Privacy & Cookies  Privacy & Cookies

Search

Archives

Recent Entries

Recent Comments

Flightglobal Blogroll

Recent Assets

  • 8083138382_e07f5345af_ov2.jpg
  • hermes 450 560.jpg
  • AIM_120.jpg
  • ZM136.jpg
  • GR4 560.jpg
  • Hurry 560.jpg
  • fotoLo154.jpg
  • T-XdraftKPPs.jpg
  • 090304-F-3352w-044.jpg
  • vulcan 560.jpg

Report: Canada dropped competition plan before F-35 buy

By
Stephen Trimble
 on September 20, 2010 1:34 PM | | Comments () | TrackBacks (0) |
Political debate over the F-35 continues growing in Canada. Only a few days after top government officials defended the 16 July decision to award sole-source contract after 2013 for 65 F-35s, Canadian journalist David Pugliese today reports that newly-obtained internal documents show the air force last year planned to launch a competitive procurement. With Boeing, Eurofighter and Saab once hoping to bid on the contract, the opposition party has seized on the sole-source decision as a key political issue. Pugliese writes:

Canada won't be required to sign a contract committing it to purchasing the fighters until 2013, opening the door for any future government to back away from the proposed deal if needed.

According to [Defence Minister David] MacKay, the government had to move on the F-35 purchase to avoid any gap between the arrival of a new plane and the phasing out of the current fleet of CF-18 fighter jets.

But the fighter replacement timeline, obtained by the Citizen through the Access to Information law, suggested there would be no issues with a gap. According to that timeline, running a competitive process this year would allow for a contract to be signed in 2012, with aircraft delivered in 2015-2016. Those planes would become operational between 2018 and 2023, according to the document.

Tags:

0 TrackBacks

Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Report: Canada dropped competition plan before F-35 buy.

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.flightglobal.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/172465

Sign up to

© Reed Business Information 2011