It requires a massive investment in research and development of advanced aerodynamics, material science, supply chain, skilled mechanics, etc. You just don’t pop out a plane from a group of engineers like we did during WW1. Creating a fighter jet that is capable enough to defend against today’s adversaries will require a couple decades of investment to start from scratch. And yes I know you probably think that we can just use the knowledge already available from previous fighter jet programs like older American jets but even if they had de-classified designs they still don’t have the supply chain and technical experts to pull it off in a few years.
Giant waste of money. Much smarter to buy a product someone else already wasted all the money to develop. Current-generation fighter jets are incredibly complex, Russia can’t even figure out how to mass-produce one at all, even before the sanctions, and they’re a very militarized state. Why spend 5x as much to develop something worse than what they can just buy?
What Canada really needs is a massive drone program. Drones from the size of a 747 to the size of a dime, and everything inbetween. The entire Russia-Ukraine war is a drone war.
Why doesn’t Canada design and build its own fighter jet?
It requires a massive investment in research and development of advanced aerodynamics, material science, supply chain, skilled mechanics, etc. You just don’t pop out a plane from a group of engineers like we did during WW1. Creating a fighter jet that is capable enough to defend against today’s adversaries will require a couple decades of investment to start from scratch. And yes I know you probably think that we can just use the knowledge already available from previous fighter jet programs like older American jets but even if they had de-classified designs they still don’t have the supply chain and technical experts to pull it off in a few years.
Giant waste of money. Much smarter to buy a product someone else already wasted all the money to develop. Current-generation fighter jets are incredibly complex, Russia can’t even figure out how to mass-produce one at all, even before the sanctions, and they’re a very militarized state. Why spend 5x as much to develop something worse than what they can just buy?
What Canada really needs is a massive drone program. Drones from the size of a 747 to the size of a dime, and everything inbetween. The entire Russia-Ukraine war is a drone war.
I don’t think I can understate just how ridiculously expensive it is to start up your own jet fighting industry from basically scratch.
In the entire world, there are only 5 countries that produce fighter jets. USA, Sweden, France, China, Russia.
We tried once. Our government lacks vision sometimes.
Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow
Will require a lot of research and developement and spending and i am not ready to sacrifice services for it
Why dump more resources into something, that you don’t need to, because there’s a very serviceable option already prepped for sale?