What happens when you integrate your military into the fabric of the economy? Why the F-35 debacle of course.
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The Disaffected Lib: What’s That Wobble? Oh, It’s the Alignment.
When your car’s steering gets wobbly it’s time to get it into the shop and have it re-aligned. Maybe it’s time Canada did something along those lines. No, not just countervailing tariffs against American goods, something more significant. Perhaps we need to re-align our foreign and military policy. Here’s a
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: I’ve Got an Idea to Rescue Justin From His Slump
Unfair or not, Justin Trudeau has taken a hit in the public’s mind over his pretty clumsy trip to India. With JT et famille sporting an elaborate wardrobe of Bollywood’s best fashions, the Indian press took the piss out of him pretty relentlessly. The local scribblers piled on. Now Trudeau’s
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Get ‘Em While They’re Still Not Entirely Obsolete.
If this thing works, they won’t have to fire a round to deal a severe blow to Western military forces. Russia says it will begin testing a new photonic radar system next year that will detect any aircraft, stealthy or not, at ranges perhaps up to 400 miles. It’s the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Smart Move – Yes, From the Trudeau Government at That.
The federal government will order 18 F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets from Boeing to bridge the gap while it awaits the next wave of new generation fighters for the Royal Canadian Air Force. They’re following an idea that Australia implemented a couple of years ago. Most of America’s allies are going
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s NDP government gets serious about economic diversification, an overdue change
PHOTOS: Premier Rachel Notley with Economic Development and Trade Minister Deron Bilous and Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee moments after the two cabinet members were sworn into their new portfolios. Below: Labour and Advanced Education Minister Lori Sigurdson. A key part of the business of any government is the business
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Another Nail in the F-35’s Coffin
Another damning report on the F-35 and, once again, it’s from the website War is Boring that last week broke the leaked test pilot report showing that the Joint Strike Fighter was dead meat in dogfighting a 30-year old F-16. Lockheed’s fallback position, echoed by the US Air Force, is that
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Is It Time to Skewer Harper With the F-35 Fiasco?
Probably the question should be whether Mulcair or Trudeau have the political acumen to bloody Stephen Harper over his blunders and deceit in Canada’s F-35 saga. We know now that Harper’s obsessive drive for a single source procurement on a “buy before you fly basis” was insanely reckless. Harper owes
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Little Bomber That Couldn’t
F-35 “Fatso” The myth of the F-35 as an all purpose, multi-role fighter imploded this past week with the leak of a report on flight tests showing that it couldn’t hold its own, much less defeat a decades old F-16 in air combat maneuvering. To put it bluntly, the old
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Lockheed, You Blew It. Start Over, Do It Right.
For all the wholly deserved criticism of the F-35 light attack bomber, there are some things that Lockheed and its partners got right. What they didn’t get right was the airplane itself. The Brits used to operate an aircraft carrier, HMS Invincible. By American carrier standards the British ship had
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The F-35 – Bait & Switch – the Verdict Is In
It’s gradually becoming apparent why countries buying the F-35 don’t get a chance to flight test it first, especially up against its competitors. The “why” is because it’s less of a multi-role jet fighter than we’ve been told, a lot less. The United States Air Force wants the F-35 bad,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Top US Navy Admiral Warns F-35 Stealth Cloaking May Be Overrated.
The US Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations is looking for a strike fighter and he’s looking well beyond the F-35. Admiral Jon Greenert told a Washington audience last week that the F-35’s vaunted stealth cloaking, the magical advantage for which it sacrifices speed, agility, range and payload, “may be overrated.”
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: US Navy Slashes F-35 Order
The United States Navy has decided not to put all its eggs in the F-35 basket. The navy has trimmed its order for the 2016-2020 period by full third. It has also canceled a missile system designed specifically for the over priced, overdue and under-performing light attack bomber. The USN
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Is the F-35 the West’s Flying Maginot Line?
The overpriced, overdue and under-performing F-35 could actually weaken the defences of America and her allies, including Canada. Even pretending, for the sake of argument, that the Lockheed light attack bomber could meet the expectations we all had for it at its inception, the sheer cost of the project, especially
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Could "Rapidly Proliferating Threats" Derail the F-35?
(Remember, this is the plane that the Harper government wants to saddle our aircrews with for half-a-century, fifty years. But, I digress.)Trying to keep tabs on the development of Lockheed’s F=35 requires no end of reading between the lines.One thing that comes through, admittedly in snippets and from different angles,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Costly Fix for One of the F-35’s Achilles’ Heels?
Two big drawbacks to the F-35 are its limited range and mediocre speed. It doesn’t go very far in stealth mode on its internal fuel and it is incapable of the modern fighter sine qua non, supercruise. Those are enormous shortcomings, especially for an uber-expensive warplane. Good news. It seems
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: We’ve Already Entered the Counter-Stealth Technology Era
It’ll be years before the over-priced, overdue and underperforming F-35, stealth light-attack bomber, ever shows up in Canadian air force hangars but already the supposed magic of stealth is losing its lustre to the evolution of counter-stealth technology. Ask yourself just what did we expect the countries obviously intended as
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Israel’s Unanswered Questions
Just like every other US client state (except us, for now), Israel was quick to sign up to buy the Lockheed F-35 light attack bomber. The Israeli air force inked the papers for 19 of Lockheed’s controversial warplanes and then went back to the trough to order another 32. At
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: It’s America’s Problem. Why Make It Canada’s?
One of These Is a Fighter. Your Guess. Imagine what would happen if you showed up for your first day of work at a new job with no pants. That, in a way, is the story of the Lockheed F-35. Perhaps to keep antsy foreign customers in line, the US
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Did You Hear the One About the F-35?
There’s enough stuff in the F-35 to get a comedian through a HBO special. The latest guffaw – its gun doesn’t shoot. It’s there and everything – gun, ammunition, the lot. Pilots just won’t be able to fire it for a while, 2019 at the earliest. At this point, it’s
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