The RCAF's Next Generation Fighter (CF-188 Replacement)

[RedFive]

The comments I find funny are that Canada can't find enough pilots now so certainly not for more airframes....

Dude... if a country of 40M people can't find about 500 young adults who are interested in flying fricken FIGHTER JETS, that country is seriously fucked up and doing shit completely wrong. Give me a break!

Years ago, I tried to get in to the RCAF as a pilot. CFRC told me I wasn't good enough and suggested the Reserves to "get my foot in the door". And when I say I was told I wasn't good enough, this was a conversation with a recruiter prior to any of the testing results he could have used to quantifiably say "sorry your results aren't good enough".

I've never left the Reserves, but I took my skills elsewhere.

 

[Good2Golf]

Until Macron gets replaced by a Russian stooge (Marine Le Pen) then you are anally raped.

Briefs well in some people’s minds…but not the French non-Russians. LePen/Putin’s done. Vladimir needs to find another stooge.

Does Krasnov speak French? He eats their fries…

Without a major change in the Canadian outlook on National Defence, I don’t see a second fleet as viable.

I’d suggest that the Non US F-35 users form a user group to look at options to run a USless F-35 system. Heck contract LM directly, LM has a number of host nation subsidiaries that could do the work OCONUS and thus not be subject to US controls. Yes one would need to start from scratch and keep a copy of one’s homework - but it would keep the most capable airframe relevant regardless of what DJT attempted.

U.S. companies are folding to POTUS like cheap card tables. No way they’d be allowed to support an ITAR machine without Murka’s approval.

Years ago, I tried to get in to the RCAF as a pilot. CFRC told me I wasn't good enough and suggested the Reserves to "get my foot in the door". And when I say I was told I wasn't good enough, this was a conversation with a recruiter prior to any of the testing results he could have used to quantifiably say "sorry your results aren't good enough".

You wouldn’t be the first. CAF/RCAF told that to another. Canadian, who fucked them off, joined the RAF, awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross on operations in Iraq, then suddenly the RCAF Sees God and offers him to ‘come home’ and serve his country…

 

[Quirky]

Dude... if a country of 40M people can't find about 500 young adults who are interested in flying fricken FIGHTER JETS, that country is seriously fucked up and doing shit completely wrong. Give me a break!

The problem is the Cold Lake factor.

 

[RedFive]

You wouldn’t be the first. CAF/RCAF told that to another. Canadian, who fucked them off, joined the RAF, awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross on operations in Iraq, then suddenly the RCAF Sees God and offers him to ‘come home’ and serve his country…

To be fair I don't know if I would have made it, let alone been that good. But it was certainly a major disappointment for me to have some infantry sergeant assigned to the CFRC decide I wouldn't have what it took without even trying.

Take my experience and multiply it by the entire country, every year and there's probably the bulk of your Pilot shortage. That, and what sounds like a badly clogged and under resourced training apparatus.

 

[MacNav63]

The problem is the Cold Lake factor.

Is it just Cold Lake or Bagotville as well? And how to resolve? Is there any capacity at existing flying stations more hospitable locations? Winnipeg/Trenton/Greenwood? I'm assuming places like Comox, Goose Bay or North Bay (assuming the latter could still support flying) wouldn't be any more inviting, especially from the spouse perspective. Even assuming the money was there to build new bases nearer to major population centres, finding locations would be interesting. Are the issues at Cold Lake and Bagotville fixable with new infrastructure and the larger base populations that might come from more airframes/squadrons?

 

[KevinB]

To be fair I don't know if I would have made it, let alone been that good. But it was certainly a major disappointment for me to have some infantry sergeant assigned to the CFRC decide I wouldn't have what it took without even trying.

Take my experience and multiply it by the entire country, every year and there's probably the bulk of your Pilot shortage. That, and what sounds like a badly clogged and under resourced training apparatus.

Ironically when I rejoined the CAF after 9/11 I had a Pilot Major at the Calgary recruiting center try to get me to change from going back to the PPCLI to becoming a pilot. He kept telling me I was wasting my life going back the Infantry.

Pretty much exactly what I had been told the first time in Ottawa, (coincidentally by another Pilot) when my aptitude testing was done.

So I don’t think your experience is necessarily representative.

 

[ytz]

To be fair I don't know if I would have made it, let alone been that good. But it was certainly a major disappointment for me to have some infantry sergeant assigned to the CFRC decide I wouldn't have what it took without even trying.

Take my experience and multiply it by the entire country, every year and there's probably the bulk of your Pilot shortage. That, and what sounds like a badly clogged and under resourced training apparatus.

The bulk of the pilot shortage isn't interest. It's training system output. Every flying course is fully loaded.

 

[ytz]

Are the issues at Cold Lake and Bagotville fixable with new infrastructure and the larger base populations that might come from more airframes/squadrons?

New infrastructure doesn't fix your spouse's lack of employment opportunities. Especially if they have anything approaching a real profession. Likewise, new airframes won't improve the dating pool in Cold Lake.

 

[dapaterson]

That's in Amherstview Ontario.

As an 18 year old, the best pizza in the country was wherever was closest and cheapest at 330am in downtown Montreal.