F-35 alternatives for Canada

Given the clusterfuck that the F-35 deal has resulted in up here, there's a chance that we might buy something else.

Far as I know we got the following options.

-Eurofighter.
-Rafale.
-Super Hornet.
-Su-35.

Su-35 has like, zero chance of happening. I back Eurofighter...what do you guys think?

Any of those but the Super Bug.

Depends on whether or not you're going for something Carrier-capable.
The Eurofighter, IIRC, has little if any carrier capability. The Super Hornet has tons of it, and is a full-spectrum warfighter (I just like using the term), but is far better suited to carrier fighting, hence why the USMC/USN love it.

Eurofighter I regard as being an excellent air-to-air dogfighter, but wouldn't trust it in many other roles,. just because I've not read into any of them.
I heard the French had issues with the Rafale?

Canada needs a modern air force to defend...

it's claim over the arctic ocean

I personally hope it's the Eurofighter.

I just want to see sufficient interest for Eurofighters with AESA and thrust-vectoring to enter service somewhere.

Well I can't see us redeveloping a carrier capacity in the short term...

CASR proposes that we buy Super Hornet/Growler to bolster NATO's SEAD capability...but honestly I think we should put continental air defence ahead of expeditionary stuff. Hell, just buy some EW pods and HARMs for the Eurofighter if we want to have that capability.

edit: Eurofighter can carry AMRAAM and AIM-9 'natively' right?

Also the state of our air defence in general makes me want to cry. We have nothing beyond SHORAD stuff, and I think that's distributed unevenly all over the country.

We really should have some Patriots or something like the ground launched AMRAAM stuff. :|

They need some muscle when Denmark starts getting pushy over Arctic oil rights.

The Kiwis have it much much worse.

Least you Canucks still actually have combat aircraft.

Nothing.

The European fighter's are technically mediocre, short range, pricey and have no real future.

Super Hornet is exceedingly expensive (Australia is paying 4.6 billion to purchase and support 24 for just ten years) and doesn't have either the capabilities or growth potential to justify it's cost.

Russia, yeah noep. Even ignoring the fact it's Russia; the technology is obsolete, Russian technical support is horrible (Ask India), it's not compatible with anything in NATO, it's not compatible with any of our weapons, everything is probably written in Russian, Russia routinely can't fill export orders and/or delivers substandard products (Algeria Mad), we'd be completely dependant on Russia for spares and it would have no industrial benefits (why would we want to produce Russian technology???)

Considering Canada doesn't really need much, I'd look between the F-18, the Gripen, and the F-16. Nothing else seems worth it for Canada, of all places. Now, what probably makes sense is to buy the second version of the F-35, after all the kinks get ironed out.

That will never happen, because Canada, whatever we buy now will fly for about 30 years.

Eurofighter is surely unstable enough without trying to shoehorn in a thrust-vectoring capability?

22% of the world oil and gas, in an era where that stuff is the most vital element to civilization.

Sounds like a good thing to defend.


To answer Izi's question:

Ideal: Design and build our own. Canadian engineers make up more then a third of US military programs, despite our fractionally smaller population. We have the capability.

Existing: Rafale. I hate to say it, but Rafale may give us the best capabilities for our real needs.

Realistic: None, the CF-18s retire without replacement.

Lulz: F-22!

protecting canada from mujahideen in tomcats