The flawed F-35 and Canada's needs and expectations -- How the military industrial complex screwed the pooch
I've often written about the F35, Canada decided to purchase the aircraft to replace its fleet of aging CF-18 aircraft, and when I say aging, I mean really aging! some aircraft are more than 20 years old. The logic of buying the F35, what was touted by GD as the most advanced stealth aircraft in the world made some sense when looking at the war theater in Eastern Europe, that had dominated the news for some years prior. As usual, the military was buying equipment for the last engagement. The first and most important problem of the F35 was its cost, which was literally two orders of magnitude more than the CF18 that the Canadian armed forces had purchased int he 1970s and 1980s (and extensively refurbished in the 1990s). the CF18 cost about 35 million apiece (in 1990's money) the F35 was nearer $500 million per aircraft. The second problem is that the aircraft is a single engine (fewer parts) aircraft, for Canada that has extensive land (Northwest Passage etc) where air