Business opportunities?  Greater costs?  Who knows?  Not this government.  Further to this post,

UK: How many F-35s? Who knows? But fewer/Defence reviews/Canadian Update

I wonder when our government will start demanding from Lockheed Martin and the US government a greater share of contracts for Canadian companies. After all it looks like we now plan to buy more of the blinking planes than the Brits. From Defense Technology’s “Ares” blog:

Britain’s F-35 Bait-and-Switch

The U.K.’s latest changes in F-35s plans, as badly spelled out as they may be, may come off to some as a version of a bait-and-switch confidence game.

The U.K. has been the biggest program partner, putting significant funding into the F-35’s development. It also was planned to be the largest buyer of JSFs outside the U.S., with 138 units.

All that meant U.K. industry was doing very well in workshare allocation on the single-engine stealth fighter. The F-35 partnership agreements were never devised along a “juste retour” model, where government funds put into the program equate to workshare…but there has been a clear imperative for Lockheed Martin to find financial returns for companies from JSF buying countries.

To use one of Britain’s favorite phrases, in terms of JSF workshare, U.K. industry is punching well above its weight…

Now the U.K. says it will slash the number of F-35s it is buying; it hasn’t said clearly how small the buy will be, but there are some suggestions it will be only around 50 units. That means the U.K. will be buying fewer aircraft than the likes of Australia, Israel, and possibly the Netherlands [the world still needs more Canada?], yet industry in those countries have secured significantly less in terms of industrial return.

British government officials defend the imbalance by saying U.K. industry won those work packages fair and square. There can be no doubt the industrial parties involved are capable of doing the job, but to deny any linkage between the U.K.’s prior position in the program and British firms’ ability to secure work would be to deny reality.

Given F-35 low-rate production is already well underway and the precarious nature of the program status [emphasis added], it would be unwise to reopen the host of industrial agreements to reapportion work share; any changes should only be made if they can reduce unit costs. But that effectively means U.K. companies will be the second biggest industrial beneficiaries of JSF even if the country is not even among the five biggest F-35 customers…

And some broader possible effects, including higher costs, from the F-35′s home town newspaper:

Future prospects for the F-35 joint strike fighter program got a lot murkier Tuesday after British government officials announced plans to delay and dramatically trim their purchases of the warplane from Lockheed Martin…

The moves by the British, who for 15 years have been the foremost ally of the Pentagon in planning and paying for development of the F-35, figure to drive up the costs of buying aircraft for the U.S. and other governments and lead to further delays by other nations expected to buy the jets [emphasis added]…

To date, only Israel has indicated a firm commitment to purchase the F-35 — and it will do so with funds from U.S. military aid programs [emphasis added]. Lockheed officials say they expect an order from Australia early next year, while Canada [noticed!] has reaffirmed its intent to buy planes but given no timetable for doing so…

The Pentagon’s most recent, sharply increased cost estimates for the F-35 program were based on having significant numbers of foreign orders, which would hold down the cost of planes for the U.S. military.

The British plans, along with the U.S. Senate’s attempts to strip 10 F-35 jets from the 2011 defense budget, do not bode well for the program, said Loren Thompson, Lexington Institute defense analyst and a consultant to Lockheed and other defense contractors…

The British action further confounds the Pentagon’s plans by switching away from the F-35B short-takeoff-vertical landing model, the costliest and most complex of the three versions. That leaves the U.S. Marine Corps as likely the only major buyer [see Upperdate thought at first link in this post].

The British instead will buy the less costly F-35C model being developed for the U.S. Navy, and only enough planes to equip one small carrier around 2020.

That in turn could lead the Navy to delay its F-35 purchases and perhaps open the door for additional sales of a cheaper alternative, the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet [emphasis added, see Uppestdate thought at first link in this post for a similar RN angle]…

Yet Canadian F-35 enthusiasts keep saying things like this:

…the aerospace industry itself has been praising the F-35 purchase — and calling on the Liberals to do the same — because although it doesn’t guarantee any work, it does allow Canadian companies to bid on cutting edge technological and manufacturing contracts for between 3,000 and 5,000 F-35 jets being built for the global market…

It seems to me that these people, and this government, are turning into ostriches (at least the F-35 itself actually flies).

Mark
Ottawa