9 ms·

Canada buys 88 F-35 fighter jets for $14.2B

78 points by mgh2 4y ago

mgh2 4y ago
Delivery details: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-ends-years-long-search-for-new-fighter-jet-with-deal-to-buy-f-35s-1.6222706 https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-ends-years-long-searc... Maybe Top Gun Maverick marketing played a role :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQow_MfE0s&ab_channel=CityNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQow_MfE0s&ab_channel=CityN... Cold weather: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/12/the-f-35-has-to-keep-landing-in-cold-weather-heres-the-plan-to-fix-it/ https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/12/the-f-35-has-to-k...
- mlyle 4y ago
  Wouldn't Maverick convince you that sticking with F-18's is A-OK?
  - JimtheCoder 4y ago
    I heard that they wouldn't let Maverick take up a single seat F35, so the F-18 was really the only option...
    - treebeard901 4y ago
      If you look closely Maverick is always in the back seat... Same in the F14
      - tonny747 4y ago
        There was no flying f14's in the movie, I think it was CGI over a f18. Same as the "darkstar", it was a blue angels f18 that did the low flyover of the guard post.
mastry 4y ago
Why would they buy such a problematic platform? https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/04/failing-f-35-grounded-once-again/ https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/04/failing-f-35-gr...
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Non-leading questions: are there articles like this for basically all major military procurements? Or are there examples of big spends where basically everyone’s delighted by the project, timeline, and deliverable?
  - amalgamated_inc 4y ago
    Ha, you should check out some of Palmer Luckey's talks.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    If everything goes to plan and everyone is satisfied, noone write an article about that. On the other hand, this is government (taxpayers) money, so why not waste some extra money, skimp on testing and pocket the difference, because everyone know they can and nothing will happen to them.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    For jets, yeah, always grumbling. Lots of complaining around the F-16, F-14 had early issues as well: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21587/1977-when-the-f-16-was-americas-problem-child/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21587/197... Naval vessels have similarly eye-watering (or greater) price tags, but they usually don't fail so spectacularly that they sink or explode or are totally out of commission. Problems with fighter jets are more "dramatic." If there is a problem with a jet, it either (a) crashes or (b) is effectively nonfunctional, stuck on the ground. Fighter jets also just capture the public imagination. We mythologize fighters and fighter pilots. Jets are considered "sexy" and so articles about them generate probably 10x or 100x the traffic as articles about problems with boats or rail guns or artillery or other procurements. Also remember that there is fierce competition for those military contracts. Lockheed, Grumman, etc compete tooth and nail for them. Just a guess, but I bet the PR team at Company A is more than happy to seed the press with stories about failures by Company B.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rektide 4y ago
$163m a pop is, actually, pretty chill. The U.S. habitually spends more money upgrading decades old jets.
- allanmacgregor 4y ago
  Canada is not the US, we are roughly a tenth of the size and our GDP is roughly about the same. Not to mention Canada has a lot of issues right now where that money should go to.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  A key difference between US and Canadian spending is that when the US spends $163 million on an American jet, the money stays within the US economy. It's essentially a roundabout economic stimulus program. That said, big economic deals like this between the US and Canada don't happen in a vacuum either. Our two countries have a large, complex, and mutually beneficial economic relationship. And assuming Canada wants to maintain self-defense capability, it needs to buy the jets from somewhere. The F-35 is competitive with or superior to the competition from elsewhere in terms of price and performance.
Digory 4y ago
“PepsiCo shares down sharply after Canada announces $142m purchase of Pepsi Points ”
- Arrath 4y ago
  Bravo
riffic 4y ago
[flagged]
- majormajor 4y ago
  So do you think Canada is trying to send a message or do you think 19B CAD is just a round number?
- stcroixx 4y ago
  Avoiding imaginary dog whistles and having nice round numbers apparently aren’t priorities to those doing national defense spending. I take comfort in that myself.
- lttlrck 4y ago
  It's also "Two Fat Ladies" in Bingo. What do you make of that? Is Canada pro-obesity? Smh.
- britneybitch 4y ago
  88 is also the number of keys on a piano. Maybe Canada is a big fan of Beethoven? Or maybe they just bought the exact number they needed without worrying what conspiracy theories internet commenters would dream up.
  - drexlspivey 4y ago
    Clearly the inventor of the piano was a Nazi
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  You and the ADL can't be serious.
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    As ridiculous as the GP is being here regarding the number of planes, they are unfortunately still correct that "88" has long been used as a neo-nazi shibboleth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_(number)#In_neo-Nazism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_(number)#In_neo-Nazism
cute_boi 4y ago
Hmm, need to spend taxpayer funds somehow under the pretext of security. “As our world grows darker, with Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine and China’s increasingly assertive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific, this project has taken on heightened significance, especially given the importance of interoperability with our allies,” Anand said. Anand needs to be aware that Canada will never be threatened by China or Russia because they are not as capable as they pretend.
- JimtheCoder 4y ago
  "Anand needs to be aware that Canada will never be threatened by China or Russia because they are not as capable as they pretend." If this is true, why bother with any military at all...
  - bombolo 4y ago
    They share a long border with the most aggressive militarised country that has ever existed.
    - mentat 4y ago
      Wasn't aware that Canada had moved to 1940s Europe...
      - satvikpendem 4y ago
        Or Mongolia. Or Assyria.
      - digdugdirk 4y ago
        I read the above statement as "militarized aggressively (in comparison to the rest of the world)". The US is/was essentially able to outmuscle multiple regional powers to such a degree that they stopped even trying to compete militarily. They were/are on a different technological level, if warfare were a technology.
      - bombolo 4y ago
c-smile 4y ago
Ok, one beneficiary of current mess just popped up... who will be the next?
dukeofdoom 4y ago
Canada's North is rich in natural resources that are becoming more accessible because of technology and milder winters. Canada's far Norther territory has been increasingly encroached on by other nations. This jet purchase might have something to do with the necessity to be able to show strength next time this happens.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  I've jokingly said over the years that Canada is secretly behind global warming because they have the most to gain. They're obviously not literally behind it (we know who's emitting the lion's share of CO2: not Canada) but as you say: they're going to benefit in some ways!
  - dukeofdoom 4y ago
    Palm trees grew naturally in Calgary before, so it's possible https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/new-prehistoric-palm-1.3939279 https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/new-prehistoric-palm-1.39392...
koube 4y ago
I'm curious how the f35 has such an incredibly negative perception on hacker news. Any reception I see from more military minded communities are very positive [0]. Countries that participated in the Eurofighter program are buying f35s. Ukraine has shown that cheaper previous generation fighters are relegated to pitch up lobbing missile tosses. Russia is afraid to use their modern fighters[1], and crucially, there's not that many of them since they don't scale well. Yet hacker news can only imagine nefarious reasons why militaries would want an f35. Maybe it's because the Canadian government watched a Tom Cruise movie and acted on it rather than listen to their military advisors. Maybe they wish to display fealty to the United States rather than have a functioning military. Do they even need a military? Does a country need a military? If you were to believe hacker news, it is impossible for someone to make a judgement that the f35 is a desirable plane. [0]: example I read two days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/1062frs/the_bradley_seems_to_suffer_from_an_undeserved/j3efwnd/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/1062frs/the_bra... [1]: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/russia-holding-back-using-most-112104959.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/russia-holding-back-usin...
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  I wouldn't doubt that it's part of a "social media strategy" by your friendly ministry of clandestine institutions. Perception management, and marketing, it's the way of the future! At least, that's what they tell me.
- gretch 4y ago
  I'm sure everyone has their own reason, so I'll just speak for myself. I don't understand why we spend so much time and resource getting better at war when we (US citizen here) are already so extremely good at it. Atm, the US has 11 aircraft carriers, which is just shy of half in all of the world (not to mention many belong to our allies). We have crazy drones, missiles, submarines, nukes... How much better do you need to be at war? The truth is, if we wanted to light up some country or other, we could totally do it - the reasons we don't are ethical/economical/politcal, it's not because our war planes are not advanced enough. Instead, what if we invested the same set of resources on public school systems or water desalination technology? Just let the 11 aircraft carriers ride...
osigurdson 4y ago
This works out to $50/person per year in Canada. I think we can afford that. Also, the current fleet is unlikely free to operate. We also agreed to spend 2% of GDP on defence as part of our NATO commitment and are far behind that. We should have just bought this when we originally said we were going to 7 years ago instead of cancelling and re-instating later.
- berelig 4y ago
  Per year? What length of time are you referring to? $14,200,000,000/27,855,050[1] = $509 per tax filer (regardless of tax contribution) Also, the bottom 40%[2] of Canadians pay $0 in income tax, so every Canadian that actually contributes to the national revenue has paid nearly $1,000 just for this purchase. I support defence spending but let's not sugarcoat how much it really costs. [1] # of taxfilers in Canada in 2020 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/478908/number-of-taxfilers-in-canada-by-province https://www.statista.com/statistics/478908/number-of-taxfile... [2] https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/trudeau-is-right-40-of-canadians-dont-pay-income-taxes-which-means-someone-else-is-picking-up-the-bill https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/trudeau-is-...
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    >> The full life cycle of the programme is expected to cost $52bn ($70bn Canadian) The other article linked states that the programme lifetime is 40 years. $70B/35M/40 = $50 / year per person
- lumost 4y ago
  I wonder if the f-35 is a cheap way to hit the 2% number. At nearly 100 million per unit, and an existing production line - a government can just announce a purchase and hit the target. For the kinds of conflicts nato is likely to engage in in the next 20 years, the about to project power may be more valuable than the ability to fight a protracted conflict.
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    F18s are ran ragged and getting hard to acquire spare frames to buy / strip. F35 unit price + operation costs came down a lot in the last few years. RCAF overdue for new jets just for retention / attracting talent. That said, after bombardier drama, if Canada wants to contribute to NATO better off spending 14B on 1200 LAV6s because at least that will go into domestic coffers. Or spin up some domestic ordnance factory. But optics of that's going to be bad since it'll end up murdering kids in MENA.
incomingpain 4y ago
Our CF18s didn't get many upgrades; everyone agrees they require replacement at this point. Harper joined the F35 program, it cost money to gain access to bid on manufacturing of the F35 with discounts. Ultimately would have saved money. Trudeau ran on cancelling the F35 and he did cancel. Canadian tax payers are now paying the cost of his short sighted and ideologically motivation. F22 was never for export. We're never buying Russian or Chinese; especially now we are at war with both of them. India/Japan has lagged behind in their development and is paying for it in their north. F35 is really our only option. We never got invited to the british 6th gen. We never got invited to the german/french 6th gen. It's surprising how much military diplomacy has been excluding Canada lately, fear about what side we are on. Trudeau did have other options other than the F35. He could take the money and develop a drone fighter. Built in Canada but made available to all NATO? It would sell and pay for itself. The future doesn't have pilot seats, it will be drones for air superiority. I learnt something recently as well. One of the key reasons Canada is generally safe from invasion is primarily defensive alliances and not our pathetic military. But rather civilian firearm expertise. Our government should basically have a firearm mandate. Every house must own something. Except we're doing the opposite?

78 points by mgh2 4y ago

mgh2 4y ago

Delivery details: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-ends-years-long-search-for-new-fighter-jet-with-deal-to-buy-f-35s-1.6222706 https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-ends-years-long-searc... Maybe Top Gun Maverick marketing played a role :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQow_MfE0s&ab_channel=CityNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQow_MfE0s&ab_channel=CityN... Cold weather: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/12/the-f-35-has-to-keep-landing-in-cold-weather-heres-the-plan-to-fix-it/ https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/12/the-f-35-has-to-k...

mlyle 4y ago
Wouldn't Maverick convince you that sticking with F-18's is A-OK?
- JimtheCoder 4y ago
  I heard that they wouldn't let Maverick take up a single seat F35, so the F-18 was really the only option...
  - treebeard901 4y ago
    If you look closely Maverick is always in the back seat... Same in the F14
    - tonny747 4y ago
      There was no flying f14's in the movie, I think it was CGI over a f18. Same as the "darkstar", it was a blue angels f18 that did the low flyover of the guard post.

mastry 4y ago

Why would they buy such a problematic platform? https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/04/failing-f-35-grounded-once-again/ https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/04/failing-f-35-gr...

Waterluvian 4y ago
Non-leading questions: are there articles like this for basically all major military procurements? Or are there examples of big spends where basically everyone’s delighted by the project, timeline, and deliverable?
- amalgamated_inc 4y ago
  Ha, you should check out some of Palmer Luckey's talks.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  If everything goes to plan and everyone is satisfied, noone write an article about that. On the other hand, this is government (taxpayers) money, so why not waste some extra money, skimp on testing and pocket the difference, because everyone know they can and nothing will happen to them.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  For jets, yeah, always grumbling. Lots of complaining around the F-16, F-14 had early issues as well: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21587/1977-when-the-f-16-was-americas-problem-child/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21587/197... Naval vessels have similarly eye-watering (or greater) price tags, but they usually don't fail so spectacularly that they sink or explode or are totally out of commission. Problems with fighter jets are more "dramatic." If there is a problem with a jet, it either (a) crashes or (b) is effectively nonfunctional, stuck on the ground. Fighter jets also just capture the public imagination. We mythologize fighters and fighter pilots. Jets are considered "sexy" and so articles about them generate probably 10x or 100x the traffic as articles about problems with boats or rail guns or artillery or other procurements. Also remember that there is fierce competition for those military contracts. Lockheed, Grumman, etc compete tooth and nail for them. Just a guess, but I bet the PR team at Company A is more than happy to seed the press with stories about failures by Company B.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rektide 4y ago

$163m a pop is, actually, pretty chill. The U.S. habitually spends more money upgrading decades old jets.

allanmacgregor 4y ago
Canada is not the US, we are roughly a tenth of the size and our GDP is roughly about the same. Not to mention Canada has a lot of issues right now where that money should go to.
JohnBooty 4y ago
A key difference between US and Canadian spending is that when the US spends $163 million on an American jet, the money stays within the US economy. It's essentially a roundabout economic stimulus program. That said, big economic deals like this between the US and Canada don't happen in a vacuum either. Our two countries have a large, complex, and mutually beneficial economic relationship. And assuming Canada wants to maintain self-defense capability, it needs to buy the jets from somewhere. The F-35 is competitive with or superior to the competition from elsewhere in terms of price and performance.

Digory 4y ago

“PepsiCo shares down sharply after Canada announces $142m purchase of Pepsi Points ”

Arrath 4y ago
Bravo

riffic 4y ago

[flagged]

majormajor 4y ago
So do you think Canada is trying to send a message or do you think 19B CAD is just a round number?
stcroixx 4y ago
Avoiding imaginary dog whistles and having nice round numbers apparently aren’t priorities to those doing national defense spending. I take comfort in that myself.
lttlrck 4y ago
It's also "Two Fat Ladies" in Bingo. What do you make of that? Is Canada pro-obesity? Smh.
britneybitch 4y ago
88 is also the number of keys on a piano. Maybe Canada is a big fan of Beethoven? Or maybe they just bought the exact number they needed without worrying what conspiracy theories internet commenters would dream up.
- drexlspivey 4y ago
  Clearly the inventor of the piano was a Nazi
nonethewiser 4y ago
You and the ADL can't be serious.
- fknorangesite 4y ago
  As ridiculous as the GP is being here regarding the number of planes, they are unfortunately still correct that "88" has long been used as a neo-nazi shibboleth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_(number)#In_neo-Nazism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_(number)#In_neo-Nazism

cute_boi 4y ago

Hmm, need to spend taxpayer funds somehow under the pretext of security. “As our world grows darker, with Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine and China’s increasingly assertive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific, this project has taken on heightened significance, especially given the importance of interoperability with our allies,” Anand said. Anand needs to be aware that Canada will never be threatened by China or Russia because they are not as capable as they pretend.

JimtheCoder 4y ago
"Anand needs to be aware that Canada will never be threatened by China or Russia because they are not as capable as they pretend." If this is true, why bother with any military at all...
- bombolo 4y ago
  They share a long border with the most aggressive militarised country that has ever existed.
  - mentat 4y ago
    Wasn't aware that Canada had moved to 1940s Europe...
    - satvikpendem 4y ago
      Or Mongolia. Or Assyria.
    - digdugdirk 4y ago
      I read the above statement as "militarized aggressively (in comparison to the rest of the world)". The US is/was essentially able to outmuscle multiple regional powers to such a degree that they stopped even trying to compete militarily. They were/are on a different technological level, if warfare were a technology.
    - bombolo 4y ago

c-smile 4y ago

Ok, one beneficiary of current mess just popped up... who will be the next?

dukeofdoom 4y ago

Canada's North is rich in natural resources that are becoming more accessible because of technology and milder winters. Canada's far Norther territory has been increasingly encroached on by other nations. This jet purchase might have something to do with the necessity to be able to show strength next time this happens.

JohnBooty 4y ago
I've jokingly said over the years that Canada is secretly behind global warming because they have the most to gain. They're obviously not literally behind it (we know who's emitting the lion's share of CO2: not Canada) but as you say: they're going to benefit in some ways!
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  Palm trees grew naturally in Calgary before, so it's possible https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/new-prehistoric-palm-1.3939279 https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/new-prehistoric-palm-1.39392...

koube 4y ago

I'm curious how the f35 has such an incredibly negative perception on hacker news. Any reception I see from more military minded communities are very positive [0]. Countries that participated in the Eurofighter program are buying f35s. Ukraine has shown that cheaper previous generation fighters are relegated to pitch up lobbing missile tosses. Russia is afraid to use their modern fighters[1], and crucially, there's not that many of them since they don't scale well. Yet hacker news can only imagine nefarious reasons why militaries would want an f35. Maybe it's because the Canadian government watched a Tom Cruise movie and acted on it rather than listen to their military advisors. Maybe they wish to display fealty to the United States rather than have a functioning military. Do they even need a military? Does a country need a military? If you were to believe hacker news, it is impossible for someone to make a judgement that the f35 is a desirable plane. [0]: example I read two days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/1062frs/the_bradley_seems_to_suffer_from_an_undeserved/j3efwnd/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/1062frs/the_bra... [1]: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/russia-holding-back-using-most-112104959.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/russia-holding-back-usin...

pyinstallwoes 4y ago
I wouldn't doubt that it's part of a "social media strategy" by your friendly ministry of clandestine institutions. Perception management, and marketing, it's the way of the future! At least, that's what they tell me.
gretch 4y ago
I'm sure everyone has their own reason, so I'll just speak for myself. I don't understand why we spend so much time and resource getting better at war when we (US citizen here) are already so extremely good at it. Atm, the US has 11 aircraft carriers, which is just shy of half in all of the world (not to mention many belong to our allies). We have crazy drones, missiles, submarines, nukes... How much better do you need to be at war? The truth is, if we wanted to light up some country or other, we could totally do it - the reasons we don't are ethical/economical/politcal, it's not because our war planes are not advanced enough. Instead, what if we invested the same set of resources on public school systems or water desalination technology? Just let the 11 aircraft carriers ride...

osigurdson 4y ago

This works out to $50/person per year in Canada. I think we can afford that. Also, the current fleet is unlikely free to operate. We also agreed to spend 2% of GDP on defence as part of our NATO commitment and are far behind that. We should have just bought this when we originally said we were going to 7 years ago instead of cancelling and re-instating later.

berelig 4y ago
Per year? What length of time are you referring to? $14,200,000,000/27,855,050[1] = $509 per tax filer (regardless of tax contribution) Also, the bottom 40%[2] of Canadians pay $0 in income tax, so every Canadian that actually contributes to the national revenue has paid nearly $1,000 just for this purchase. I support defence spending but let's not sugarcoat how much it really costs. [1] # of taxfilers in Canada in 2020 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/478908/number-of-taxfilers-in-canada-by-province https://www.statista.com/statistics/478908/number-of-taxfile... [2] https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/trudeau-is-right-40-of-canadians-dont-pay-income-taxes-which-means-someone-else-is-picking-up-the-bill https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/trudeau-is-...
- osigurdson 4y ago
  >> The full life cycle of the programme is expected to cost $52bn ($70bn Canadian) The other article linked states that the programme lifetime is 40 years. $70B/35M/40 = $50 / year per person
lumost 4y ago
I wonder if the f-35 is a cheap way to hit the 2% number. At nearly 100 million per unit, and an existing production line - a government can just announce a purchase and hit the target. For the kinds of conflicts nato is likely to engage in in the next 20 years, the about to project power may be more valuable than the ability to fight a protracted conflict.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  F18s are ran ragged and getting hard to acquire spare frames to buy / strip. F35 unit price + operation costs came down a lot in the last few years. RCAF overdue for new jets just for retention / attracting talent. That said, after bombardier drama, if Canada wants to contribute to NATO better off spending 14B on 1200 LAV6s because at least that will go into domestic coffers. Or spin up some domestic ordnance factory. But optics of that's going to be bad since it'll end up murdering kids in MENA.

incomingpain 4y ago

Our CF18s didn't get many upgrades; everyone agrees they require replacement at this point. Harper joined the F35 program, it cost money to gain access to bid on manufacturing of the F35 with discounts. Ultimately would have saved money. Trudeau ran on cancelling the F35 and he did cancel. Canadian tax payers are now paying the cost of his short sighted and ideologically motivation. F22 was never for export. We're never buying Russian or Chinese; especially now we are at war with both of them. India/Japan has lagged behind in their development and is paying for it in their north. F35 is really our only option. We never got invited to the british 6th gen. We never got invited to the german/french 6th gen. It's surprising how much military diplomacy has been excluding Canada lately, fear about what side we are on. Trudeau did have other options other than the F35. He could take the money and develop a drone fighter. Built in Canada but made available to all NATO? It would sell and pay for itself. The future doesn't have pilot seats, it will be drones for air superiority. I learnt something recently as well. One of the key reasons Canada is generally safe from invasion is primarily defensive alliances and not our pathetic military. But rather civilian firearm expertise. Our government should basically have a firearm mandate. Every house must own something. Except we're doing the opposite?