A Major Hardware Upgrade for the Royal Canadian Air Force

January 9th, 2023 will be marked as one of the most glorious days in the history of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in particular. On this day, Canada’s defence minister Honourable Anita Anand announced that Canada would be purchasing 88 F-35 fighter jets from the American aerospace giant Lockheed Martin at the cost of US$ 19 billion. The government of Canada selected the F-35 under its Future Fighter Capability Project competition to find a suitable fighter to meet RCAF’s future strategic needs. As stated by the Vice President of the F35 program at Lockheed Martin, Bridget Lauderdale, “The selection of the F-35 strengthens allied airpower in Canada, North America and around the world.” (Lockheed Martin Aeronautics n.d). The F-35 is a single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole fighter that is capable of carrying out both air superiority and strike missions. The F-35 has multiple variations to match different mission requirements. Canada plans to purchase the F-35A, which is the conventional takeoff and landing version (Lockheed Martin Aeronautics n.d)

Another reason this news is a big win for the RCAF is that the F-35 procurement has been fraught with political infighting since at least 2015 when Canada’s current Prime Minister, Rt Hon. Justin Trudeau was campaigning for the federal elections and claimed that if the Liberal party came to power, they would terminate the F-35 procurement deal and would instead invest in the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). The F-35 controversy saw a lot of political infighting between the Conservative and Liberal parties (CBC News 2015). However, politics aside, this deal will be a game changer for the RCAF and especially for North American defence as aforementioned by the VP of the F-35 program (Lockheed Martin Aeronautics n.d). As per the Minister of Defence, the F-35s under this project will be built jointly in Canada and the US, helping North America, specifically the Canadian economy (Brewster 2023). Furthermore, the minister stated in her comments that the procurement process has been “fair and open and competitive” and has been worked out under the standard operating procedures of Public Services and Procurement Canada”(Brewster 2023).c n Moreover, the Federal government insisted that the deal will add about $425 million to Canada’s annual GDP which will be achieved through targeted investments by the Lockheed Martin group. On the other hand, two reports released by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) stated that the F-35 program has been plagued with financial and technological issues. These include supply chain issues, spare part shortages, poor performance and over budget Research and Development. Moreover, the same report highlighted the approximate cost of hourly operation of the F-35 standing around CAD$40,000/hour which is more than three times what the current CF-18 Hornet fleet costs which are about CAD$10,500/hour (Lorincz 2023) (Odom 2016). All these problems combined with numerous performance issues with the F-35’s engines make it a very fragile combat platform, especially in the Arctic region where the jet is being procured to operate with our American allies.

The Arctic is a region where many of Canada’s allies have the F-35 in their fighter fleets, such as Norway, Denmark and the US. Canada is part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) along with the US, whose roles are to protect the great Euro-Atlantic region and North American airspace respectively. Historically, RCAF has played a role as the first line of defence against Russian bombers and/or fighter jets originating from Russia (Cowan 2014). Such a role is even more crucial in today's complex battlespace, which is overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As portrayed by the Department of National Defence (DND) of Canada, the F-35 would have the capability to fly non-stop from Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Cold Lake in Alberta to Inuvik Forward Operating Location (FOL) in Canada’s Northwest Territories shown below (National Defence 2023) with an approximate operational range of 2,200 km. In addition to fulfilling NORAD’s commitments to defending North American airspace, Canada’s F-35 fleet could be a catalyst for the RCAF to develop its FOL Inuvik and FOL Yellowknife to better protect the Canadian Arctic, as well as conduct any emergency maintenance or refuelling the F-35 or for any of our transport aircraft.

As mentioned before, Canada is not alone in operating the F-35, our Arctic allies such as Norway and Denmark also operate F35s in the Arctic region to defend NATO’s airspace in the Northern Atlantic. Not only that, but many experts have pointed to Norway’s procurement of F-35s as an example for RCAF and the government of Canada. Just when the government of Canada had begun its competition for the procurement of F-35s, the Royal Norwegian Air Force officially received their first batch of three F-35s in January 2017, but it was not until November 2017 that all three jets were flown to Norway. Compared to their training phase in Arizona, the Norwegian Arctic climate was in stark contrast to what the pilots and the plane had experienced(Sevunts 2018). Hence, the Royal Norwegian Air Force was extremely cautious with the new jets as air bases in or near the Arctic circle are often subjected to heavy cross winds which makes it very difficult for a STOVL aircraft to function. All in all, the Royal Norwegian Air Force had to rely on its ageing F-16 fleet to fulfil NATO’s requirements. So, even though the planes were first delivered in 2017 they will only be able to achieve full operational capability in 2025, a crucial lesson to learn for the RCAF (Sevunts 2018)

In conclusion, the government of Canada has struck a timely deal with our CF-18s being in their last operational decade, but time will tell how these new and improved F-35s can perform in the vast Arctic tundra. It is notable that the F-35s are one of a handful of such fighter jets in the history of aviation that has STOVL capabilities and, if implemented correctly along with infrastructure in the high Arctic, they could be a lethal force with mini-operational airbases/helipads that can be used to deploy these fighters. In the end, I believe that it is better late than never, as the world is moving towards stealth fighter jets and our adversaries, especially Russia and China, are developing their own stealth fighters. It is extremely important for Canada to be technologically abreast with the world to remain “STRONG, SECURE AND ENGAGED.” (National Defence n.d).

Bibliography

Brewster, Murray. 2023. “Federal government signs deal to buy fleet of F-35 fighter jets.” CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-f35-fighter-jet-deal-1.6707769.

CBC News. 2015. “Justin Trudeau vows to scrap F-35 fighter jet program.” CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-scrap-f35-halifax-1.3235791.

Cowan, Christopher. 2014. “The F-35 and the Arctic: Does It Fit the RCAF's Needs?” NATO Association of Canada. https://natoassociation.ca/the-f-35-and-the-arctic-does-it-fit-the-rcafs-needs/.

Department of National Defence. 2023. “Announcement regarding the F-35 acquisition.” Canada.ca. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2023/01/announcement-regarding-the-f-35-acquisition.html.

lockheed Martin Aeronautics. 2023. “Canada Announces the Procurement of the F-35 Lightning II.” Lockheed Martin. https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2023-01-09-Canada-Announces-the-Procurement-of-the-F-35-Lightning-II.

Lockheed Martin Corporation. n.d. “About F-35.” Lockheed Martin. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/f-35/f-35-about.html#a_ctol.

Lorincz, Tamara, and Wilfrid Laurier. 2023. “Liberal government will regret buying F-35 fighter jets.” The Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2023/01/17/liberal-government-will-regret-purchase-of-unreliable-and-unaffordable-f-35-fighter-jets.html.

Odom, Brett. 2016. “Why Sloppy Accounting Is Destroying the US Fighter Inventory.” SOFREP. https://sofrep.com/fightersweep/the-real-cost-per-flight-hour-of-military-aircraft/.

Sevunts, Levon. 2018. “Norway's experience with F-35 fighter jets offers lesson for Canada.” RCI Radio Canada International. https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2018/11/22/norway-f35-fighter-canada-lesson-defence-military-nato-trident-juncture-aircraft-lockheed-martin/.