Indications Canada may buy overbudget F-35 lemon jets?

swallow wrote:

On foreign policy, is this government really any different from the last government, with better messaging? 

On foreign policy per se, I'm not seeing much difference, unless you think that assisting bombers on the ground is somehow better than flying them in the air.

On certain issues that sort of overlap with foreign policy issues, they're a little bit better. For examaple, it looks like they really will reverse the denial of citizenship thing that the Tories had implemented.

Matthew Fisher: Why the Super Hornets will force Canada out of its own north

I have doubts about the F-35, but if it's any kind of approval stamp, other countries are putting it into service. 

A test pilot's criticisms from January 2015.

The F-35's Damning Dogfighting Report - has problems against the plane that it's meant to replace.

Quote:

...can’t turn fast enough to defeat other jet fighters in close aerial combat. In other words, the F-35 is dead meat in a real war against a determined foe.

That's what it looks like in youtube videos, especially compared to Sukhois with their advanced thrust vectoring.

Quote:

Forget the Russians and Chinese. The expensive, under-performing F-35 is the gravest threat to U.S. air power.  'Your New Stealth Fighter Is Really, Really Awful' collects all our best articles about the Joint Strike Fighter into a slim, 100-page volume and adds some nice photos. Think of it as a handy guide to how not to build a new warplane...available from print-on-demand service Blurb.

blurb link: http://www.blurb.com/b/5041447-your-new-stealth-fighter-is-really-really...

Disgusting. Looks like the F-35 program is not even about building a warplane, but about subjugating populations to pay and pay and pay for this lemon. And there won't be any money left for the Russian language teachers. Maybe this Potemkin Village in the sky is an inevitable destination for the west's corrupt military-industrial complex.

I quote a large chunk of this webpage because who knows it might be taken down.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/161757/f_35-is-...

DOT&E Report: The F-35 Is Not Ready for IOC [initial operational capability] and Won't Be Any Time Soon (excerpts) (Source: Project On Government Oversight; posted March 12, 2015)

Quote:

...the latest report from the Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) provides a litany of reasons that conventional wisdom should be considered politically driven propaganda.

The press has already reported flawed software that hinders the ability of the plane to employ weapons, communicate information, and detect threats; maintenance problems so severe that the F-35 has an “overdependence” on contractor maintainers and “unacceptable workarounds” (behind paywall) and is only able to fly twice a week; and a high-rate, premature production schedule that ignores whether the program has demonstrated essential combat capabilities or proven it’s safe to fly. All of these problems are increasing costs and risks to the program...the F-35 has reached a stage where it is now obvious that the never-ending stream of partial fixes, software patches, and ad hoc workarounds are inadequate to deliver combat-worthy, survivable, and readily employable aircraft.

This year’s DOT&E report also demonstrates that in an effort to maintain the political momentum of the F-35, its program office is not beneath misrepresenting critically important characteristics of the system. In sum, the old problems are not going away, new issues are arising, and some problems may be getting worse. Below are some of the key issues raised...

Cooking the Numbers:  The Joint Program Office, led by Air Force Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, is re-categorizing failure incidents to make the plane look more reliable than it actually is. This kind of number-cooking has been done in other important areas of the program, such as using gimmicks to lowball acquisition costs and operating costs per flying hour.

…/… Section headings:

-- Testing Being Deferred, Not Completed
-- Significant Safety Risks Are Still Unresolved
-- Wing Drop Concerns
-- Engine Problems Continue to Hold the F-35 Program Back
-- Dangerous Helmet Failures
-- Initial Combat Capabilities for the Marien Corps Variant Will Be Even More Limited Than Planned
-- ALIS Software Failures
-- Software Snarls Jeopardize Combat Suitability
-- Hiding Today's Failings While Building a Huge Future Cost "Bow Wave"
-- A Maintenance Nightmare
-- Conclusion: Exquisitely Limited Capability

Canada needs two engine fighter jets and the F-35 is a single wjgine.

i think I read somewhere that the F35s cannot fly in extremely cold weather and that the US will not have them in Alaska.

if this is true then WTF???

the Conservatives will buy into this program.

F-35s stealth planes can really beat the crap out of climate change.