It makes me laugh... the same type of top senator that call the F-35 the right aircraft to replace the A-10 in CAS role... who is stupid...Piet Luijken wrote:WASHINGTON — A top ranking US senator slammed Canadian Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau's plan to abandon the F-35 joint strike fighter, less than 24 hours after elections handed the reins of power to the leader of the Canadian Liberal Party.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who is president pro tempore of the US Senate, called the move "stupid" on Tuesday.
Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has touted his own role in bringing the first operational F-35 squadron to Hill Air Force Base in Utah.
"That's to their detriment because it's the most important fighter plane ever built," Hatch said of Canada and the F-35, respectively. "They have the right to do whatever they want to, but it's stupid. If they want to have any kind of flight superiority, the F-35 gives it to them."
Canada committed to buying 65 of the fifth-generation fighters in 2010 as replacements for its fleet of CF-18s. However, in 2012, that buy was paused by then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper amidst accusations his government had lied about the true cost of the fighter program.
Most likely his re-election campaign was co-financed by Lockheed Martin. With the Ogden ALC chosen for major maintenance work on the F-35, it's the jobs he's trying to protect. But he's a politician so plays the technology card in stead of simply stating his own interest.PilotoRico wrote:It makes me laugh... the same type of top senator that call the F-35 the right aircraft to replace the A-10 in CAS role... who is stupid...Piet Luijken wrote:WASHINGTON — A top ranking US senator slammed Canadian Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau's plan to abandon the F-35 joint strike fighter, less than 24 hours after elections handed the reins of power to the leader of the Canadian Liberal Party.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who is president pro tempore of the US Senate, called the move "stupid" on Tuesday.
Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has touted his own role in bringing the first operational F-35 squadron to Hill Air Force Base in Utah.
"That's to their detriment because it's the most important fighter plane ever built," Hatch said of Canada and the F-35, respectively. "They have the right to do whatever they want to, but it's stupid. If they want to have any kind of flight superiority, the F-35 gives it to them."
Canada committed to buying 65 of the fifth-generation fighters in 2010 as replacements for its fleet of CF-18s. However, in 2012, that buy was paused by then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper amidst accusations his government had lied about the true cost of the fighter program.
Apparantly the restrictions are no longer in place indeed. From what I could gather, the Finns were not allowed to have more than 60 combat aircraft (twin seaters count as trainers), no planes with internal bomb bays, no guided missiles and no offensive weapons. With buying 65 F-35s they would be in violation with all these. However, these restrictions were the result of a treaty with the Soviets which has been nullifiedCoati wrote:No the want a multi role fighter platform this time.
They were ordered in 1992 and the treaty was dropped in 1990. However, the F-18 designation could have been influenced by it.ehusmann wrote:Delivered maybe, ordered certainly not.
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