I am an 80-year-old retired airline transport pilot and aviation educator.
On Feb, 20, 1959, then-prime minister John Diefenbaker announced the cancellation of the CF-105 Arrow program.
He ordered five completed superb machines, in flying condition, to be torched into small pieces and junked.
This appalling act of vandalism was perpetrated on five aircraft that the prime minister had indicated had cost the taxpayers approximately $60 million. This cancellation caused about 14,000 skilled employees at A.V. Roe's plants in Malton and another 15,000 employed by some 2,500 subcontractors to be put abruptly out of work.
Now, 50 years later, Defence Minister Peter MacKay has announced a plan to buy 65 F35 fighters to replace 138 CF-18 fighters, which we have just spent $2.6 billion to upgrade.
The F35s are to cost $9 billion.
The Times Colonist provided the following comparison figures:
The CF-18s currently in use have a top speed of Mach 1.8, range of 3,700 kilometres and 138 planes are available. They cost $29 million each.
The F35s have a lower top speed, at Mach 1.67, reduced range at 2,200 kilometres and 65 planes will -- maybe -- be available for use in six years. They will cost $139 million each.
It appears we are paying five times as much for a machine with poorer performance and, at the same time, cutting the size of our fleet by 50 per cent.
Tom Brenan
Campbell River
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