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Orgasmo is correct. A high end fight with the Chinese would be a systems vs systems event, and the Philippines is waaay behind the curve there. A token F16 buy would offer the PLAAF little more than target practice.

I suppose he's not totally wrong. The F16 is pretty old nowadays.

In theory perhaps but not practically speaking. Canada simply does not posess the national corporate knowledge to produce a modern (5th or 6th gen) aircraft, and the amount of investment required to obtain it would be prohibitive. Even Sweden (who are now WAY ahead of Canada here) are looking...

Rest assured the F35 is probably a lot more difficult to copy than the B29 ever was. The more immediate issue would be the Russians getting to closely analyse the aircraft's radar and IR signatures so as to optmise the tuning of their own sensors and weapons to counter it. A big advantage the...

^It's not that simple. Smaller but strategically important American allies like Canada, Australia, Turkey (until now) etc. simply don't have the industrial capacity to self sufficiently develop their own high end military hardware nor the raw wealth to do so in a viable way. Moreover, certain...

Doubt it. Trudeau made too much noise about canning the F35 early on to change his mind. Seems to have backed himself into a corner now that Boeing is in the Canadian doghouse too (no Super Hornets)... Unfortunately I expect Canadian fighter procurement to languish until the next change of...

Double

That's the thing, not all of it actually materialises per se. The trick is differentiating between what will become a viable capability and what is PR designed to convince the masses that the good old days are coming back.

My bet is the jet is just still at an early developmental point and the Ruskies are being forced financially to amortise the development costs across a more protracted time span. Whether that will prove fatal to the project remains to be seen. AFAIK the handful of examples that have been built...

I don't know that the jet is completely dead YET but the outlook isn't great. The Russians have been planning a lot of big ticket items (Su57, various missiles, new subs, Lider class destroyer, Armata, PAK DA... the list goes on) while also curbing their defence spending... something's gotta give.

Oh there definitely is. I mean the ADF as a whole is heavily oriented towards interoperability with US systems. The RAAF is broadly modelled off a USN carrier's complement of aircraft, the Army closely mimics the USMC and the RAN is constantly working with the USN. Put simply, I imagine the...

It's hard to generalise but my understanding is that the ADF gets access to a lot of sensitive US technology - possibly just as much as any other ally. We have cooperated on a lot of cutting edge things like Growler, NGJ, ADCAP torpedoes, various submarine technologies, AESA radars... the list...

Plan is to keep all our jets up to the latest standard the US uses. The exception to this is that the RAAF plan to replace the F/A18Fs late next decade. Super Hornets are great and all but F35 is another step up again (especially by then). I suspect we're more likely to buy new pimped out F35s...

MQ4C doesn't need to be armed - that's not its job. We'll have plenty of P8s and F35s for that. As for us operating bombers... something would have to drastically change in the region for the govt to really consider it. Something like China setting up a military airbase/port nearby (Vanuatu...

It's inevitable we'll get on board eventually. There is a very slight chance that a 6th gen aircraft could replace our Super Hornets but realistically I think we'll need a replacement before a 6th gen option will be ready. An additional F35 order strikes me as more likely, with 6th gen...

Yep pretty much!

*Airframes. The US is planning on two seperate airframes. The word 'frame' on its own doesn't mean the same thing ;-) My guess is the Brits might consult with LM/Northrop/Raytheon etc about getting involved in some way. Doesn't mean the US will actually field the jet itself. Realistically the...

Looks similar to Boeing's X32 minus the bizarre chin intake arrangement.

We are. Not sure I understand the question though? EKVs are used for ballistic missile defence in a fairly specific way.

Hard to say. I suspect it's just a cryptic way of delaying mass/higher rate production until the jet is more mature. I mean it doesn't even have the right engines yet...