Comments by "John La Duke" (@johnladuke6475) on "Royal Canadian Air Force Choose the F-35" video.

While the F-35 might look like a better fighter in a head-to-head, it's by far a worse choice than the Gripen. We have hardly any airbases that can actually support an F-35, none of which are in the arctic territory where we need fighter jets for sovereignty patrols. The entire fleet of F-35s will also be needing zero-day upgrades to communications and navigation equipment, because what they have won't function in the high arctic.
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Ugh, no, please. I hope this turns out to be just rumours. What an insane waste of money this thing is, the only rason to buy it is to please US military contractors. It needs far more infrastructure than we have at most of our airbases, so it's incapable of actually defending our airspace. Its purpose is global force projection, which is not something that Canada needs. The Gripen can actually fly from our airbases, or even just from a few hundred metres of paved highway.
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@jasonlee7319 Runway lengths, runway quality. Of our domestic airbases, there are only two that have runways suitable for the heaviest F-35 variants, and they're both in the south, far out of range to be of any use in arctic patrol. Gripen on the other hand is specifically designed for rough, short, narrow runways. It can land on 400m of paved highway, and the heaviest variants only need 600m to take off.
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@humptydumpy8029 There are indeed barriers to communications and navigation in the arctic. GPS is frequently blinded by the curvature of the earth. The chaotic magnetic field near the poles interferes directly with electronics, and creates effects like aurorae that interfere with signals. It's not magic that only Swedish fighters can penetrate, but they face the same challenges domestically so it's accounted for in the initial design rather than an afterthought retrofit.
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@jasonlee7319 Yeah, that's just what the more expensive option needs, is a hidden construction cost. Infrastructure isn't so simple to build in the far north; if it were easy and cheap, there would be an awful lot of reserves with shiny new wells and water treatment plants.
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