Canada wants to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets. The government says the purchase price is $9 billion, including some spare parts and weapons but not including a long-term maintenance contract.
Today, Winslow Wheeler, the director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center For Defense Information in Washington, D.C., releases written testimony he was asked to give to the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence. Wheeler says he tries to answer three questions in his testimony:
1. What will Canada’s F-35As cost?
2. What will Canada obtain for that expense?
3. Is there a good reason to wait?
The short answers to those three questions: 1. Unable to know. 2. Unable to know 3. Yes.
Some quotes from the piece:
I can guarantee to you, however, that the unit cost Canada will pay for a complete, operational F-35A will be well in excess of $70 million – even taking into account whatever exclusion of American costs to develop the aircraft your government may be able to negotiate.
If and when Canada signs an actual purchase contract for F-35As in 2014, as I understand is currently planned, the real question is what multiple of CAD$70 million will Canada have to pay? I do not believe it unreasonable to expect a multiplication factor of two.
Finally, what will be your costs to operate this aircraft? In January 2010, the U.S. Navy estimated the cost of operating F-35C’s to be 62 percent higher than operating its current F-18A-Ds and AV-8Bs. New operating costs for the F-35 are now being discussed inside the Pentagon; the cost is, of course, going up. Even the lesser A model will be a very large increase in operating costs over your CF-18s. It would not be unreasonable to expect the flying hour costs to double.
One of the tricky bits for the designer is to deliver on promises to make this a “stealth” fighter, which means it will be hard or impossible for enemy radars to pick up the F-35. Wheeler has something to say about the stealth promises:
The above assumes the stealth characteristic performs as designed, but that is usually not the case. My work at the U.S. Government Accountability Office on stealth systems made it clear to me that not a single U.S. stealth aircraft had lived up to its original detectability promises, and the F-35 looks to be no exception.
And, in Wheeler's view, the stealth technology comes with sharp performance trade-offs:
The F-35’s stealth features build into the aircraft weight and drag so severe that a hugely powerful engine gives the F-35 less rapid acceleration than American F-18Cs or F-16Cs, according to the data I have seen. The combination of the F-35’s considerable weight and its small-ish wings means it has a “wing loading” (and as a result maneuverability) roughly equivalent to an American F-105 fighter-bomber of the Vietnam era. The F-105 “Lead Sled” was notorious for its inability to defend itself over North Vietnam during the Indochina War.
Print it in the Sun David. It's important information regardless of the fact that it runs contrary to the Suns editorial viewpoint/CPC cheerleading.
So, now it's ok to take American advice on Canadian decisions. Would this article have seen the light of day if this AMERICAN had had the opposite opinion.
@albertaclipper – I fully expect that Harper, MacKay, et al will simply ignore the messenger in this case. But if he was a Canadian they'd also have him fired for telling an unpleasant truth because that's just the way they work.
These planes may or may not be the best solution for Canada's military going forward, but this is NOT the way to run a multi-billion dollar government procurement, no matter what political stripe you are.
Hey David, did you check and see if there are any links between Wheeler and Ignatieff??? Say for example, being speakers or participants during sessions or seminars during Ignatieff's time at the Carr institute.
And who was it that asked Wheeler to testify before committee??
Mr. Wheeler may well be a “defence expert”, but according to the bio you link to, his expertise is in the field of strategic defense, rather than procurement, so I'm not sure how much he would really know about the rather complicated amd arcane procedures involved in developing and producing a brand-new aircraft. He also seems to have no direct military experience.
this aircraft appears to be a Dilbert situation, in which marketing won most of the skirmishes against eng/design!
@anonymous – Nothing to see here as far as an “expert” is concerned. As for the purchase of these fighters this is another Chretienesque election type issue. It will be interesting to see if Canadians are more intelligent in 2011 than in 1993. You may or may not be old enough to remember the copters that “da liddel guy” canceled and which we're still waiting for 18 years later. Nice fence sitting though, on your position on the purchase of the F35. Your procurement idea is an interesting one. “Maybe? Maybe not”. I prefer someone like Harper who is decisive.
The CDS has just said that:
As one comparison I would note the current cost of a Super Hornet (which the US Navy continues to buy in considerable numbers) is US $42.7 million, without its two engines.
Each engine cost some US $4million, so the basic price of the plane is around US $51 million.
Our government claims our F-35s will cost something in the mid-$70 million range each. The CDS seems rather to have mis-spoke.
Mark
Ottawa
no need to buy, rent 'em when we need em
I put the wrong link for the US $42.7 million. This is the correct one.
Mark
Ottawa
Some rather more compelling experts than Mr. Wheeler add theor ten cent's worth.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/truth+about+those+jets/4153489/story.html
The retired generals write that “Stealth is simply a means of improving pilot survivability and operational effectiveness, by making the aircraft very difficult to detect visually, by radar or by other enemy sensors.”
Visually? An odd sort of expertise.
Mark
Ottawa
As for visual stealth, how come that Chinese J-20 shows up so well?
Mark
Ottawa
F-35 letters:
1) Globe:
2) Citizen:
More on 2006 F-35 MoU here, with link to text.
Mark
Ottawa
Pentagon Cuts $6.9 Billion by Delaying Lockheed F-35 Purchase
And we're going to start getting them in 2016 with a price in the mid-USD 70 million range each.
Mark
Ottawa
A real kicker:
Mark
Ottawa