Boeing touts Super hornet fighter jet to rival F-35 — at half the price
From Will at THE OTHER NEWS:
Boeing touts Super hornet fighter jet to rival F-35 — at half the price.(CBC).In a dogfight of defence contractors, the hunter can quickly become the hunted. It's happening now to the F-35.
The world's largest defence contractor, Lockheed Martin, is trying to convince wavering U.S. allies — including Canada — to stick with its high-tech, high-priced and unproven F-35 stealth fighter. But the F-35 is way behind schedule, way over budget and, now, it's grounded by a mysterious crack in a turbine fan.
After years of technical problems, it's a tempting target for Lockheed Martin's rivals.
It's no surprise, then, that the No. 2 defence contractor, Boeing, smells blood.
With Ottawa now reviewing its previous commitment to buy the F-35, Boeing is making an aggressive pitch to Canadian taxpayers, offering to save them billions of dollars if they buy Boeing's Super Hornets instead.
Boeing isn't pulling its punches. The Super Hornet, it says, is a proven fighter while the F-35 is just a concept — and an expensive one at that.
"We call it competing with a paper airplane," says Ricardo Traven, Boeing's chief test pilot for the Super Hornet. A Canadian who flew fighters for 15 years in the Canadian air force, Traven dismisses the F-35 as a "shiny brochure of promises," and contrasts it with "the real thing," which looms behind him in a top-secret hangar at Boeing's vast production line in St. Louis, Missouri. It has two engines to the F-35's one — and, unlike the F-35, it's ready now. Some 500 Super Hornets are already in service with the U.S. Navy. Dozens have already been sold to the Australian air force, which, like Canada, was once committed to the F-35 but gave up waiting for it to prove itself.Hmmmm.....Psst! Wanna save $23B?Read the full story here.
THE FA-18 is already in service with the US Navy and has been for years. It's a good but not great warplane, and went into service because of problems the Navy had with it's own stealth attack aircraft design back in the time of the F-117. So the FA-18 is already a second choice at that level. It is not much better than the Russian Mig-35. It has NO stealth whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteSince we now have only 186 F-22's and will make no more and 1 squadron of F-35's (grounded), it's simply IMPERATIVE we get control of the F-35 program and learn to make them well and cheap. There is NO alternative. Additionally the F-35 can take off and land vertically like the AV8B Harrier. Anyone seeking to purchase the F-18 had better plan on buying both aircraft.