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F-35 cannot outfly a 25 year old CF18c...a $180 million disaster?

Years ago I wrote about the debacle that has become the F35 strike fighter aircraft, and its failure as a replacement for the F18-C that the Canadian Air Forces uses today (a very very old fighter aircraft).

I wrote a blog here about the problems and shortfall that the F35 represented for the Canadian Royal Air Force that said all that needed to be said in terms of mission capability, single engine design and weapons load.

The "killer" was last week when the F35 went head-to-head against a American F18C -- the "last" and most modern variant of the type.  In a nutshell the overall comment about the F35 was:  can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run.  Bottom line the aircraft is underpowered and easily outmanoeuvred which is really bad.  There's a National Post article here.

Now, lets be honest the days of manned fighter aircraft are coming to  a close.  Not that the "drone wars" are a cake walk either.  There have been many reports how poorly designed the flight controls systems on the majority of drones, requiring serious multi tasking with many different systems.  It takes upward of 5 people to operate a drone...

However, at $5/10 million each its substantially cheaper than the F35, which is now apparently a $180 million/per aircraft machine -- inflation and well you know it was more expensive than anticipated.  The question is will Canada still buy the aircraft, which is still at least 24 months from available for deployment?

BTW the aircraft does few of the necessary "Canadian" missions, but hell get a dozen to keep the air force going and replace the rest with drones... 



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