The Liberal government announced in early 2023, that it would purchase 88 F-35s in a project costing $19 billion. DND officials also confirmed the full life-cycle cost for the F-35 project would eventually tally $70 billion.
The first of Canada’s F-35s will be first delivered to a U.S. military base in 2026 and then into Canada in 2028. Canada plans to operate the aircraft until 2060.
In recent days, some Canadians have voiced concerns online that the U.S. has installed a specialized kill switch that could disable the Royal Canadian Air Force’s F-35 fleet.
DND spokesperson Kened Sadiku said no such switch exists on the aircraft, but he did acknowledge that the U.S. is in charge of both software and hardware upgrades for the planes.
Algeria is already purchasing Su-57s from Russia, perhaps Canada should call Putin up?
No no, he would not place kill switches in them. What do you mean that Putin once gave Israel the codes for Iran’s Russian-supplied Tor-M1 air defense systems? Pure nonsense!
But seriously, cmon Canada, sell your F-35s to my beloved Putin in exchange for Su-57s! It would be the best trade agreement of all time.
Yeah, that’s not a bad idea
The Saab Aerospace marketing team just looks on at this exchange in dismay.
Why would any Western ally buy anything military from Russia? Maybe sell the Junk F-35 to them for a good price. And then buy European fighter jets.