Manufacturing the Fighter Gap
May 1st, 2019Deliveries of the used F-18 fighter aircraft that Canada is acquiring from Australia have begun. The point of the new purchase of old F-18s is to provide a temporary fix for the ostensible capability gap that was created by a redefinition of Canadian requirements. It was broadly understood as an unusually sudden The Simons Foundation.
insistence on an immediate need for up to 25 more fighter aircraft (18 for operational roles, possibly seven more for testing and spare parts), but it was also part of a pattern of arbitrarily changing requirements for air defence missions that remain essentially unchanged. Continue reading at