ExMilitaryEng wrote:CDN$500M has been put aside by the Feds. The actual amount will be determined later, pending further detailed negotiations (including amount of spare parts, which airframe is actually acquired)
Thanks for that. If we said $10 mill per aircraft, then transport, spares, admin etc on top of that would give some leeway for the budget.
ExMilitaryEng wrote:The article also mentions the following: "Transfers to a third party of military equipment originally provided via foreign military sales require U.S. authorization"
I don’t see that being an issue other than the paperwork to gain the approval. Plenty of ex US equipment moves around the globe, both Canada and Australia are trusted partners and Canada already operates the aircraft.
ExMilitaryEng wrote:Well, if the US rejects the transaction, that would be a good pretext for Canada to temporally suspend those useless NATO air defense deployments. That would save airframe stress/hours big time and extend our legacy Hornets life a few more years... (We can support NATO way more efficiently by providing more land troops in the Baltics...)
A lot of the long term fleet analysis I have seen points to operational hours, as long as they aren’t excessive, being better for overall fleet management than homeland training. Typically less Gs and edge case airframe incidents operationally compared to what occurs at home. Where they do save is not having to deploy and support those units overseas.