- Reaction score
- 2,549
- Points
- 1,260
The white smoke rises from the Treasury Board chimney - this from MERX:
Award document also attached if link doesn't work for you.
- Reaction score
- 2,549
- Points
- 1,260
Close - it means Canada's agreed to pay that much to carry out (from the bid docs) a "Review of the Department of National Defence (DND) acquisition and sustainment project assumptions with respect to the estimated costs for next generation fighter jet".Sythen said:
I debated posting this in Radio Chatter, but felt it deserved a look see. Knowing roughly as much about high performance aircrafts as Lew Mackenzie does, I wonder what he was thinking to get involved with this. The story about a plan to replace the F35 with the Avro Arrow is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act.
Amy Minsky, Global News/The West Block Sunday, September 09, 2012 10:30 AM
OTTAWA -- The Harper Conservatives quietly dismissed a Canadian company's plan for an alternative to the plagued F-35 program -- a revival of a national legend that one of the country's most celebrated infantry commanders says is far superior to the planned American purchase.
The alternative aircraft can fly 20,000 feet higher than the F-35, soar twice as fast and will cost less, the project's organizers wrote in documents obtained by the Global News program The West Block.
The jet in question is the storied CF-105 Avro Arrow -- the project designed, produced and tested more than half a century ago, before the government suddenly cancelled the program and ordered all data destroyed, sparking an enduring political debate.
From the pages of history, a consortium of Canadian manufactures and aerospace executives in July 2010 presented a plan to the federal government that would see the 1950s CF-105 Avro Arrow upgraded and re-modelled with modern technology.
The result, they say, will be a jet that flies faster and more powerfully than the F-35 -- or much else on the market.
"The basic design and platform still today exceed anything that's on the books, or anything that's flying by way of a fighter -- easily more than the F-35," said retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, a staunch defender of Canada and its military missions.
MacKenzie is a core advocate for this project, although he says he holds no financial stake in it. In an interview with The West Block host Tom Clark, the retired infantry soldier said he became involved as a "patriot" who had serious doubts about the F-35 program, and was happy to use his connections to get the plan in front of government and military officials.
With the proposal in hand, the Harper government would have read that enough 1950s data survived the ordered destruction, allowing engineers today to recreate the jet.
The Avro Arrow vs. the F-35
Speed: The Arrow would fly twice as fast as the F-35 -- 3,887 km/h, or Mach 3.5, compared to the F-35's 1,854 km/h, or Mach 1.67.
Distance: The Arrow can fly as far as 3,000 kilometres before refueling. The F-35 flies 2,200 kilometres before doing the same.
Costs: The 20-year lifecycle cost for 100 Arrows would come in at $12 billion. That's less than half the price Canada is expected to pay for 65 F-35s.
Conditions: The Arrow is tailor-made to Canada's unique geography, with an eject pod that would help pilots survive in arctic conditions. The F-35 has a one-size-fits-all model for missions in countries across the globe.
Source: Bourdeau Industries
"Sufficient inventory of original Arrow CF-105 engineering 'hard' data... exists to allow the reverse engineering of the (original) platform and design upgrade in a 21st century context," reads the proposal submitted by Marc Bourdeau who, as president of Bourdeau Industries, is spearheading the venture.
The "hard data," he wrote, includes parts, drawings, blueprints and original supplier companies.
There is also plenty of "soft data," such as videos, interviews and engineering lectures, to help today's engineers reconstruct and modernize the Arrow, turning it into a jet viable for modern-day requirements, the report reads.
"It's an evolution of the model," MacKenzie said during the interview. "It would (have) upgraded technology and upgraded materials to improve upon the original Avro Arrow."
The project managers argue that not only would the re-incarnated Arrows be superior jets to the F-35s the Conservatives plan to purchase, but that the "made in Canada" scenario would boost the national economy and create jobs -- a stated interest of Harper's government.
In his pitch, Bourdeau guarantees that more than 95 per cent of government funds invested in the proposed acquisition and operational costs -- $9 billion, or more than $20 billion over the jets' lifespan -- would remain in Canada. Plus, the project would create up to 25,000 direct and 175,000 indirect jobs in Canada's "revitalized" aerospace industry.
On top of that, MacKenzie said, "it's ours."
At MacKenzie's insistence, National Defence looked at the plan.
But it was firmly rejected when Julian Fantino, at the time the minister in charge of the fighter jet replacement program, wrote back to say the proposal "does not satisfactorily address these mandatory requirements."
One of those requirements, mentioned three times in the June 29 letter to MacKenzie, is stealth capabilities -- a quality the F-35 is purported to have, but that many experts have questioned.
During an NDP-led roundtable on the F-35 procurement process last month, Winslow Wheeler, a U.S. national security expert and former defence analyst in Washington, said the stealth capabilities of the F-35 are limited.
"The hoopla is stealth," he said. "But what stealth really means is that against some radars, at some angles, you are detectable at shorter ranges. And what that means, is that against some radars, at some angels, you are detectable at any range as soon as you come over the radar horizon."
Although stealth can provide a tactical advantage, Wheeler said, it's a limited one that compromises the design of the aircraft. Further, the stealth capabilities of the F-35 would be hindered once the suite of weapons are attached to the body of the aircraft, critics say.
Still, the minister wrote in June, the funds and time needed to develop the updated Arrow's airframe, avionics, sensors and mission systems are too much for Canada.
"The risks associated with undertaking this developmental effort would be too high to consider," Fantino wrote.
More than two months before that letter was sent, the Conservatives had pressed the pause button on its attempt to replace the military's aging fleet of CF-18s jets, in response to the fallout from Auditor General Michael Ferguson's explosive report on the botched process to acquire the F-35s.
After Ferguson released his report on the $25-billion purchase, the government created an office to oversee the acquisition of Canada's next fighter jets.
One of the new secretariat's tasks is to consider whether the government should consider other jets as well as the F-35s -- the aircraft critics say the military selected without considering alternatives.
But critics have questioned the potential effectiveness of the office, which is operating within Public Works and has deputy ministers from that department, National Defence and Industry Canada at the table.
At last month's roundtable, University of Ottawa defence procurement expert Philippe Lagasse questioned the secretariat's mandate.
While the government said the new office will provide decision-makers with more information, Lagasse said it isn't clear whether it will be able to address three issues he identified as key -- whether it will review the Air Force's requirements which only the F-35 meets, whether it will conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of other aircraft the Forces might consider, and whether it will examine the government's underlying policy behind the procurement.
Although the secretariat was officially underway at the time Fantino rejected the proposal, there is no mention of it in his letter to MacKenzie, who has added his name to the list of its critics.
"He could well be right," Mackenzie said of the minister's reasoning behind turning down the Bourdeau proposal. "But those who assess the risks shouldn't be from what is being presented as an impartial committee."
With government and military representatives at the table, MacKenzie said he doesn't understand how the secretariat can be considered independent.
"Independent from what?" he asked. "I would like to see the aerospace industry, manufacturing, business people... Put a committee like that together and have them look at the practicality of the idea."
Amy Minsky, Global News/The West Block Sunday, September 09, 2012 10:30 AM
OTTAWA -- The Harper Conservatives quietly dismissed a Canadian company's plan for an alternative to the plagued F-35 program -- a revival of a national legend that one of the country's most celebrated infantry commanders says is far superior to the planned American purchase.
The alternative aircraft can fly 20,000 feet higher than the F-35, soar twice as fast and will cost less, the project's organizers wrote in documents obtained by the Global News program The West Block.
The jet in question is the storied CF-105 Avro Arrow -- the project designed, produced and tested more than half a century ago, before the government suddenly cancelled the program and ordered all data destroyed, sparking an enduring political debate.
From the pages of history, a consortium of Canadian manufactures and aerospace executives in July 2010 presented a plan to the federal government that would see the 1950s CF-105 Avro Arrow upgraded and re-modelled with modern technology.
The result, they say, will be a jet that flies faster and more powerfully than the F-35 -- or much else on the market.
"The basic design and platform still today exceed anything that's on the books, or anything that's flying by way of a fighter -- easily more than the F-35," said retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, a staunch defender of Canada and its military missions.
MacKenzie is a core advocate for this project, although he says he holds no financial stake in it. In an interview with The West Block host Tom Clark, the retired infantry soldier said he became involved as a "patriot" who had serious doubts about the F-35 program, and was happy to use his connections to get the plan in front of government and military officials.
With the proposal in hand, the Harper government would have read that enough 1950s data survived the ordered destruction, allowing engineers today to recreate the jet.
The Avro Arrow vs. the F-35
Speed: The Arrow would fly twice as fast as the F-35 -- 3,887 km/h, or Mach 3.5, compared to the F-35's 1,854 km/h, or Mach 1.67.
Distance: The Arrow can fly as far as 3,000 kilometres before refueling. The F-35 flies 2,200 kilometres before doing the same.
Costs: The 20-year lifecycle cost for 100 Arrows would come in at $12 billion. That's less than half the price Canada is expected to pay for 65 F-35s.
Conditions: The Arrow is tailor-made to Canada's unique geography, with an eject pod that would help pilots survive in arctic conditions. The F-35 has a one-size-fits-all model for missions in countries across the globe.
Source: Bourdeau Industries
"Sufficient inventory of original Arrow CF-105 engineering 'hard' data... exists to allow the reverse engineering of the (original) platform and design upgrade in a 21st century context," reads the proposal submitted by Marc Bourdeau who, as president of Bourdeau Industries, is spearheading the venture.
The "hard data," he wrote, includes parts, drawings, blueprints and original supplier companies.
There is also plenty of "soft data," such as videos, interviews and engineering lectures, to help today's engineers reconstruct and modernize the Arrow, turning it into a jet viable for modern-day requirements, the report reads.
"It's an evolution of the model," MacKenzie said during the interview. "It would (have) upgraded technology and upgraded materials to improve upon the original Avro Arrow."
The project managers argue that not only would the re-incarnated Arrows be superior jets to the F-35s the Conservatives plan to purchase, but that the "made in Canada" scenario would boost the national economy and create jobs -- a stated interest of Harper's government.
In his pitch, Bourdeau guarantees that more than 95 per cent of government funds invested in the proposed acquisition and operational costs -- $9 billion, or more than $20 billion over the jets' lifespan -- would remain in Canada. Plus, the project would create up to 25,000 direct and 175,000 indirect jobs in Canada's "revitalized" aerospace industry.
On top of that, MacKenzie said, "it's ours."
At MacKenzie's insistence, National Defence looked at the plan.
But it was firmly rejected when Julian Fantino, at the time the minister in charge of the fighter jet replacement program, wrote back to say the proposal "does not satisfactorily address these mandatory requirements."
One of those requirements, mentioned three times in the June 29 letter to MacKenzie, is stealth capabilities -- a quality the F-35 is purported to have, but that many experts have questioned.
During an NDP-led roundtable on the F-35 procurement process last month, Winslow Wheeler, a U.S. national security expert and former defence analyst in Washington, said the stealth capabilities of the F-35 are limited.
"The hoopla is stealth," he said. "But what stealth really means is that against some radars, at some angles, you are detectable at shorter ranges. And what that means, is that against some radars, at some angels, you are detectable at any range as soon as you come over the radar horizon."
Although stealth can provide a tactical advantage, Wheeler said, it's a limited one that compromises the design of the aircraft. Further, the stealth capabilities of the F-35 would be hindered once the suite of weapons are attached to the body of the aircraft, critics say.
Still, the minister wrote in June, the funds and time needed to develop the updated Arrow's airframe, avionics, sensors and mission systems are too much for Canada.
"The risks associated with undertaking this developmental effort would be too high to consider," Fantino wrote.
More than two months before that letter was sent, the Conservatives had pressed the pause button on its attempt to replace the military's aging fleet of CF-18s jets, in response to the fallout from Auditor General Michael Ferguson's explosive report on the botched process to acquire the F-35s.
After Ferguson released his report on the $25-billion purchase, the government created an office to oversee the acquisition of Canada's next fighter jets.
One of the new secretariat's tasks is to consider whether the government should consider other jets as well as the F-35s -- the aircraft critics say the military selected without considering alternatives.
But critics have questioned the potential effectiveness of the office, which is operating within Public Works and has deputy ministers from that department, National Defence and Industry Canada at the table.
At last month's roundtable, University of Ottawa defence procurement expert Philippe Lagasse questioned the secretariat's mandate.
While the government said the new office will provide decision-makers with more information, Lagasse said it isn't clear whether it will be able to address three issues he identified as key -- whether it will review the Air Force's requirements which only the F-35 meets, whether it will conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of other aircraft the Forces might consider, and whether it will examine the government's underlying policy behind the procurement.
Although the secretariat was officially underway at the time Fantino rejected the proposal, there is no mention of it in his letter to MacKenzie, who has added his name to the list of its critics.
"He could well be right," Mackenzie said of the minister's reasoning behind turning down the Bourdeau proposal. "But those who assess the risks shouldn't be from what is being presented as an impartial committee."
With government and military representatives at the table, MacKenzie said he doesn't understand how the secretariat can be considered independent.
"Independent from what?" he asked. "I would like to see the aerospace industry, manufacturing, business people... Put a committee like that together and have them look at the practicality of the idea."
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 210
Yeah, no.
A modernized CF-105 would basically be... a MiG-31.
Not bad, but not your first choice for a single-type multirole fighter force.
Not to mention the pornographic amounts of money, and the decade plus of development time, that it would take to integrate a new avionics suite.
Terrible idea. Should have been pushing to buy the F-22 since day one.
A modernized CF-105 would basically be... a MiG-31.
Not bad, but not your first choice for a single-type multirole fighter force.
Not to mention the pornographic amounts of money, and the decade plus of development time, that it would take to integrate a new avionics suite.
Terrible idea. Should have been pushing to buy the F-22 since day one.
- Reaction score
- 3,462
- Points
- 1,160
FoverF said:
Its funny how people decry the F35 for all the stuff you mention above, and then want us to build a new aircraft from scratch.
CF-105 is a nice idea, but in practice it will just cost obscene amounts of money for something we could have got from another source COTS/MOTS. Oh wait, that's how our procurement system works anyways...
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 210
ArmyRick said:
Yes, I'm aware that this is the status quo.
However, nobody has actually tried to buy any yet either.
And I think that regardless of that status quo, Canadian F-22's would be used by the closest US ally, actively defending US airspace, under direct US military operational command within NORAD, but being paid for by another country. All while bringing in tens of billions of dollars, keeping a major US contractor employed, and keeping open a production line that the USAF was desparate to keep running.
There would be a very convincing case to sell F-22s to Canada (even more convincing while they were still in USAF serial production), if we were inclined to ask for them.
FoverF said:
Why can't we buy F-22s?
First off there is the legal challenge of overturning the Obey amendment. There is a lot of opposition against this, especially given the current austerity budgets. And yes, countries have tried. The Japanese basically tried every single lever they could pull, in congress, through the Bush Administration and the US Military's FMS program: it was an emphatic no. I'm sure the Israelis were just as active and they got nowhere.
Technical challenges:
The reality of the F-22's production was that the USAF could not produce more using the current configuration. Basically the Raptors utilize an avionics architecture based on the i960MX processor that was never upgraded in the expectation that they would be replaced after 2010. So in 2003 they bought up all the remaining MX chips from Intel (before they closed their line) and used that stock to complete the current production flight of aircraft. The new avionics suite was to be based on the F-35's architecture, but that too was cut somewhere between 2004 and 2006. So in order to produce more F-22s the USAF (or Canada) would be on the hook to pay for a major avionics upgrade program. To get from increment 3.1 to 3.2 (which is just updating the current architecture) the USAF is looking at $8 billion dollars in development. Introducing a full fledged new avionics suite would be far more than that.
Finally I get the sense that the USAF brass would rather go with F-35s than F-22s. Raptors are horrendously expensive to operate and maintain. Starting up the production line would be extremely expensive as well; you could be looking at costs where you could buy 2.5 to 3 F-35s for each F-22.
So no, its completely unfeasible.
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 210
I had the impression that the Japanese wanted to do some sort partial knock-down production of the F-22, which was one of their major stumbing blocks.
I do think that we missed the boat by not getting in while the production line was still open. The technical problems of restarting production make it an impractical proposition nowadays, but I think the prohibition on foreign sales could definitely have been overcome if we had made a major concerted push for it.
I do think that we missed the boat by not getting in while the production line was still open. The technical problems of restarting production make it an impractical proposition nowadays, but I think the prohibition on foreign sales could definitely have been overcome if we had made a major concerted push for it.
FoverF said:
Even if Japanese manufacturing was an issue (and it wasn't given the closed nature of the Japanese aviation industry) Israel had it enacted into law by Clinton that they would get the first opportunity to purchase the fighter. And that got nowhere. IT would be a diplomatic faux pas for them to offer us the F-22 and then deny their other allies who actually required it.
FoverF said:
The F-22 is basically a millstone around the USAF's neck, one we should count our graces that we avoided. Even comparatively minor upgrades to the avionics (like integrating the AIM-9X or JHMC) are costing billions. Its experiencing serious corrosion problems, its skin easily delaminates, and that doesn't even go into the whole oxygen problem. Flyaway cost through FMS for a final production F-22 would have been around $157.7 million (137.7 million +15% fms.) That's basically two F-35s for one F-22. And the industrial benefits would have been comparatively poor too.
The F-35 basically does everything we need it to, if not more on domestic security. F-22 is poorly adapted for maritime security or expeditionary warfare.
A
aesop081
Guest
The last F-22 was already delivered to the USAF.
The F-22 is a dead issue. Move along.
the CF-105 ?? That is also a dead issue and i cannot find a facepalm that accurately expresses what i think of Lewis putting his name to such a dumbass idea.
The F-22 is a dead issue. Move along.
the CF-105 ?? That is also a dead issue and i cannot find a facepalm that accurately expresses what i think of Lewis putting his name to such a dumbass idea.
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 110
As stupid a question as this may seem, It looks like the Sukhoi PAK FA is about 25% of the price of the F-35. Of course I'm only getting this from wikipedia but does anyone have any thoughts?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_PAK_FA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_PAK_FA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II
A
aesop081
Guest
davidc538 said:
It is in development and just more Russian crap...........
J
jollyjacktar
Guest
As it is not my part ship, I honestly don't have the trade knowledge but am viewing it as an outsider. My question is why not the Super Hornet instead of Lightening? (I won't advocate for the Arrow, period as it's just irrational.) We already fly 18's. The Supers are just updated ones are they not? The crew training would not be a huge leap as they are already working/flying this platform already and are geared up tool wise, proceedure wise etc etc. I know that the RAAF is buying Supers as a stop gap. But for us, would this not be a more logical direction too? Can one of you who know more answer my questions?
jollyjacktar said:
The practical issue with the Super hornet is that we're actually too late to purchase it. The last long lead items have been purchased and unless there are more orders the production line will close down in two to three years. We would need to make the decision within the next year or that boat will have sailed.
This also raises a much wider issue. We would be purchasing a fighter that is already deeply into its lifecycle. With the US government planning to replace it by 2030 with a combination of the F-35 and F/A-XX, we would only get 10 years of support from the US government before we would be completely on the hook for paying for upgrades and maintenence. It would be a logistical nightmare. Even now the the US government questions' the Shornet's survivability against modern Air defence systems... yet we would be purchasing it to defend our interests for the next 30 years.
Finally the industrial benefits package of the F/A-18E would not come close to matching that of the JSF Partnership program.
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