F-35 News thread. Part Deux

[Spitfire9]

Or a push to drop the F-35.

"OTTAWA --- The Canadian military has decided it will rely on the U.S., other allies and private companies for air-to-air refuelling if the government purchases the F-35 because the stealth fighters aren’t compatible with Canada’s current refuelling aircraft.

The revelation is buried in an explosive report released last week and means the Canadian military would be reliant on third parties to realize the full benefits of its F-35s — a situation opposition critics and analysts say is completely unacceptable."

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/art...in-flight.html

The report covers the cost of procuring and operating F-35. If it's a cost associated with F-35, it should feature in the report. I don't see anything conspiratorial here. On the contrary omitting this cost would undermine the value of the report.

[Snow Monkey]

^ ...You know that I just linked/quoted that exact story 3 posts back, right?

Anyhow, I didn't want to bring it up because I wasn't sure if it was an option, but going with Probe-and-Drogue F-35A (not the whole CATOBAR shebang) for perhaps more than the cost of standard A but less than that of C seems pretty obvious. Regardless, the costs are not just going to be those of vanilla A with current Canadian refueling practice, and that needs to be addressed within any valid cost comparison. I do wonder if the government's plan was just to use the situation to merge their operations further with USAF?

[irtusk]

Military Will Contract Out Air-to-Air Refuelling If Canada Goes with F-35 (excerpt)

The Canadian military has decided it will rely on the U.S., other allies and private companies for air-to-air refuelling if the government purchases the F-35 because the stealth fighters aren’t compatible with Canada’s current refuelling aircraft

1. equipping A's with probes is possible
2. Canada can't currently refuel their C-17s either
3. afaik Canada's refuelling fleet consists of 5 C-130s and 2 converted A310s (CC-150). The A310s are upgradable to a boom (EADS has done it before)

It seems upgrading their A310s with booms would be the best solution as it avoids any issues with the F-35s plus it allows them to (finally) refuel their C-17s too.

[Snow Monkey]

Yeah, the shared utility with the C-17's is pretty straight forward, but in the frame of the Canadian F-35 debate, it seems like the costs of going for boom refueling would need to be added wholly to the cost of F-35... since the C-17s have been operating without Canadian boom support obviously. I do think it's interesting that going with Probe and Drogue F-35 WASN'T amongst the options listed by the government, rather using ally/private-contracted boom refueling instead (which I suppose is what's used for C-17s when that is needed). If they do go with Boom Refueled F-35A's (as no evidence points to Probe and Drogue F-35), I do wonder if there will be pressure to replace some of the KC-130 with a Boom platform. If they do end up contracting Boom refueling, then that would probably allow them to retire some P&D tankers, somewhat offsetting the cost. I can't really say what the end result of these factors would be, but it is pretty revealing that these potential costs don't seem to have been quantified and included in F-35 planning to date. Regardless of the issue of acquiring F-35 per se, that is rather reckless regarding the budget as a whole.