Saab dangles sovereign data centre in Montreal to undercut F-35 fighter contract | CBC News

Yeah, I'm from the US, but I always felt owning F35s is kind of a bad deal for any other country. Since so much of the plane is proprietary y'all have to jump through endless loops to keep it functional. The big question would be, when the time actually comes can the F35s be used effectively. For example, we can train pilots on the F35 as proficiently as we choose. We can tell them any secrets that are helpful to know. If we're in combat and we lose a few planes it's bad but not war ending. Whereas everyone else has more trouble training (I'd assume there will be heavy reliance on simulations), if any small part gets damaged y'all won't know how to fix it so something minor may become huge, and all the other annoyances that come with not truly owning the hardware. I like your idea of essentially trying to keep a few for a very rainy day, but otherwise relying on something more regular. Heck, we still do a ton of missions with the warthog. Sometimes you just need a simple jet with rockets.

If Canada wants to maintain a small fleet of aircraft (i.e. 50-80 fighters) then committing to a dual fleet would be a ridiculous choice. If Canada wants to expand the airforce to 100+ fighters, then committing to dual airframes would start to make sense.

imo the only nation we could possibly need them against is the US but in that scenario they can just deny maintenance or activate a kill switch. Everyone else doesn't have the force projection to pose a real threat

We have younger people that are looking for jobs, so training them to work on these new toys isn't a total loss.

> All the f35 parts and maintenance are done in the USA. Well that's a complete lie. Parts and maintenance for the F-35 are spread across the entire global partner network, and Canada is already one of the biggest players in that chain. Almost every F-35 flying today (including the US ones) has Canadian parts in it. LHM Technologies in Ontario makes the landing gear for the entire global fleet, ASCO in BC makes the bulkheads and engine mounts, and Magellan in Winnipeg makes the tail assemblies. We’ve already cleared over $3B in contracts before even getting our first jet. Every single F-35 being built contains roughly $3.2 million CAD in Canadian-made components. As far as maintenance goes, they aren’t going back to the States for service. L3Harris in Mirabel, Quebec, is already set to be the primary maintenance hub for the Canadian fleet. It’s the same place that’s been keeping our CF-18s in the air for decades. Lockheed Martin and L3Harris officially signed the framework to establish the F-35 Air Vehicle Depot in Mirabel yesterday. We have a signed agreement. This facility will be one of only a handful in the world capable of depot-level maintenance. The US doesn't even do all the international maintenance anyway. There are massive regional hubs in Italy and Japan for the European and Pacific fleets. It’s a decentralized system by design. Saab’s data center pitch is mostly about data sovereignty, which is a separate argument from who actually builds and fixes the plane. Never mind the fact that Saab is currently using that "Montreal Data Center" pitch to scare people, but Lockheed Martin just confirmed they are delivering the same independent system infrastructure to Canada that they give to other top-tier allies. Basically, Canada gets its own sovereign version of the data system so the US can't just flip a switch and ground our planes.

Not to mention manufacturing and IT.

A lot of countries and coalitions are scrambling to build a better F-35. China isn't f****** around. Neither is Japan and the UK. We will have legitimate alternatives to the F-35 in less than 10 years. No one will want the USA's "subscription-based" F-35 "live service".

Canada is so vast and has such few people the only way to really safeguard the borders will be with autonomous weapon systems. It costs way too much to buy and maintain jets that can be targeted by economies that can produce more precision munitions at scale. But if canada had rapidly deployable kamikaze weapon systems then they could be distributed and virtually impossible to eliminate entirely. Attacks from across pacific or Atlantic wouldn’t be credible threats and Canada would have a defensive posture against American aggression. Also, recruiting would be able to target a different demographic of people interested in being drone pilots vs meat shields.

The data is also considered FMS so extremely sensitive handling in Canada. RCAF building special facilities across Canada to offload such petabytes of data (ex CLAWR).

You left out an important point - that is what Saab is saying. This is what Lockheed Martin said (maybe you didn't get to this part of the article): "As part of our government contracts, we deliver all system infrastructure and data required for all F-35 customers to operate and sustain their aircraft independently and according to their sovereign requirements and operational needs," Chauncey McIntosh, vice-president and general manager of the company's F-35 program, said in a recent written statement."

Saab says that but it's not true. Lockheed Martin just confirmed they are delivering the same independent system infrastructure to Canada that they give to other top-tier allies. Basically, Canada gets its own sovereign version of the data system so the US can't just flip a switch and ground our planes. There's zero reason to think we wouldn't be getting the same treatment as the other allies.

It's exhausting

So it's rich?

Their entire f35 platform is a heavily modified one to accept their domestically produced weapons and instruments.

This is so ignorant and wholly wrong in so many ways.

You're referring to and mostly misrepresenting the JSF program. - JSF design lead was Lockheed. - U.S. was the primary funder and driver. - Lockheed being the prime contractor isn't something new in large defense programs and wasn't unique to the JSF program. - Partner companies like BAE are properly attributed for their contributions. - There is 0 evidence the JSF program involves stealing any technology not sure what you're on about there. > I think you will be surprised at SAABs next airframe if they get it to work(i have high confidence of this). It will likely make the F35 look a little silly. SAAB isn't the prime on EU's hyped up GCAP so not sure what you're referring to here. SAAB doesn't even have a concept of an aircraft that can rival the F-35 in capability. Out of curiosity are you also going to claim that the UK and Japan stole technology when the GCAP program concludes?

Same with the Abrams tank. The main gun is a German design.

This is a very good point and even if Gripen chooses to switch to the Rolls-Royce engine the rumours are talking about, it will take a long time before it becomes standard. This may be why Saab is trying to cut deals with countries to build Gripens locally like in Brazil and now Canada. To expand and scale their production overall

Bullshit, earlier gripen iterations have used different engines

This is not really true. It is really more nuanced than what you are saying. Engines quite often change throughout the development and lifetime of figther jets, and while it isn't as simple as taking one engine out and putting another engine in, it also isn't as bad as "the whole plane needs to be redesigned". Engine development is one of the more difficult and more costly parts of developing a fighter jet, and for that reason engines are often upgraded and swapped throughout the development program or a figthers lifetime. This may require changes at the interfaces with the engine, but it is not like the entire aircraft needs to be completely redesigned from scratch to accomodate such a change. There are many examples of this happening: China's J10 started with Russian AL-31FN engines and these were later swapped to domestically made WS-10A engines. Same for the J20, these also started out on AL-31 family engines which were later replaced by WS-10C's. Newer models even use WS-15's. And there are a few more Chinese aircraft that did similar things like the J11B, J15 and JF17 The European Eurofigther Typhoon flew with the RB199 on the first prototypes and then switched to EJ200 on later aircraft. The American F86 flew with J35 on the prototype, then switched to J47 when in production. South Korea's KF21 is currently being built with F414-GE-400K engines but the plan is to also replace this with indigenous engines later on. So it definitely can be done, and if America starts blocking Gripens from being exported it doesn't seem unlikely. What else is Saab/Sweden gonna do? Just let its figther aircraft industry die? Seems unlikely to me.

It's not that it's American per Se, i think, it's more nuanced in most cases... Some "Main Points" i saw mentioned in these more nuanced articles were: * It is \_extremely\_ expensive, with matching high operational cost. * It is basically inoperable without ongoing direct maintenance and parts from the US, which actually is an issue if you look at the current US government. Remember that most of the countries don't even get to store the spare parts (they already paid for) in their own country... * you need direct data connections to Ft. Worth for maintenance as well as while operating. They don't need a "kill switch", because it is sufficient to block data access, and there goes all your electronic warfare systems... * Availability is widely accepted (if not officially published) over 80% for the Viggen-E, while the US-submitted data on the F35 show only between 50 and 60% availability. And that's for US planes, where we don't expect maintenance trouble because they \_have\_ access... * Role difference. Most countries, let's use the Swiss as an example here, actually want a "home defense" system. While the F35 can do that and is surely the higher-capacity "system" in toto, this role fits better to the Viggen-E, including it's raw-terrain capability and manoeverability... So, while in the mainstream media this mostly goes down to "bad expensive american vs good c**** european" fighter plane, it's generally not that simple... And then there is the usual corruption and pressure game from the US "military complex" together with the current moron's behaviour that reopened the worm can again... ;-)

Yeah, engines vs the whole plane from a country that has proven itself untrustworthy.

You don't need an internet connection to the US to run an engine. And I think Rolls Royce has an engine that can replace it with small adjustments. 

Remind me again why Canada needs the jet with the best stealth capabilities? What wars are we leading? Do you think a handful of F35s are going to seriously alter any land invasion of Canada? No, at the end of the day we'd still need the US. The Gripens are fine for what we need, and the benefits of local manufacturing outweigh its lack of stealth compared to the F35. All that money saved can than be used for mass scale drone production, which as Ukraine has proven, is the only way we'd actually be able to defend ourselves.

You are talking about the Gripen C — not applicable here. The Gripen E uses GE’s F414 engine, which is only produced in the US, with US-controlled technology. It’s enough for the US to realistically cripple any Gripen E fleet in the world, if they wanted to. It defeats the whole “Gripen is not American” argument that people love to repeat on Listnook. 

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The US have been really good at planning, supporting and not risking their F-35s, and it also kind of feels like shooting one down would start WWIII, but I keep wondering how they would actually do in a real war and if they truly are the best thing since sliced bread. 

I don't think it will be.  It'll just all be drones. Iran has proven that a swarm of c**** antiquated drones can and will overwhelm air defence systems. The US has been unable to stop Iran from hitting whatever targets they want, despite having air superiority. They'll build anti-drone air defence systems, sure.  And they'll start making faster, more resilient drones.  Increasingly, they'll have c**** AI TPUs to make rudimentary targeting decisions. The era of jets is over. It'll be AI powered drone swarms in 5 years time forming a kill web; Any weapons platform, any target, any decider.

Stealth is very misunderstood by the masses. It’s not so much you don’t know it’s there as much as you can’t get a radar lock on it to shoot it down.