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    I personally loved the F14. Those swept wings are so iconic... I remember having a toy model as a kid where a mechanism would sweep the wings back and forth.

    But didn't they not go out of service in early-mid 2000's? Did they have to do extra life cycle updates for the Iranians?

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    Quote Originally Posted by OTown View Post
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    I personally loved the F14. Those swept wings are so iconic... I remember having a toy model as a kid where a mechanism would sweep the wings back and forth.

    But didn't they not go out of service in early-mid 2000's? Did they have to do extra life cycle updates for the Iranians?
    They eventually got it to the point where it wasn't garbage. But barely.

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    2006 was the last tour for the F14Ds. Iran somehow still keeps a small number flying. They really wrecked the Iraqi AF with their F14s, shot down Mig25s with the Aim54etc.

    I dunno. As I understand it, the F-14 was considered a piece of garbage all along. It's just a missile platform for a 60's era missile. No thanks. The F-16 added capability a ton since the original. But the original was basically considered a toy car by pilots at the time.

    F-25, F-22, etc...all aren't even what Canada needs. What are we going to do, stop bombers from coming over the arctic circle? lol

    What we should do is invest in a large, and super sophisticated fleet of drones.
    Agree, we should invest in drones, but we still need a man in the loop fighter IMO, and a long range interceptor is what is best for our NORAD commitment, and if it has a secondary ability to support Canadian forces anywhere they get deployed, huge x2 bonus. The F22/35 hybrid is perfect for that mission. Otherwise I think the Gripen is a cheaper alternative in the interim, 2-1 rate on the F35 in terms of buying power, but it's not THAT huge of an upgrade over our current Hornets tech/capability wise, they would just have a lot more time left on their airframes/etc.

    I dunno. As I understand it, the F-14 was considered a piece of garbage all along. It's just a missile platform for a 60's era missile. No thanks. The F-16 added capability a ton since the original. But the original was basically considered a toy car by pilots at the time.

    F-25, F-22, etc...all aren't even what Canada needs. What are we going to do, stop bombers from coming over the arctic circle? lol

    What we should do is invest in a large, and super sophisticated fleet of drones.
    Buster, I'm going to PM you a long doc of posts I've collected from a friend I've flown Aces high with since 2001, he was a TG instructor and 2500 hour Tomcat pilot, and flew both Hornets, the F5N and the F16N as a Red Air instructor pilot. Flew the F15C on exchange. No better pilot to listen to in terms of F14 opinions, and he really opened my eyes up to the Tomcat's capabilities - and faults - over the years. It was far from garbage, in fact, at mid to low altitude it was more than a match for the F15A/C which was built to turn/fight at higher alts, and with the F14's wings out, it gained a significant turn rate and radius advantage on the F15s, and even the F16 at certain alts/speeds/profiles/etc. An extra set of eyes makes a big difference too, big time, in any kind of fight. With the newer engines, the F14D had such a wide scope of capability, could get energy back faster than any fighter until the F22 came out, could dive better than any other fighter, and again, at lower altitudes gained a big advantage in turn rate/radius over most other fighters. Even at high alt in BVR, it then had it's ridiculously powerful radar and weapons system to rely on to stay out of WVR high altitude fights. Plus it had effectively 2x the useful combat range radius than the Superhornet, arguably even more, much more, all on internal fuel and 2 tanks.

    The F14B and D models with their modern avionics and systems were fantastic, and had they gotten the Aim120D, Aim9x and some Phoenix analogue, the USN wouldn't have a gap in capability right now as it has vs the SU series fighters weapons. Yes the F14A with the TF30 were a difficult fighter to fight properly and maintain, but expert pilots still did very well with those even - you aren't wrong it took a long time to get it up to spec, but when the B and D came online, it was probably the best figheter in the inventory until the F22 and F35 came along. Cost and politics is what killed it, not capability.

    If anyone cares about reading first hand excellent info about this, www.hitechcreations.com, create a forum account and just search posts from user "Mace2004". Or, again, I can post logs I've saved over the years for my own research and writing. "Eagl" on the same board is a long time high hours F15E pilot and instructor, and Puma44 flew the A10, F102, F4 Phantom, etc. Great, great aviation posts from all of them there, all free.

    Sorry to drag this thread O/T, but it sort of applies - 2 sample posts just to give an idea, again, from a pilot that flew all of the USN/USAF fighters at that time (no F22), as well as probably the SU27 the USN/USAF have in their possession:

    Here, respectfully and like an actual human being are my final comments.

    What I was trying to explain is that you're mixing apples and oranges. The discussion was not about a stopgap measure to give precision air-to-ground capability to old F-14s (the program you refer to was called "Quick Strike"), the reliability of 15-year-old Tomcats, or how crappy the TF-30s were (Apples) but rather whether the Tomcat 21 or Hornet 2000 was the better plan for a future Naval strike/fighter aircraft after both the Navy's NATF (Navy version of the F-22) and A-12 (A-6 replacement) programs were cancelled (Oranges). Yes, two-decade-old airframes, even "upgraded" but still old ones, are extremely hard and expensive to maintain but new ones are not and there was simply not that big of a difference between new-construction aircraft. Quick Strike was a stopgap program to upgrade old airframes that came about AFTER the Navy chose the Hornet 2000 over the Tomcat 21, it never was an alternative to the Hornet.

    You are absolutely correct that engines were a huge problem but the problem was limited to F-14A's with TF-30's, not D's with F110's and, with a couple of exceptions (principally about Hultgreen's mishap but that's another subject), the article you link to describes it well. The F110 engine had none of these problems and was a joy to fly.

    My assertion is simple. The Navy made a huge mistake in building F/A-18E/F rather than an F/A-14E. I didn't say a thing about upgrading existing F-14 airframes and accepting the maintainability issues of old airframes. If that were what I was saying then you have a point but nowhere did I say or intend to say that the Navy should have simply upgraded existing airframes rather than buy Super Hornets. New construction F/A-14E's with the capabilities and internal redesign based on Grumman's Tomcat 21 concept would have given us far greater capability than the F/A-18E/F at only slightly higher maintenance costs (it would still have wingsweep). In the end, development of an F/A-14E would have been cheaper than the Super Hornet because so much work had just been done on the F-14D. It would have been cheaper to flight test and produce because the airframe would have stayed the same (with the possible exception of an expanded glove area).

    An F/A-14E would have been even better with the F110-GE-429 engines which would have given an additional 4k to 5k lbs of thrust over the F110-GE-400's in the F-14D. A full Monty Tomcat 21 (there were actually several proposed Tomcat 21 packages) would have been a true 4.5 generation fighter with fly-by-wire, AESA, greater maneuverability, more thrust, more fuel, and even greater range, payload and speed and been still been cheaper than the F/A-18E/F.
    Krusty, if you check out my last post I think I answer your question about the airframe. Yes, old airframes are high maintenance, there's no doubt about it. What I object to is the overly simplistic point of view that, by definition, the F-14 was hard to maintain. The problem was that the last airframe was produced in 1990 and we didn't even procure the airplane fast enough for the 10 years before that to keep the average age of the fleet down before production ended.

    As for "air superiority" Stoney describes the doctrine well but the issue of what is or isn't an "air superiority fighter" is an interesting discussion. First, you have to remember that air superiority is a mission, not a fighter. The same is true for interceptor and fleet air defense. Sure, some airplanes are optimized for a particular mission (some may actually limited to that mission) and become known for that role but the F-14 could do all three missions easily because it was the most flexible fighter in the world. The swing wing (pure freaking magic), ability to carry Phoenix, Sparrow and Sidewinder, a gun and awesome radar made for an exceptional package and arguments to the contrary are specious. Second, air superiority vs air supremacy is a numbers game. A CVN doesn't carry enough fighters to establish and maintain air supremacy over a broad area say, like Iraq. The Navy's more limited numbers of fighters means it establishes air superiority, more correctly local air superiority for a limited period of time. All of this obviously becomes easier the more CVN's you have in the area because, as I said, lot's of it is simply a numbers game.

    So, what missions could the F-14 do well? Actually, all of them and it did them very well.

    Fleet air defense mission? Of course because the F-14 had the range and endurance plus the AWG-9/APG-71 and Phoenix missile. Was it just a fleet air defense fighter? Absolutely not. The Navy experimented with two other options designed solely for Fleet Air Defense, one of its own volition and the other was forced on it. The F-6 Missileer was designed in the late 1950's and was a straight wing plane that looked similar to the A-6 without the sexiness (jk, the A-6 was an ugly crate also). All it was to do was to hang around on a CAP station carrying a bunch of missiles to defend the fleet but was slow and that was all it could do so it was dumped. The crew even sat side-by-side so they could hold hands. In other words, it wasn't a fighter. The failure of the F-6 led to F-8 Crusader then the F-4 Phantom, both true fighters although the F-4 was more of an interceptor. When the F-4 needed replacement SECDEF mandated that the Navy would use a version of the F-111. The crew also sat side-by-side holding hands but the F-111 was at least fast. Unfortunately it was huge, couldn't turn, and had lousy visibility. In short, although the USAF calls anything that isn't a tanker or a B-52 a fighter, the F-111 was not a fighter. It probably could have served as a Navy bomber if it weren't huge but that wasn't needed because the Navy had A-6's and A-7s. The Navy knew it needed a fleet air defense fighter that could hang out on station and Grumman designed them one.

    Interceptor? The F-101, F-104, F-4, F-106, etc., were all interceptors. They could get there quickly but couldn't turn worth a darn because they had wings optimized for speed, not lift. The Navy needed an interceptor that could launch straight off the deck and haul balls to a long-range target and kill it with forward quarter, beyond-visual-range missiles. Grumman designed them that to.

    Air superiority? Download the Phoenix rails and load up four Sparrows and four Sidewinders and the F-14 could turn with most anything out there and was competitive against the F-15 (which also carried four Sparrows and four Sidewinders). Yes, I know some will object and there are a couple of caveats to the F-15. The F-15 could out turn the F-14 at high altitude because that's where the F-15's wing was optimized to fight; however, the F-14 could out turn it at low altitudes where low Mach meant we could get our wings out. Even with the TF-30's we did well because the F-14 maintained E much better with the high-aspect-ratio wings (out of course). With F-110's it was eye-watering. So yes, Grumman built that also.

    The F-18E/F? Hummmm. I agree with Stoney. It's basic role is self-escorted attack but leave off the bombs, drop the two inboard pylons, upload a single centerline tank, AMRAAM and AIM-9X and sure, it could do the air superiority mission. Because it's slower I'd say it's not as good for either fleet air defense or interceptor. Defending a CV battle group against incoming supersonic bombers and missiles means you need to get places quickly or stay on a long range CAP for an extended period of time neither of which the E/F excels at.
    Last edited by Gman.45; 09-08-2018 at 09:13 PM.

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    Gman - I've always wondered about the decades-old relationships within the military industrial complex and its rarely discussed in the open.

    Why was Grumman so revered at first and yet so hated in the end?

    Why can LM/Lockheed consistently push out technology (eg. C-5A, F-35) that is over schedule and over budget and yet keep on getting contracts when companies like Boeing are left to pickup the scraps?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gman.45 View Post
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    2006 was the last tour for the F14Ds. Iran somehow still keeps a small number flying. They really wrecked the Iraqi AF with their F14s, shot down Mig25s with the Aim54etc.



    Agree, we should invest in drones, but we still need a man in the loop fighter IMO, and a long range interceptor is what is best for our NORAD commitment, and if it has a secondary ability to support Canadian forces anywhere they get deployed, huge x2 bonus. The F22/35 hybrid is perfect for that mission. Otherwise I think the Gripen is a cheaper alternative in the interim, 2-1 rate on the F35 in terms of buying power, but it's not THAT huge of an upgrade over our current Hornets tech/capability wise, they would just have a lot more time left on their airframes/etc.

    In the end, like many airplanes of its generation, the F-14 excelled at a role that was no longer of particular use: high speed, high altitude bomber intercept. The fact that they shoe-horned other capabilities into it later, and it got improvements was just extending the lifespan of an obsolete, expensive, and inefficient weapons platform. I'm surprised the Navy kept it around as long as they did.



    Buster, I'm going to PM you a long doc of posts I've collected from a friend I've flown Aces high with since 2001, he was a TG instructor and 2500 hour Tomcat pilot, and flew both Hornets, the F5N and the F16N as a Red Air instructor pilot. Flew the F15C on exchange. No better pilot to listen to in terms of F14 opinions, and he really opened my eyes up to the Tomcat's capabilities - and faults - over the years. It was far from garbage, in fact, at mid to low altitude it was more than a match for the F15A/C which was built to turn/fight at higher alts, and with the F14's wings out, it gained a significant turn rate and radius advantage on the F15s, and even the F16 at certain alts/speeds/profiles/etc. An extra set of eyes makes a big difference too, big time, in any kind of fight. With the newer engines, the F14D had such a wide scope of capability, could get energy back faster than any fighter until the F22 came out, could dive better than any other fighter, and again, at lower altitudes gained a big advantage in turn rate/radius over most other fighters. Even at high alt in BVR, it then had it's ridiculously powerful radar and weapons system to rely on to stay out of WVR high altitude fights. Plus it had effectively 2x the useful combat range radius than the Superhornet, arguably even more, much more, all on internal fuel and 2 tanks.

    The F14B and D models with their modern avionics and systems were fantastic, and had they gotten the Aim120D, Aim9x and some Phoenix analogue, the USN wouldn't have a gap in capability right now as it has vs the SU series fighters weapons. Yes the F14A with the TF30 were a difficult fighter to fight properly and maintain, but expert pilots still did very well with those even - you aren't wrong it took a long time to get it up to spec, but when the B and D came online, it was probably the best figheter in the inventory until the F22 and F35 came along. Cost and politics is what killed it, not capability.

    If anyone cares about reading first hand excellent info about this, www.hitechcreations.com, create a forum account and just search posts from user "Mace2004". Or, again, I can post logs I've saved over the years for my own research and writing. "Eagl" on the same board is a long time high hours F15E pilot and instructor, and Puma44 flew the A10, F102, F4 Phantom, etc. Great, great aviation posts from all of them there, all free.

    Sorry to drag this thread O/T, but it sort of applies - 2 sample posts just to give an idea, again, from a pilot that flew all of the USN/USAF fighters at that time (no F22), as well as probably the SU27 the USN/USAF have in their possession:
    Part of the problem with the F-14 wasn't it's performance...which eventually became acceptable. It was just literally a piece of garbage. Constantly broken, with massive amounts of man hours to keep in the air and maintain. Something like 5x the man hours, with a specific parts and crew chain. It was inefficient for the CV fleet because it was down for maintenance so much, and was so big.

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    You go from making the Hellcat, to the Lunar Module, to the Tomcat...to a mail truck.

    What a roller coaster ride for that company.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster View Post
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    I dunno. As I understand it, the F-14 was considered a piece of garbage all along. It's just a missile platform for a 60's era missile. No thanks. The F-16 added capability a ton since the original. But the original was basically considered a toy car by pilots at the time.

    F-25, F-22, etc...all aren't even what Canada needs. What are we going to do, stop bombers from coming over the arctic circle? lol

    What we should do is invest in a large, and super sophisticated fleet of drones.
    You do understand that arctic defense in support of our NORAD obligations is only a small portion of what we do with our fighters right? And that even then we launch our fighters sometimes a few times a week in support of that mission?

    Our fighters are perpetually deployed in various over seas missions supporting the missions of Canada and our allies.
    Last edited by Go4Long; 09-09-2018 at 01:22 AM.
    Originally posted by HeavyD
    you know you are making the right decision if Toma opposes it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gman.45 View Post
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    Agree, we should invest in drones, but we still need a man in the loop fighter IMO, and a long range interceptor is what is best for our NORAD commitment, and if it has a secondary ability to support Canadian forces anywhere they get deployed, huge x2 bonus. The F22/35 hybrid is perfect for that mission. Otherwise I think the Gripen is a cheaper alternative in the interim, 2-1 rate on the F35 in terms of buying power, but it's not THAT huge of an upgrade over our current Hornets tech/capability wise, they would just have a lot more time left on their airframes/etc.
    I'm usually mostly on board with what you've said on this topic, but I just can't agree with the Gripen being a reasonable option for Canada on any level. They're not overly affordable (actual contracted prices vs claims), and have actually been ringing up close to or more expensive than the F-35 on the last purchase orders. The Gripen NG is still vapour, and the only purchases so far have come in north of $150 million, and it's really just a Gripen with a super hornet engine. The Gripen is a TINY aircraft. An F-35 has enough payload capacity to carry a fully loaded Gripen and still have nearly enough capacity left over to go further than the Gripen could have gone. I still maintain that the only Gen 4 or 4+ platform that is really worth considering is a modernized F-15 that they were pitching a few years back with internal bays. Big Range, Fast, CFT's already developed, proven platform with a decent EW package already online.

    Keep in mind the last purchase order signed on the F-35 A model was $85 million USD per aircraft...that's pretty hard to compete with for anything on the market at this point.
    Originally posted by HeavyD
    you know you are making the right decision if Toma opposes it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Go4Long View Post
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    You do understand that arctic defense in support of our NORAD obligations is only a small portion of what we do with our fighters right? And that even then we launch our fighters sometimes several times a week in support of that mission? Our fighters are perpetually deployed in various over seas missions supporting the missions of Canada and our allies.



    Yeah...you're right...our 40 year old hornets are hardly ever even flown...that's why we keep having to perform structural upgrades on them...to keep them from rusting.
    I'm not sure what those fighters do that couldn't be done by a highly capable drone platform. They have much more sophisticated sensors, sophisticated weapons system, better range, better loiter time, are cheaper to run. They would be vastly more capable of monitoring our coastal waters than some F-18 or F-25 deployed.

    Our F-18s are providing air defence through the arctic from Cold Lake and various places? Hardly. If there was a real threat through the arctic bubbling up, do you know how many American F-22s and F-35s would be rolling around Canadian skies?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster View Post
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    Our F-18s are providing air defence through the arctic from Cold Lake and various places? Hardly. If there was a real threat through the arctic bubbling up, do you know how many American F-22s and F-35s would be rolling around Canadian skies?
    No 35's yet. Nearest F-35's on active duty are in Utah I think? They'd still be sending a mix of F-15, F-16, maybe some F-22's out of Alaska (I believe they said they were going to stand up an F-35 squadron there as well eventually). Our F-18's are still sent north first. It's our, admittedly small, commitment to northern defense.

    Drones are getting there, but there's still likely a couple generations of manned fighters to go.
    Originally posted by HeavyD
    you know you are making the right decision if Toma opposes it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Go4Long View Post
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    No 35's yet. Nearest F-35's on active duty are in Utah I think? They'd still be sending a mix of F-15, F-16, maybe some F-22's out of Alaska (I believe they said they were going to stand up an F-35 squadron there as well eventually). Our F-18's are still sent north first. It's our, admittedly small, commitment to northern defense.

    Drones are getting there, but there's still likely a couple generations of manned fighters to go.
    I'm not really suggesting they perform the same mission as the F-18s et al. I'm saying Canada really should be doing a different mission.

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    I think NORAD and NATO are both net wins for us. We're on the extremely low end of the spending spectrum in both cases. I don't think changing our mission commitments would do us any good at all.

    In terms of having the ability to actively patrol our own airspace with manned fighters, I think that's also a net win for us. We have two global super power that are both actively interested in increasing their territory. China is just building their own. Russia is annexing parts of other nations. If you don't see how the latter could directly affect our arctic sovereignty I don't know what else I can say here. Russia would love to get more access to drill the arctic...securing northern territories would give them a definite leg up in that. It may sound far fetched, but it's not that big of a reach to believe they would do it if given the opportunity.
    Last edited by Go4Long; 09-09-2018 at 04:49 AM.
    Originally posted by HeavyD
    you know you are making the right decision if Toma opposes it.

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    The capabilities of a sophisticated drone fleet help our sovereignty in the north more than the limitations of manned aircraft. If the Russians want to send bombers over the pole we aren't stopping them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster View Post
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    The capabilities of a sophisticated drone fleet help our sovereignty in the north more than the limitations of manned aircraft. If the Russians want to send bombers over the pole we aren't stopping them.
    Drones are easier to shoot down for fun without toooo big of an international incident. It would just end up with the rest of the world leaders saying "Russians will be Russians". Kill a military officers though... much bigger deal.

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    The Russians arent shooting down any drones in cdn airspace. Lol

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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster View Post
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    The Russians arent shooting down any drones in cdn airspace. Lol
    They continually fly into our air space flexing their muscles. If we send a fleet of drones up north, I bet $100 one will be shot down.

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    Revalations - that's s good question regarding Grumman, they went from hero to zero in a very odd way, no doubt. Has to be a lot behind the scenes that went on, I agree.


    Regarding the Gripen, it isn't just the price/capability ratio, there are other factors. Sortie generation rate, very low relative cost to maintain them in both cold war and hot war footings, and with the AESA radar variants (if they were bought), would give an equal BVR capability with the same weapons as the F15 (which I would also like if Canada purchased instead, one of their newer variants would be great). My high school friend flew the Gripen a lot at Empire test pilot school, couple other places too, and I base my opinion largely on his of that fighter. As i said he's a very high time Hornet pilot @ 2500hrs with hundreds in combat, 3800 hrs total in 40 types, F16, SuperHornet, Gripen, Typhoon, F35 (sims/school)...etc. Also, the Gripen is VERY hard to see in wvr, like the CF5 used to be, and that's something that can't be overstated, even with IRST/AESA, they only point where your nose is +/- their gimbal/solid state limit. Same pilot says the F35 is still the best choice, Gripen second, F15 variant 3rd. There is a ranking from the team/committee for procuring Canada's Hornet replacement, I'll ask him this week if he can tell me what that is now (we all know the SuperHornet buy got dropped over politics unrelated to capability and cost there).

    Buster - interesting points, I could think and talk for days about this issue, using UCAVs up North has a lot of attractive benefits, but still some negatives too. So far as stopping Russian bombers - it IS kind of an odd mission, as if they were ever coming, there would almost certainly be an exchange of ICBMs precluding a bomber attack. Bombers IMO would be the least of our problems at that point. In a conventional war between peer states (if there could be such a thing with the morons running all of our countries), then this discussion has more merit, and I still like to game that out. IMO we're still at a point where we need to counter long range bombers, not just from Russia, but China now too, their Badger types are really coming along with upgrades, and present a pretty serious threat to Guam and further thanks to their reef bases. Taiwan especially. I do get your point regarding Canada's mission, I'm talking in more broad NATO/etc terms here. Canada is in a strange position right now regarding defense policy, of that I don't think there is any argument or doubt.

    Go4Long, I respect your opinions and posts here as well, Buster (here and other threads like finance where I've learned a lot reading your posts), and everyone else too. It's great there is a shared interest in fighter aircraft on a mainly car board. IIRC there was a member working on Hornets at Cold Lake, had great info and opinions too, just can't remember his name.

    One last point about the F35 - the F35B gives the USA a huge added stick IMO. All 10+ of the assault ships once they are all refurbed to handle the F35B will give the USA nearly a dozen more bird farms to run operations at sea from. Even with shorter range, the F35Bs will be able to refuel from the new drone tanker that was just awarded a contract, as well as special ops MC130 tankers, V22 tankers, etc. That fighter is going to give the USMC a huge boost, and the US military at sea as a whole too. Again, a pile more squadrons and more decks with a huge capability to add to the already stressed out deployment times of the 10 CVNs in the fleet. Some vids of them operating this last week.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzxnR-gsWzc
    Last edited by Gman.45; 09-09-2018 at 04:30 PM.

  18. #618
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    Quote Originally Posted by OTown View Post
    This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
    Yeah I bet the tech on this is unreal. I just dont know if it's what we need in Canada where we have such huge areas to patrol. A 2 engined plane with longer ranger would have made more sense IMO
    The entire “patrol” thing to warrant two engines in 2018 is a giant BS myth. This isn’t Europe in 1944 where fighter aircraft are needed to be airborne to detect threats. We don’t have our fighters up in the air 24/7 flying around the empty north. In fact, the yearly flying hours anywhere substantially north of Cold Lake account for less than 3% of the total hours combined. It’s extremely expensive operating out of the north so unless there is a security threat or planned exercise, there is no reason to loiter up there.

    I spent over a decade on the CF18 but have finally moved on. From my personal experience and opinion it’s about time for a replacement. Spare parts are getting hard to find, reliability is decreasing and the jet itself from a combat perspective is almost not relevant. Pilot recruitment is getting very difficult as well, no kid who grew up in the 2000s wants to fly a 70s tech era jet. In about 2-3 years time there will be a massive shortage of pilots. All the new guys who get their wings go transport, get their hours in a multi and fly for an airliner. Jet pilot flying is horrible on your body, terrible lifestyle on family(you are always gone or on some BS tasking) and you get either cold lake or bagotville to choose from. The newer guys in their late 20s, early 30s are hating it and the older experienced guys are retiring early.

    The RCAF fighter world will self-implode on itself if a modern jet (F35) isn’t purchased soon. The Canadian public is inherently stupid and will think the US will protect us, so I don’t see much support for a replacement. Most Canadians don’t even know there is a military in the country or what it does.
    Last edited by jutes; 09-10-2018 at 12:56 AM.

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    We're not defending ourselves with a bunch of expensive fighter planes regardless of the intelligence of the populace.

    Among relevant countries, we're #1 by a mile in terms of coastline per capita. We simply don't have the economic output to create a military that has the ability to defend our borders. Never have, never will.

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    We are way past defending our country with sticks and stones. The mil stuff thats available, is so light years beyond whats publicly known; its staggering.
    Last edited by revelations; 10-27-2019 at 11:38 AM.

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