BeaverFever

That’s outdated. Block 4 has been delayed a couple of times since then and is now delayed until at least 2031 with some capabilities not delivered until 2033. It is already $6Bn over budget and counting and planned capabilities are being removed. F-35 Block 4 upgrade delayed until at least 2031: GAO The long awaited F-35 modernization effort is delayed at least another two years since the congressional watchdog's last estimate, and a total of at least five years from its original timeline. WASHINGTON — The Pentagon now anticipates the F-35’s Block 4 modernization won’t be complete until 2031 at the earliest, a five-year delay from its original timeline, even as the department rescopes the effort to include fewer capabilities than originally envisioned, according to a new report by a congressional watchdog. The latest estimate, published in a Government Accountability Office reporttoday, is two years later than the last published projection of 2029 in May 2024. The F-35 Joint Program Office is currently reorganizing the F-35’s Block 4 modernization and Technology Refresh 3 into a new subprogram due to a 2023 congressional mandate, which sought to improve execution of those efforts in light of continued cost increases and schedule delays. (Technology Refresh 3 includes a package of hardware and software upgrades necessary to support Block 4, which include upgrades to weapons, communications equipment and electronic warfare systems, among other technologies.) “According to program officials, the new Block 4 major subprogram will have fewer capabilities, will experience schedule delays, and will have unknown costs until the program office finishes developing its cost estimate,” the GAO stated. … While the program office told the GAO it could not lay out exactly which technologies would be part of Block 4, any change that would rely on a separate upgrade to the F-35’s engine and power management system will be deferred to a later date, as the F135 engine core upgrade will not be in production until at least 2031. “While the Block 4 subprogram will not be dependent on upgrading the engine, engine core upgrade delays would likely contribute to more delays with delivering post–Block 4 capabilities,” the GAO said. “In May 2024, we reported that post–Block 4 capabilities and mission systems that the program expected to deliver in 2029 would need the new engine upgrades. Since then, the program revised its time frames for delivering those post–Block 4 capabilities that are dependent on these upgrades to 2033.” https://breakingdefense.com/2025/09/f-35-block-4-upgrade-delayed-until-at-least-2031-gao/ No because I’m not a fan of fighters that unavailable half the time, as the F-35 also is. Again, a MIXED FLEET means we could contribute some F35s to a high end conflict while recognizing that even then we will still have fighters at home to chase weather balloons that don’t need to be F35s. We actually don’t have a defensive pact with Taiwan and while I don’t want to see China invade it, I wouldn’t spend Canadian blood or treasure to fight China over it. Even USA doesn’t recognize Taiwan as an independent country, the west is in an awkward position there, it was recognized as part of China until the communists took over on the mainland and we didn’t want them to conquer that island because it theoretically threatens the nearby islands USA had conquered in its own military campaigns. But China has a more legitimate claim to Taiwan than USA does to Guam. But I digress. The US Constellation Class Frigate program you’re referring to is based on the highly successful French-Italian FREMM design, it is not a US design. And Nuclear subs were not on offer from anyone and are out of our price range even at 5% defence budget. Not to mention the Canadian Patrol Submarine project was already well underway before Carney made the recent 5% pledge The last time Canada considered nuclear submarines from UK, US sabotaged the deal From what I can tell the worldwide F35 fleet is numbers 1,230, of which most are American. About 200-300 are non-American which would grow to as high as 500 on future orders including Canada. That is still a big fleet but my point is that the F35 is a hangar queen that requires a lot of high end maintenance with sophisticated equipment. That’s a big tail. And we don’t get stockpile our own spares. USA controls and distributes the spare parts and decides who gets them and how many they can have. So we have to kneel at America’s feet and say “please sir may I have some more?” Same with access to the critical flight data files that can only be stored on US controlled servers and software updates and depot level maintenance which can only be performed in US facilities. Now imagine that in a scenario where Trump or his successor have decided Putin can “do whatever the hell he wants” with a European country and forbids anyone from getting in the way by cutting off their F35s. F35 is a vehicle for US domination of its allies disguised as a gift. It’s a trojan horse A MIXED FLEET in this case lets you have the right tool for the right job instead of just having to use the most expensive high powered tool for every job even when it’s a waste of resources and only works half the time F35B is the most expensive, to be fair that is not the version we are buying But Gripen doesn’t cost more especially when you factor operating and lifecycle costs, Gripen is the lowest cost I would keep up to half the fleet F35 which is all the that we would need for a high end war fighter in a future conflict. No, offsets are not kickbacks by any stretch It was on paper only, not fully vetted no prototype, no testbed, no full size mockup, it was a thought piece only that was not ready for production. But even if it was it would have been an orphan like the wedgetail is now because everyone had signed up for P8 already Yeah P8 is reality there’s no credible alternative but it’s parts software and maintenance are not US-controlled like F35 No they weren’t that’s how they maintained dominance and control US doesn’t want equal partners, they wanted subordinates who buy more US equipment and participate more in America’s wars of choice. Even Europeans spent most of their defence dollars in US From what I understand the initial batch would come from Sweden while Canadian production is tooling up and then we would be making orders for whatever is left plus the 150 Ukraine has ordered.

Wow just wow. That was a lot of batshit verbal diarrhea that still didn’t answer the question. I repeat: If Ivermectin is a miracle cure why aren’t they just promoting that? It’s also made by “big pharma” drug companies doncha know. If covid vaccines don’t work and only make people sicker why is there a vast conspiracy by all levels of governments, MSM, the medical community, academia, public interest groups, etc to encourage people to take it and why does the government pay for it? Since hundreds of millions of people around the world are now vaccinated why hasn’t there been a mass die off? The fact is you can’t answer any of those questions why is ehy you lashed out with your cheap lame insults and then barfed up all that irrelevant and fake news batshit

It’s not anger that’s the Republican way. It’s bemusement and amusement.

Yeah I just saw this now. The point remains. The outcome of rhis decision is obvious and the fact that this republican folk hero’s case even went to court just shows what a joke USA has become.

And just to close the book on this, the cases against Comey and James by Trump’s unqualified hack prosecutor have been thrown out. It turns out that the prosecutor jobs usually performed by the top criminal lawyers in the country can’t be filled by random MAGA twits with zero criminal law experience who make serious procedural errors. Who knew? What’s funny is how the MAGAs rant about “qualifications” and “merit” when it comes to unfounded accusations about DEI etc but then will gladly hire any unqualified slob based on their devotion to Dear Leader.

Yet she became a hero to Republicans anyway

As I’ve been saying for months, PP is the new Jagmeet Singh and is going to prop up the Carney government for now. The only thing I got wrong was that I underestimated the extent of the theatrics and smoke and mirror shenanigans they would go through to maintain plausible deniability. I thought the conservatives would actually have no choice but to vote in favour. But the games are amusing

@WestCanMan Can you take a step back and remind us again why there’s this supposed vast conspiracy amongst virtually everyone in the world with a post-secondary education to promote a vaccine that they supposedly know is so dangerous? Because when you guys first went off the deep end on this it was during the pandemic and the claim was just that “they” were desperately rushing to find a solution and not exercising appropriate caution and testing. But now that the pandemic is over that argument doesn’t work anymore. Some of the nutjobs were peddling nonsense about a secret cabal wanting to kill off a significant percentage of the earth’s population because of “population control” or some such nonsense but with the majority of the public now vaccinated and no mass die-off having occurred, that batshit conspiracy doesn’t hold water either.

They do keep it from combat operations half the time. Being worked on with no ETA for completion how come you accept that answer here do easily but not when it comes to any other government projects that are way behind schedule and way over budget? Yep but still 4.5 generation and still overpriced overkill for things like chasing weather balloons and flying over the grey cup which is a big % of the job No, my point is in the 2 examples you provided above there is no US option so your point isn’t valid. The F35 has a huge logistical tail compared to Gripen also. And while I can’t prove it right now I believe the decision for Leos over Abrams came from politicians. The Air Force always buys American, Kingfisher and Cormorant are probably the only exceptions, with Lockheed having quickly withdrawn its c130 in the FWSAR option and Cormorant being highly politicized (and US not having a SAR helicopter in the desired size). Of course they have their favourites and try to shape the outcome towards those through persuasive arguments. They want the fanciest high end warfighter naturally but i 90% of the real world applications during its service life….maybe 100%….the aircraft is not going to be doing that kind of work. I’ll say it yet again: A MIXED FLEET If this war comes the F-35s can be used. For chasing weather balloons, the Gripen is more than fine. Yeah European NATO is expanding precisely because Trump and MAGAs have hinted they may abandon Europe to its fate or at least extract a very high tribute for continued American protection. People like Tucker Carslon are openly rooting for Putin which may make it politically difficult for America to intervene in a future conflict. Right now Trump is pressuring Ukraine to accept a “peace plan” that is a Xmas gift for Putin basically demanding Ukraine’s unconditional surrender. It only works half the time so just buy twice as many LOL quite the sales pitch, especially for the world’s most expensive jet. Again what I am proposing is not to replace the f35 with Gripen but to backstop it with an aircraft that can actually fly and do what we actually need it to do day to day in every situation other than a near-peer war, until a 6th generation option is available. Wedgetail is dead now that USAF cancelled its order. They were supposed to be the anchor customer with 26+ aircraft. Now Australia and Korea are stuck with tiny orphaned fleets and all the costs associated just like how we ended up with an orphaned Cyclone fleet. They don’t even make the 737NG airframe anymore for commercial airlines, Boeing has just one production line to run off the existing P8 orders. Regarding P8 there was no counterpart on the 6500 airframe as an alternative to P8. Bombardier was trying to propose a preliminary design - basically just a CONCEPT - that only existed on paper and was still years away from full development much less production. Furthermore all of our allies were buying P8s and we didn’t want to be the ones operating an orphaned aircraft However this is different, now the wedgetail is the orphan and our allies are buying GlobalEyes which are or soon will be in production for Sweden, UAE, France and the NATO joint AWACS program, with Germany also likely to place an order To your question, the civilian government has final say on what gets bought, the military brass have their own preferences and interests, which they try to advocate for. Yep

Yeah basically… as a nit/picking thing though the “military” didn’t get them, they are not becoming part of the CAF, they are still civilians, just now under Department of National Defence. Apparently around 3,000 civilian employees from various federal departments will move to DND because they do a job that can be counted as “defence” under NATO rules and therefore counted towards NATO targets.

I think you will hear an announcement in the near future. Im not saying there won’t be recruiting and training challenges that’s a given for anything considering the state of the CAF but I am sure we will sign a deal soon.

Also, we’re not going to have fully operational F35s in that timeframe anyways, currently F-35 has a 50% availability rate due to glitches and extensive maintenance requirements. . Gripen is the only one who said they could start delivering fully operational aircraft in 3-5 years. Nobody knows when the F35s current glitches and reliability issues will be solved.

Yeah I agree CAE is the natural choice in any event, just calling out the timing right on the heels of the big Swedish state visit and the fact that it also signals that more GlobalEye orders are expected soon.

1) Those countries placed their F35 orders a long time ago and are still plagued with all kinds of reliability issues with their fleets 2) Those countries already have mixed fleets of 4.5 gen aircraft like Typhoon and Rafale, they don’t need to order more. Spain, Portugal and Switzerland have cancelled their F35 orders just this year. US doesn’t make non-nuclear subs or Frigates (even they are using the European FREMM design for their new Constellation Class program) and I bet our military would prefer Abrams if the government would let them. It’s been widely reported that they are very cozy with the American military and their defence lobbyists and look up to Americans and the cool big brother they want to impress and emulate. And no, technically speaking its not the generals and admirals whose lives are on the line. Military answers to the civilian government, they have their own agenda and biases and they’re spending other peoples’ money. They are not concerned with broader geopolitical issues or guarding against US political economic and technological dominance of Canada. They place all their emphasis on the high-end war fighting end of the threat spectrum and pay little attention to whether it is wasteful to ise this high-eng gear for the other end of the spectrum where it will actually be used in real world operations for 90%+ of its service life. Furthermore the era of NATO countries being nothing more than an add-on accessory for America’s next war of choice is coming to an end. NATO nations are realizing they need capabilities that can be used independently of USA. That next war in Europe you mention may see Americans sitting on the sidelines or even rooting for the other side. Again Im not saying ZERO F-35s, Im saying mixed fleet.

CAE signs new agreement with Sweden-based Saab to provide training services, devices MONTREAL — CAE Inc. has announced an agreement to be the preferred supplier of certain training and simulation equipment for Sweden-based Saab’s airborne early warning system. https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/article/cae-signs-new-agreement-with-sweden-based-saab-to-provide-training-services-devices/ Another deal that Carney’s government had “nothing to do with” I am sure it’s totally unrelated to the major state visit involving the king of Sweden, senior Swedish officials, deputy PM, and all of Sweden’s top industry leaders and the multiple visits that Carney and his officials have made to Sweden 🤣 If it’s not obvious to anyone yet, Canada will be getting the Saab GlobalEye AWACS plane, which is built on the Bombardier platform, although it hasn’t been formally announced. I’ve been hoping for this since the new defence strategy that came out under Trudeau called for AWACS but at the time it seemed we would get bullied into buying the Americans’ Boeing E7 Wedgetail since Uk and Australia operate it and NATO and France had it on order. But then once Trump drama started, began to suspect we wouldn’t be buying it. Then the USAF cancelled its E7 program this summer and it was supposed to be the “anchor customer”, totally screwing over UK Australia and the few other countries that have already bought tiny fleets of E7s. France has now cancelled its E7 order and switched to GlobalEye and Melanie Joly has been name dropping it in most of her speeches about building up Canadian industry so I’m convinced now we will be getting it also. NATO has cancelled its E7 order and is shopping for an alternative and GlobalEye is the only option while Germany has said it is eyeing the plane as well plus a fleet of other bombardier aircraft

Close but no cigar. They said “this what we’re planning to do in the next year after the Americans have done it” and he said “I just got off the phone with the PM of Australia, we’re going do it now” Carney had been advising Trudeau for 6 months already and had been officially selected leader Furthermore he would have been fully briefed on major issues initiatives feom the moment he won the liberal leadership. To suggest that $6 billion deal the largest in Australia’s history than thumbs Canada’s nose at USA and that was publicly announced by Carney himself just happened without the Carney’s knowledge is ridiculous.

The deal was already baked and first announced by Trudeau but Canada was just supposed to wait for the Americans before officially putting it in motion. Carney took office and said no more waiting just go. It’s that simple. He spoke to the PM of Australia beforehand and then he announced it personally with much fanfare in Nunavut, on his 4th day in office so your statement that he wouldn’t have even known about it at that time is completely false and another example of how you aren’t even aware of very public events and make up your own stories.

That and the fact that the F35 is still unreliable and costly. It’s great when it works but it’s not available half the time and it’s ridiculously costly overkill for the vast majority of real-world applications we’ve seen like chasing weather balloons, private aircraft flying too close to the G8, escorting passenger jets after 9/11, bombing ISIS and Libyan rebels, etc. Even NORAD intercepts don’t USUALLY require F35 capabilities. No. I will admit that F35 capabilities should be a tool in the toolbox but they’re not needed all the time or even most of the time. A mixed fleet of with no more than half being F35s, say 66 of each type would provide a total fleet size comparable to European NATO allies and to the original 138 CF-18s we originally purchased in the 1980s It only dwindled to 88 after accidents and cannibalisation during decades of budget cuts amd so that’s what we’ve decided to replace

All NATO countries prioritize US interoperability they still build and design their own aircraft. You don’t have to have the exact same aircraft as the USA to be interoperable. Even the countries that bought the F35 are developing their own 6th generation aircraft, not one but TWO 6th gen designs are underway in Europe rather than joining the US NGAD program, that ought to tell you something. They share a landmass with Russia. Russia cannot and will not invade North America, it’s logistically impossible. Even if they somehow magically figured out the massively resource intensive invasion of Canada they would have to do so while winning a war on their western front in Europe as well. That’s not realistic look how they’re struggling with Ukraine alone. The Russian economy is slightly smaller than Canada’s, they couldn’t possibly pull itnoff an they know it. That’s because SuperHornet and Gripen aren’t high-end warfighters and if you could only have one aircraft it makes sense you would want the most capable. But a mixed fleet gives you options. The Canadian military leadership always wants the shiniest most expensive US kit and they always look up to their American counterparts like they’re a cool big brother they want approval from. A mixed fleet allows them to get the approval from the cool kids and without wasting money and need I remind you F35 still has a down time of 50%.

I’m just trying to correct your overly dramatic exaggeration. We know you’re desperate to drum up bad news and say “itself all Carney’s fault his government is in charge ” and then when good news comes along say “itself has nothing to do with Carney his government only just got into office” That’s an old game. Back to the topic, if Trump decides anything sold in America must be made in America then there’s little we can do other than wait for midterms or a new president or TACO to once again reverse himself. TBH highly mobile low-skilled manufacturing for the US market probably isn’t an industry we should be banking on, they just ask for one subsidy after another, they’ll never take the knife away from our throats. A lot of those jobs are held by new immigrants and TFWs anyway which is now a dwindling resource. And we should want to get out of this vicious cycle where we keep importing TFWs to fill the jobs at these places and then keep subsidizing the factories to keep those jobs.

“OR” being the key word there.

Yeah well attraction and retention is a big problem that needs to be solved regardless of whether we have 2 fighter streams or not. While adding another stream adds to the problem it does so only incrementally and we can leverage allied training programs and private contractors for training. We can find a path forward without having to acquiesce to being America’s little biotch.

When will you learn to read to the end of the sentence? FFS I clearly mentioned that he did NOT make that deal in 4 days. But he jumped the queue because we were originally supposed to wait for US to sign their deal with Australia first and then piggyback off of it and the Americans were reportedly unaware of our move. Probably this move been under consideration by the Trudeau government, which Carney had been advising since September but Carney pulled the trigger on it.

You can be interoperable without having to buy only US gear on US terms where US profits handsomely and has us over a barrel on how and when it can be used. Our NATO allies in Europe produce lots of quality kit that is interoperable with USA. We don’t need to be “in lock step” just to be interoperable. As far as continental defence is concerned, which is separate discussion from “survival of NATO, nobody is invading North America. There is a SECURITY and SOVEREIGNTY threat, not an invasion threat. And to be honest, USA is also part of that sovereignty threat. A mixed fleet of F35 and Gripens can do the NORAD job just fine the vast majority of the time.

LOL I knew you were going to go there! You realize that you’ve gone from “so far he hasn’t accomplished anything which means he’s a failure” to saying “he can’t possibly take credit for these accomplishments he hasn’t been in office long enough”. Also if you’re not giving Carney credit then you’re giving Trudeau credit? Will you pick a narrative and stick with it? Also billion dollar government-to government deals aren’t the product of junior bureaucrats or military officers they’re negotiated at the highest levels of political government and lonand behold Carney and his cabinet have been frequent visitors to Germany specifically over submarines, Bombardier aircraft, critical minerals and more. You’ll recall that Carney signed a partnership agreement with Germany just this summer. Germany had been looking at multiple systems for it’s naval fleet but the decision to select Canada’s system is likely a result of agreements and relations Carney has been promoting around the world. He’s not negotiating one-off sales deals he’s negotiating comprehensive political and economic relationships that span multiple industrial sectors and political issues. He’s not negotiating transactions he building deep relationships Oh look there he goes again : Oh look there’s another one just today: Carney secures $70-billion investment pledge from UAE as he concludes visit Prime Minister Mark Carney says Ottawa is working on a $1-billion project aimed at expanding critical minerals processing capacity in Canada, while securing the equivalent of $70-billion in investment from the United Arab Emirates. The announcements come as Carney concluded a visit to Abu Dhabi, which focused heavily on trade amid concerns about the war in Sudan. “I’m pleased that an agreement valued over $1-billion is in the process of being finalized,” Carney said in a Friday morning speech to the Canada-UAE Business Council. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-carney-canada-uae-investment-summit-abu-dhabi/?login=true