking our doors down with it. They're having raging successes with it, india looks a sure thing now for 100+.

It has stupendous range, nearly 1000km more than Typhoon and whopping 1500 more than Lightning II. Admittedly it's not blistering fast like the Typhoon but still very quick, it will be Meteor capable off the lot. And that is one heck of a missile.

I think the range+supercruise should really be defining issues. And without a whitepaper they can be swept aside in favour of a stealth bird that. Although stealthy, seems like it would have a hard time intercepting anything unless the Russians start overflying us in AN-2's.