F-35s to the Rescue?: 1 Country Needs 88 New Fighters Or Its Air Force Is in Trouble

David Axe

Security, Americas

Our neighbor to the north has a problem.

"Without these upgrades, according to the department, the CF-18 will become more vulnerable as advanced combat aircraft and air-defense systems continue to be developed and used by other nations."

Canada for the third time in a decade is trying to replace its aging F/A-18A/B Hornet fighter jets. With every year the acquisition effort drags on, the condition of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s fast-jet fleet grows direr.

“The politically-charged competition to replace Canada's aging fleet of fighter jets will rocket forward at the end of May [2019] as the federal government releases a long-anticipated, full-fledged tender call,” Murray Brewster reported for CBC News.

(This first appeared several weeks ago.)

Four companies are vying for the multibillion-dollar contract for as many as 88 fighters that would replace the RCAF’s 1980s-vintage Hornets, which in Canadian service are designated “CF-18.”

Saab, Airbus, Boeing and Lockheed Martin all are in the running, respectively offering the Gripen, Eurofighter, F/A-18E/F and F-35A. The manufacturers will have until the end of 2019 to submit bids, CBC News reported. But the RCAF hardly can wait.

The RCAF acquired 138 F/A-18A/Bs from McDonnell Douglas starting in 1982. In early 2019, 85 of the original Hornets, all more than 30 years old, comprise Canada's entire fighter fleet. The Canadian Hornets are unreliable and lack modern systems.

In 2010, Canada's Conservative Party government announced plans to acquire 65 new F-35 stealth fighters by 2020. But the government never fairly compared the F-35 to rival fighter types such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Auditor General of Canada concluded in a 2018 report. "National Defense did not manage the process to replace the CF-18 fleet with due diligence."

In 2015, Liberal Party candidate Justin Trudeau made the F-35 a major issue in his campaign for prime minister. Trudeau won. And in 2017, Ottawa backed off its proposal to purchase F-35s and, instead, launched a new competition to acquire 88 fighters.