Most F-35s Won't Be Ready Until After CF-18s Retired

F-35 F-Up of the Day: Come 2020, there could be a gaping hole in Canada's air defence capabilities.

Jeez, these F-35s. It seems like there's some unwanted revelation about them every day with today's being that more than half of Canada's order of the fighter jets won't be ready to go by the time the fleet of CF-18s are retired in 2020. All 65 of Canada's F-35s are supposed to be delivered in intervals between 2016 and 2023, but the bulk of them – 52 of the jets – won't be in the air until after 2020 at the earliest. That's the year that the Canadian Forces' 77 CF-18s are due to be put out to pasture, meaning the country's air capabilities could be severely hampered for at least a year (take note, resource-hungry Russians) unless the CF-18s are outfitted to last even longer. This timetable is also based on their being no further delays to the roll-out, which looks less and less likely each day owing to the U.S. potentially cancelling the entire project due to budget concerns. All of this is on top of the costing more and more each day, with initial estimates of about $65 million per jet now being replaced by a cost of something like $150 million per jet.