An article of mine about figher jets was published

[CdnShockwave]

If this violates the board's policy of no politics, then I apologise; please delete.

I just wanted to share with you all that I wrote an article regarding Canada's F-35 fighter jet problem that was published on the Ottawa Citizen's Defence Watch page.

**Information that has since come to light:
-the Super Hornet is only about 20% common to the Hornet. It is essentially an entirely new air craft from the Hornet. Pilots would not already be familiar with the aircraft. It only looks a lot like a regular Hornet.
-the Gripen has superior range with and without external fuel takes in comparison to the Super Hornet
-the Super Hornet is more expensive than the Gripen


Part 1: http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2013/...ation-fighter/

Part 2: http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2013/...rcraft-part-2/

[DecepticonusPrime]

Congrats!

I'm definitely going to read this.

[Window]

Ooo spiffy, gonna read over lunch today.
This is an on-going discussion between a co-worker and myself.

[DecepticonusPrime]

Offhand, I will say that I don't know a whole lot about fighters, so I will defer to your expertise. However, isn't the F-35 the only true "next gen" fighter available? From a (somewhat) layperson's perspective, maybe the best option is wait and see?

Have you considered interoperability in theatre? If all nations in a coalition are using the same fighter (one of the goals of the F-35 program), wouldn't there be money saved by common parts/weaponry, not to mention easier combined missions? (Potentially, at least... not sure if to a significant degree, since different fighters can still fly together, obviously.)

I do not agree that we should cut our fleet of Aurora's for UAVs. We should augment with UAVs, certainly, but there's a reason those planes are big - and hold lots of equipment and personnel onboard. Surveillance is more than just going out there and taking pics - you have to consider ASW as well, for one thing. I can't remember if our MPAs are fitted with torpedoes or not, but I do know it's a capability of the platform in general. Not sure if UAVs can do that... at least not yet.

Anyway, food for thought. Good read.

[cannabisprime]

That was a very interesting and informative article; thanks for sharing Kyle.

[CdnShockwave]

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I did a ton of research and I'm glad to see that it came together well.

Originally Posted by DecepticonusPrime

Offhand, I will say that I don't know a whole lot about fighters, so I will defer to your expertise. However, isn't the F-35 the only true "next gen" fighter available? From a (somewhat) layperson's perspective, maybe the best option is wait and see?

Have you considered interoperability in theatre? If all nations in a coalition are using the same fighter (one of the goals of the F-35 program), wouldn't there be money saved by common parts/weaponry, not to mention easier combined missions? (Potentially, at least... not sure if to a significant degree, since different fighters can still fly together, obviously.)

I do not agree that we should cut our fleet of Aurora's for UAVs. We should augment with UAVs, certainly, but there's a reason those planes are big - and hold lots of equipment and personnel onboard. Surveillance is more than just going out there and taking pics - you have to consider ASW as well, for one thing. I can't remember if our MPAs are fitted with torpedoes or not, but I do know it's a capability of the platform in general. Not sure if UAVs can do that... at least not yet.

Anyway, food for thought. Good read.

The term "fifth generation fighter" is a bit of a buzzword. It's actually difficult to define just what a "fifth generation fighter" is. I don't think classifying something by generation is really a good idea. I'd rather look at the actual capabilities of the fighter itself. The F-35 isn't good at anything. Everything it can do, other fighters can do better. The Gripen has the additional advantage of being designed to operate in cold weather; something that the Eurofighter and the Rafale have problems with.

Interoperability is one of two concerns with the Gripen, the other being the fact that it's a single engine aircraft. So far as interoperability goes, this would require further integration, adding to cost. However, considering that the Gripen costs so little to buy and so little to operate, there would be funds left over for such interoperability integration. That said, the Gripen is designed for NATO standard weapons and the kinds of weapons that Canada stockpiles. So I don't see weapon compatibility being an issue. In terms of parts, the Gripen uses the same engine as the Super Hornet, so engine parts shouldn't be a problem either.

Here's a really good resource on the Gripen and why it's better suited to Canada over other fighters. The guy who runs this site, Doug Allen, helped me with the article in terms of fact checking and sources.

http://gripen4canada.blogspot.ca/