FIghter REPLACEMENT
F
20 DECEMBER 2016/JANUARY 2017 www.vanguardcanada.com
by charles davies
Canada's fighter
replaCement:
What will the field look like in five years?
CDA Institute Research fellow Charles Davies provides
an overview of the potential fighter aircra candidates
in five years, when the government says it will select a
permanent replacement for the Cf-18s.
W
ith the government's
decision to acquire 18
Boeing Super Hor-
nets as a gap-filler, and
take up to five years to
competitively select a permanent fighter
replacement, it is useful to briefly look
ahead to that eventual decision point to
consider how the options will appear at
that time.
Leaving aside the politics of the question
- which of course will continue to trump
everything - will the delay be worth it in
terms of clarifying the technical, opera-
tional and industrial merits of the respec-
tive contenders for a replacement aircraft
that will serve for perhaps forty years (i.e.,
to roughly 2065 or later)?
Assuming that the government will not
decide to aim substantially lower in terms
of fighter aircraft capability – say by select-
ing an armed trainer – or consider a Russian
or Chinese aircraft, and given that there are
currently no new advanced fighter aircraft
known to be in development in the West,
the list of potential candidates five years
from now will not likely be much different
from today. We'll look at those in turn.
Boeing Super Hornet
