Ottawa has started to make payments for key components for 14 additional U.S.-built F-35s, even as the Carney government has been reviewing future fighter-jet purchases in the context of trade tensions with Washington, sources have told CBC News.
The money for these 14 aircraft is in addition to the contract for a first order of 16 F-35s, which will start being delivered to the Canadian Armed Forces at the end of the year.
According to sources, the new expenses are related to the purchase of so-called “long-lead items,” which are parts that must be ordered well in advance of the delivery of a fully assembled aircraft.
Canada had to make these expenditures to maintain its place in the long-term delivery schedule and avoid being replaced by other buyers in the queue, sources said.
How many flight hours before a service requiring parts only sourced in USA? Aka the “not a killswitch” that just consists of making a hangar queen that needs a steady supply of unobtainable parts.
There are no F-35 parts only sourced in the US. Every country in the F-35 program has the ability to manufacture parts. The only thing the US controls is the firmware. The US can’t lock us out of buying or building replacement components, they can only lock us out of getting newer firmware updates (eg, we can still use the firmware we have, just can’t get anything past the point where they decide to cut us off).
Now that’s a completely valid concern; being cut off from firmware updates would seriously degrade the capability of that part of our fleet over a long enough time horizon, which is one of the reasons why we’re considering taking on a large order of Gripens as well. But it’s not a “Stop your planes from flying” scenario. Even without the latest firmware we’d still be able to put an F-35 in the air and have it engage and destroy targets.
Also if the US refused to provide firmware their f-35 fleet would eventually become completely grounded and useless as a large amount of the f-35s parts are made across the world.
Well, they certainly have the ability to manufacture those parts themselves, but you’re absolutely correct that they would have to deal with a massive disruption to their existing supply chain. If they didn’t take the appropriate measures well ahead of such a drastic step it certainly would ground the fleet for quite a while, until they got domestic production sorted out.