The Department of National Defence is actively considering whether to retire some older ships, planes and other items of equipment that have become difficult and costly to maintain — including the aircraft belonging to the iconic Snowbird demonstration squadron.
As a former RCAF maintainer, with procurement experience, these vague statements of ‘concern’ lead me to believe that the Snowbirds won’t last 3 more years. The end of an era is coming.
The Minister just wants to “get them a better plane”. But F18s don’t really make sense to operate just for airshows when F35s are coming. I feel that jets are so costly, and so few, that the days of dedicating more than one airframe to demonstration of just not gonna fly.
Not sure you need the experience to judge based on the article, but I hear you. I cannot imagine the time and effort to keep those birds in the air, and it is indeed the end of an era. The snowbirds were a staple of every air show I ever went to.
To your point about what comes next, I don’t see any reason to purchase manned air craft in the current climate. Air superiority is obviously important, but the landscape is drastically changing with drones being more and more invested in. I think we should pivot our Air force to unmanned and work on something that could actually guard our arctic regions, considering Drones aren’t a fan of the cold, over getting some shiny new jets.
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2023/12/canada-acquiring-remotely-piloted-aircraft-systems-for-the-canadian-armed-forces.html
The F18 is also an antique, it made its first flight in 1978.
On a personal note I hope they stick with something relatively quiet. I got to watch weeks of the Snowbirds practicing this spring and while they are noisy, all 10 of them in the air together are quieter than 1 F18.
I’m not sure if you’re exercising hyperbole to emphasize your point, so I’ll take you at face value. The model is still in service as a fourth generation fighter. Particular jets may be antiques. Given that Canada waited a few years to procure them, I doubt any of the CF-18’s are as old as the original F-18’s.
You can call it an antique when it’s out of service and we’re on to 6th gen. Until then, it’s a perfectly reasonable assumption that a fleet us made up of current and next-gen models, or previous- and current-gen models if you’re miserly.