Many claims have been made about the actual cost to Canada for the small tranche of F-35 aircraft the Conservative government has agreed to buy. The opposition claimed that there were potentially huge savings from having a competition instead of ordering F-35’s. This may or may not be true, especially as the Department of National Defence still hasn’t made a clear statement about what role the new aircraft will be expected to fill (that is, we’re told the F-35 is the answer, but the question still hasn’t been specified).
Back when we bought the F-18, for example, one of the stated criteria was that the plane we bought had to have two engines, due to the potential risk of engine failure in the far north (where airfields are very few and very far apart). This ruled out the F-16, a single-engine plane. This time around, we’re buying a single-engine plane, but the reasons have not been spelled out. It may well be that the F-35 really is everything we need, but it does feel like we’re buying it because we were part of the original “team” during the early design phases.
Combat aircraft are not cheap, and the currently available crop show that well:
Despite the high expense all the electronic gear, the F-18G is not the most expensive combat aircraft out there. The F-22 costs $355 million each. The low budget F-18E costs $94 million each, while the F-18G goes for $105 million. The F-35 costs over $130 million (and growing). Even unmanned aircraft are pricy, with the Global Hawk costing $182 million each (with high end sensors). Older fighters, like the F-16, cost $60 million, and an F-15E goes for about $100 million. The price of the export EA-18G hasn’t been set yet, but it will probably be under $100 million.
These prices constantly fluctuate because of the need to incorporate a share of the development cost for each aircraft built. While most development expense occurs before mass production begins, there is sometimes considerable additional development expense, or major refurbishment, later in the lifetime of an aircraft. Many modern warplanes cost more than most warships, and have the same high maintenance (periodic refurbishment and development of new components) expenses.
Update: There’s another Strategy Page article of interest, this one talking about the decline of Canadian air power:
When the Canadian government decided to send some warplanes to assist in establishing the no-fly zone over Libya, they found out that sending six of their CF-18 fighters would amount to 20 percent of flyable Canadian fighters. That was a bit shocking to most Canadians. But not to those who run the Canadian Air Force, as they know quite well that the CF-18 is on the way out. For example, late last year, Canada awarded $700 million in contracts to two commercial firms (Harris and L3) to provide maintenance for its F-18 fleet of jet fighters over the next nine years. This type of contract is increasingly popular, as they provide a cheaper way to provide all the more complex maintenance, other than what the ground crews do on a daily basis. This involves major overhauls, management of spare parts and upgrades of equipment. This includes the airframe, engines and electronics. Canada expects to retire its remaining 79 CF-18s by 2020, and replace them with 65 F-35s. Meanwhile, only about 30 CF-18s are flyable, because so many aircraft are undergoing upgrades and extended maintenance.
[. . .] Canada plans to replace its CF-18s with the new 65 F-35s. The trend towards fewer, but more capable and expensive aircraft is a common one. Half a century ago, Canada had a fleet of nearly 600 fighters, including license built U.S. F-86s, and what would eventually amount to over 600 CF-100 fighters, the only Canadian designed fighter to enter mass production. The CF-100s were gradually retired over the next three decades. The last ones left service as the CF-18 entered service. But in between, Canada built, under license, several other U.S. fighter designs. Canada had become a major aircraft manufacturer during World War II (over 16,000 aircraft produced), and that provided the foundation for an aircraft industry that remains a major supplier of commercial aircraft to this day.
Yes, defence costs a lot of money, and if we want to defend ourselves we have to spend the cash. I should disclose here that I am a serving member in the CF though so I am a bit biased, but still, I think a rational argument can be made for defending our country.
That said, I don’t know the specifications that were decided upon when the decision to replace the CF-18 was made. Since this is a defence decision maybe it is wise not to let our potential enemies know what we are thinking when we decide on what capabilities we require. I hear cries for a competition and I wonder what the heck those people want… do they want a fly off? Is it just a paper exercise to compare capabilities vs cost? Do they really know what they are asking for or are they just parrots repeating what they hear from the “journotainment” field. Our media do a terrible job reporting, but they do a fine job telling us what we should think.
I do like the quote above, it does help to point out that even if we hold a competition, whatever we do buy will still cost billions of dollars over the life of the aircraft. And if you worked on these aircraft, like I do, you come to realize that after 30 years passes, all the parts you purchased at the beginning are never enough near the end of the aircraft’s life cycle because we have junked some of them over the years.
Comment by Dwayne — April 2, 2011 @ 11:57
And here we loop back to the problem with the media, in this instance the Canadian media in specific. Canadians have been saturated with the fiction that we’ve “always been peacekeepers” and that this is the overriding purpose for our armed forces. The governments (of all flavours) don’t object to this, as it allows them to go cheap on equipment for the forces and use the “savings” for more politically rewarding gestures.
If we were a major military power, this argument would be much more relevant. Barring the science fiction ideas of fighting against the US for some unimaginable reason, aside from protecting our sovereignty (air defence, coastal patrols, internal security), all of our military expeditions will be undertaken as part of an alliance or coalition. Given this, inter-operability with our closest ally is a ver high priority. It’s almost a given that we’ll buy American aircraft, with just an outside chance of buying European instead.
The choices available to us, to retain that inter-operability, are therefore the F-35 or the Eurofighter. We could, and some have argued in favour of this, just replace the F-18A-upgraded-to-F-18C-level with the much more capable current F-18E/F and drop the “stealth” requirement.
That’s one of the few things that the Conservative government did right in this area: instead of stating the up-front costs of a weapon system, they have been including the spares/maintenance/training cost estimates in the total. That’s far more honest, although it also allows the opposition (and the media) to portray them as over-spending on equipment.
Comment by Nicholas — April 2, 2011 @ 13:43
The problem with buying 4th or even 4.5 generation fighters is that we are going to use them for the next 30 years. This is a highly educated guess based on our current crop of aircraft. If we are going to use the fighters for the next 30 years it only makes sense to buy into 5th generation technology instead of cobbling up 4 and 4.5 gen stuff for years to come. I could see it if we were stop gapping, like the US Navy, but we are not buying our aircraft as a stop gap, they are our future fighter/attack aircraft. Dual purpose, just like the CF-18 that we fly now… a bomb truck when we need it and a serviceable fighter when we need it too. Not the best at either, but not the worst.
I notice in the write up you talk about the one engine vice two engine thing. Back in the late ’70s and early ’80s this was a valid concern, but today’s engines are so reliable… take a look at the two engine liners flying Atlantic and Pacific routes today and into the future. These are not the same engines of 30 years ago.
Comment by Dwayne — April 3, 2011 @ 01:12
That’s a good point. As the UAV technology continues to mature, we may well be looking at the final generation of manned combat aircraft (but as I’ve posted a few times before, that’s been predicted as far back as 1957).
We need something that is “good enough” at the various tasks we need to accomplish. As long as we’re only fighting in coalition/alliance scenarios and perimeter defence, that will be sufficient for our needs.
I bow to your professional experience on that question, but I was more using that point to illustrate that the decision to buy the F-18 instead of the somewhat-cheaper F-16 appeared to pivot on that data point. In other words, while DND didn’t share their entire decision making process with us plebes, at least they identified some of the things they took into consideration.
Comment by Nicholas — April 3, 2011 @ 10:35