The F-35 and Sound Military Decisions

The Conservative government has just announced the purchase of 65 new
F-35 Joint Strike Force fighters, and within minutes the Liberals have
threatened to cancel the project not based on any sound military
decisions, but because it was based on untendered contract.

I could remind you of the incompetent and life threatening decision
made by the Liberals over the Sea King helicopters and how we have yet
to replace those over 40 year old aircraft because of the complicated
procurement policies of the modern world that even a delay of a year
can add years to the purchase and actual arrival of new vehicles.  I’m
not going to remind how our Sea Kings have crashed, putting lives of
our service people at risk and damaging expensive military vessels.  I
could also tell you about how jarring a landing on a ship while
carrying hundreds of people and equipment can be to an aging airframe
and how such operations take hundreds of hours of maintenance, and the
continued difficulties of keeping spare parts and supplies for aging
mainframes.

What Im going to talk about is the F-35 Strike Fighter.  The Liberal
critics talk about how this vehicle did not go through a tendered
contract proposal and that they would delay its purchase.  This
vehicle has already gone through such testing by the United Kingdom
and the United States of America who have chosen this vehicle over
other comparable designs.  I just have to ask the Liberals who they
wish to purchase such an aircraft from?  The Russians?  The French?
The Chinese?

In Aircraft production you have various generations of sophisticated
fight aircraft that you can fight of fly with.  The F-35 is a 5th
generation fight craft.  The most advanced jet fighter available for
Russia is the Su-35 Flanker, its only a 4th generation aircraft as it
lakes the advanced radar and stealth capabilities of a 5th generation
craft.  The Chinese will not be producing their own equlivent craft
till 2018.  The French and any other manufacturer simply lack the
capability to build such an advanced craft.

And what does 5th generation truly mean?  It means that such craft
offer the best ability to deliver precision munitions to the target,
while ensuring the pilots survival.  They contain high performance
airframes, internally carried weapons, complete stealth profiles the
most advanced radars and computer networks.  Half a dozen planes in
less than a dozen sorties could destroy our entire airforce.  Flying
such vehicles will be like playing Doom on God Mode.

Now that we have explored just what it means to fly one of these
planes, and the fact that there is nothing else like them out there
available, unless the Liberals plan to purchase the even more
expensive F-22’s? The F-35 is the vehicle that has been selected for
use by both the United States and the United Kingdom, our two oldest
and longest running allies.  The use of this vehicle by our two
principle allies and its adoption by our Armed Forces gives us
abilities that we cannot gain by any other comparable strike aircraft.

These vehicles will be interchangeable with our allies aircraft.
Logistics will be streamlined as our parts will be there parts.
Training costs will be reduced as everyone will be operating the one
aircraft.  Maintenance and supplies will be based off the system.
When we deploy in support of our allies around the world, standardized
parts will be the norm.  Not to mention the fact our manufacturing
base for this vehicle will be based in friendly hands or as already
been promised within this country.  We will not become reliant on
parts from a potential competitor.  Not unless the Liberals believe
that we will become at war with the United States?

The fact is if we are to continue to be a purchaser of Joint Strike
Force aircraft then the F-35 is our best investment.  And I will ask
anyone of the Liberal party, what their alternative is?  But the most
likely answer is that it’s a knee jerk reaction by a bunch of military
ignoramus’s who know nothing about procurement or aircraft technology.
There are arguments that could be made against the purchase of such
aircraft.  God knows I have made them and could easily make them
again.  And if the Liberal critics made such arguments I would
entertain them and be glad to debate them.  But we have seen how the
Liberals have handled military decisions in the past.  They have made
them based on greed, political hackery and put the lives of our people
at risk.  When they are willing to have a conversation based on sound
military judgment, I will be here to listen to them.