New Mars Forums

In the amount of time that the CF-18 has been in-service with the RCAF, if Canadian Arrow enthusiasts were so hard core about producing an indigenous airframe and engine combination, then why did they not form their own design team to do what Stavatti Aerospace did in America regarding their ideas for A-10 and stealthy trainer replacements / light fighters?

Stavatti SM-31 Stilleto

$23M flyaway cost with the Honeywell F125 engine, $3.4K to $4.4K cost per flight hour.

CF-18s presently cost $15,000 to $20,000 per flight hour.

Canada would not be competing with the US military for design requirements or orders, so Canada could pay for whichever design elements are most suitable for their use cases.

2 squadrons of F-35s would cost the same amount to purchase as 7 squadrons of these Stilleto light fighters.  Canada could field light fighters equipped with Raytheon's Peregrine missiles to take down bomber-sized targets at around 100 miles from the launching interceptor.  It has an internal autocannon, just like all other USAF fighters, and Sidewinders can be fitted to wingtip rails.  Airframe shaping features reduce RCS the most, so Canada could opt for shaping only, without any eye-wateringly expensive RAM coatings to continuously maintain, as would be the case for the F-22 and F-35.

RobertDyck,

I realize the nuance will be lost on you, but the quiet part nobody is saying out loud is that Maduro was acting as an enabler for Russian and Chinese forces, primarily China, seeking to use our backyard as a staging ground for attacks against the US.  China is the real reason America made such a show of force over the Maduro situation.  If you didn't already know this, that's because you weren't paying attention.  Stop taking every politically-motivated thing you read in the news at face value.

Talk is cheap.  Canada never built an aircraft carrier.  The largest surface combatant ever built in Canada, as opposed to being operated by Canada, is their new River class destroyer, at 7,950t full load.  Those ships use Lockheed-Martin's Aegis Combat System, SPY-7 radars, Standard Missiles, and Tomahawks.  They also include propulsive motors built by GE and ASW helicopters built by Sikorsky.

RobertDyck,

The basis for your conclusion is not connected to plainly observable reality.  Canada hasn't taken any concrete actions to counter the threats posed by modern air defense systems and tactical fighters with survivable solutions.  Canada's fighter fleet received its last major upgrades 20 years ago.  Call that whatever you like.

If Canada had simply been "gifted" F-22s, your Air Force would go bankrupt trying to maintain them.  You incessantly complain about the cost of the F-35 without acknowledging the F-22's much higher costs per flight hour.  F-22s are dramatically more expensive to operate, in comparison to any other fighter jet in existence.  You also refused to acknowledge that the F-35 outperformed the Gripen, Rafale, and Typhoon in actual mission performance, according to your own government.  There are more F-35s which have actually been produced to date than all Gripens, Rafales, and Typhoons combined.  F-35s are both less expensive and more capable than the rest of those jets.

The F-35 is better than a Super Hornet in terms of acceleration when it comes to regaining energy lost to maneuvering, it turns better than the F-16 unless said F-16 is unarmed, and it points the nose better than any F-16 during high-AoA maneuvering thanks to those barn door tail fins that are as large as the wings are on some of those other fighters.  Kinematically, for people who still think about fighter capabilities in such terms, the F-35 is every bit as good as those earlier generations of jets when both jets are equally loaded.  A Rafale pilot even said that his latest and greatest copy was, at best, "evenly matched" in a dogfight with his F-35 opponent.  The F-35 does all of that with a stealth-optimized airframe.  None of those other fighter jets have stealth or electronic warfare capabilities in the same class as the F-35.

On top of all that, the F-35 will fly farther on internal fuel alone than anything except a Su-35, Su-57, or F-15EX.  The F-22, F-15E, and J-20 all fall short, especially against the C model.  If the F-35 receives its scheduled engine upgrades, then it will exceed the unrefueled range of everything except a Su-35 in what is essentially a ferry flight configuration, and no Su-35 that heavily laden with fuel will still turn like the F-35.  Whether burner is engaged or not, the drag rise associated with supersonic flight means jets with "supercruise" capability are burning significantly more fuel to do it, period.  In a tactical fighter sized airframe, supercruising is an altogether rather pointless capability if you intend to patrol far from your base and still make it home without on-station aerial refueling assets.  Aerodynamic drag vs Mach number and basic fuel burn rate math is what it is.  Take that argument up with nature.  Let us know if you figure out how to overturn basic flight physics.

Lastly, no other tactical fighter provides F-35 equivalent situational awareness and sensor fusion.  When the APG-85 radar is installed in the upcoming blocks, it will also greatly exceed the detection and tracking capabilities of the F-22's APG-77.  At that point, the F-22, Su-57, and possibly the J-20 with upgraded engines have a slight kinematic performance advantage in a dogfight, but that's about it.  The latest F-35 radar and electronics are 20 years newer than those installed into the F-22.  For a jet that supposedly doesn't do anything well, all those other fighters seem to have a very tough time matching its mix of capabilities.

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.  Every new tactical fighter being developed looks like a F-22 or F-35 or one of the various airframe derivatives proposed by our defense contractor primes long ago, but never pursued.  There's probably a reason for that beyond the trite and very tiresome "everyone but me is dumb" explanation.  Either all aerospace defense contractors across all major world powers don't know what they're doing when they're designing F-35 clones, or they know exactly why they opted for their design decisions because they know what right looks like, even if someone like you doesn't.

If you're never going to join the 21st century by fielding modern tactical fighters, then your aviation fleet is relegated to a purely defensive role that (hopefully) never encounters modern air defense systems or other modern tactical fighters.

RobertDyck,

You know how I can tell who's serious about defending their homeland and who's merely paying lip service to the idea?

Actions.  Actions speak louder than words ever will.

Dithering is an action, but not one the enemy respects.

If Canada was truly concerned about fending off a Russian sneak attack over the pole, they'd have enough radars up there so that if a Russian farted in Nagurskoye or Kotelny Island or Rogachevo, Canada would know about it.  I've never heard you so much as mention those names before, which tells me most of what I need to know about how seriously you take the problem.

Since complaining about what President Trump said won't make those air bases disappear, I fail to see the point.

RobertDyck,

Are you unable to acknowledge that the Gripen is just as dependent upon American military equipment as the F-35 is?

Can a Gripen fly without its US-supplied F414 engine?

If not, then it's as irrelevant to this discussion about your personal fears about President Trump as the F-35 is, assuming Canada is truly worried that the US won't supply defense articles to them.

The topic of this thread is selecting a new tactical fighter that serves Canadians military requirements.  To that end, I've put forward some ideas that have at least some chance of helping Canada establish an indigenous tactical fighter development and production.

Are you able to set aside your personal feelings about President Trump so we can discuss more important subject matter?

If not, then what alternative non-US-origin engine will power Canadian Gripens?

What non-US-origin avionics will Canadian Gripens use?

What non-US-origin weapons will Canadian Gripens use?

Back here on Earth, in admittedly less extreme temperatures, for Canadian mining and rock crushing equipment operating in -30C temperatures, they're using a combination of high-Manganese steel, high-Chromium "white" Iron, and Austenitic Ductile Iron.  Mangalloy is the traditional cold weather steel that becomes work hardened with use, but has already been replaced with Ductile Iron in many applications for cost and wear benefits.  White Iron is used in applications where abrasion / cutting from rock is the most important factor, such as razor sharp little shards of crushed rock being pulverized into a powder.  The first couple of stages of rock crushers will be Ductile Iron, with the final one to two stages being White Iron because softer metals will get abraded too quickly.  Chromium makes White Iron very hard.

Nearly every component in a heavy duty diesel engine can be and in fact are made from ADI, with only the connecting rods, pistons, piston pins, fasteners, and other small parts being steel vs Ductile Iron.  Forged 4340 steel is still the best general purpose material for crankshafts and connecting rods subjected to severe stresses, but even high performance engines like Chrysler's Gen III Hemi are now using ADI camshafts as OEM equipment, and some engines use ADI crankshafts as well.  Ford put ADI on the map during the 1980s when they put ADI crankshafts in some of their high-output engines, so one could say ADI is a 1980s and beyond material.  TVR, a British company known for their extreme performance road-legal race cars, was also well known for using ADI instead of forged steel in their high-output V8 and I6 engines.  If ADI lacked performance relative to 4340, then TVR would've discovered this during testing.  OEMs like Caterpillar don't try to "hot rod" their engines though, so ADI crankshafts work for them in their largest mining truck and marine engines, saving piles of cash over modestly stronger forgings.

If you do everything absolutely correctly with a 4340 forging, then you get about 20% more "power holding" capability and fatigue life over ADI, at extreme cost.  Modern "wonder materials" like 300M or Titanium also come with use case limitations, like "don't ever scratch the surface or drop the part on something hard".  You should not expect the average mechanic to abide by those limitations.  You see 300M and Titanium used in race engine connecting rods or aircraft landing gear / wing spars / engine mounts only.  Nobody uses Titanium in crankshafts, which should tell you something.  You would never design a factory diesel engine to use Titanium parts, for example.  You also "give up" toughness at low temperatures and chemical exposure resistance, hence why you don't see Titanium or super alloys used in ship hulls or propellers.  The Soviets used Titanium successfully in a literal handful of submarines, but not without a lot more hull maintenance, and every class of attack sub designed thereafter switched back to steel.  Titanium exhaust manifolds are notorious for cracking.  Everyone with a lick of sense uses stainless, an Inconel super alloy to reduce weight and achieve high temperature resistance, or plain old cast ductile Iron if cost matters at all.  Titanium is pretty and produces unique "engine noises", but engineers with design latitude will generally opt for any other material.

Why ADI for heavy duty earth moving equipment?

ADI is 50% less energy-intensive to make than cast steel and 80% less energy-intensive than forged steel because there are fewer processing steps involving extreme heating.  ADI will give you 80% of the performance of a 4340 forging in a practical application, like a crankshaft.  Nobody makes a crane boom out of 4340 forgings, though.  They all use mild steel or boiler plate steel.  ADI in automotive use is a 120ksi YS material, tempered 4340 can go up to 200ksi if you don't care about toughness, but 125ksi YS is typical of normalized 4340.  Fatigue resistance is better with 4340 forgings only if you spare no expense in production.  Any lesser forged steel is probably not as good as ADI, such as the micro-alloyed low-alloy content forgings that come out of the major automotive OEMs, particularly for crankshafts / camshafts / connecting rods.  They use forging of cheaper steels for part-to-part consistency, not absolute strength and fatigue life.  As heat treatment process control improved dramatically with computerized ovens, appropriately tempered Iron castings largely replaced forgings.

ADI can technically be welded, but isn't worth the expense.  If you want to economically weld parts together, then you really need to use mild steel or boiler plate steels.  The only kinds of cryogenic capable steel we have for heavy earth moving equipment are either 300 series stainless steels, which are no stronger than mild Carbon steels and often modestly weaker, or stronger high-Manganese steels more akin to HY80 equivalents used in ship building.

Caterpillar really likes to use ADI for cast components used to reduce component count and assembly time, or mild steel requiring no special weld prep, so that if someone welds on their equipment or bends a frame rail back into place, the structural integrity of the equipment hasn't been compromised.  Mild steel cannot remain ductile due to the cold temperatures on Mars, which leaves stainless, which is also safe to weld without concern over strength loss.

That complex part on the back of their haul trucks where the wheels / final drive / frame rails attach is a very large single piece ADI casting.  The bucket, cab, and forward chassis components are welded mild steel.  On Mars that would be welded stainless steel.

So, I have a proposal:
Let's "get real" about something fundamental to "civilization building":
Modern human society is built on water processing ability, industrialized farming, thermal energy, steel, and concrete.  All other "nice to have" materials and other technological advancements have come from that foundation.

Every Starship that lands eventually becomes part of the chassis or crane boom or other large components for these mining vehicles that we need to mine enough metal ore to create pressurized habitation to actually live on Mars permanently.  The first order of business is to be able to produce pure Iron using electrolytic reduction techniques.  This requires a lot of electricity, but the temperatures are very modest.  Pure Iron plus small quantities of alloying metals and Carbon unlocks ADI.  Most structural parts can be built using this material, because ADI has few problems with mildly cryogenic temperatures.  As we make more equipment from scratch using mined metals, we'll want to add a steel mill and forging tools so small parts that really need to be forged steel can also be locally sourced.  The only kinds of steels we can expect to survive the Martian nights are ADI, stainless, and high-Manganese alloys.  Every bit of metals-based infrastructure needs to "natively" survive being cold-soaked, meaning the intrinsic material properties are suitable for use in a mildly cryogenic environment.

Most Iron-based alloys used on Earth are intended for construction, with equipment of any kind being a distant secondary consumer of metals.  The majority of Iron production must be directed at pressurized habitation construction, not equipment or vehicles.  Iron wiring is not lightweight compared to Copper or Aluminum, but most of it won't go anywhere after installation, won't corrode, and won't be transported very far, either.  If a length of Copper conductor wire weighed 1lb, then its equivalent Iron wire only weighs 5lbs on Earth, but only 1.9lbs on Mars.  This is obviously not ideal, but eliminates the immediate need for a Copper or Aluminum mining and refining industry.  We can live with that result, though, even if Copper and Aluminum mining takes several additional decades of settlement development before it can be pursued.

After we have re-mastered Iron and steel suitable for production and use in the new context of the Martian surface environment, Aluminum, Silicon, Copper, and Uranium are our next priorities.  Unfortunately, all of these technology metals are also very energy-intensive, which is why they're secondary priorities.

Everything else is an artifact of mass production of those metals.  Iron is the key metal, as it always has been.  When you have Iron, you can make most of the the structures and machines humans need to survive on Mars.  The stainless steel is already being imported from Earth in the form of vehicles suitable for making the trip from Earth to Mars.  If SpaceX follows their plan to deliver 1,000 Starships per launch opportunity, then that's about 100,000t of steel to work with.  Mining haul trucks like the Caterpillar 797 weigh about 215t, so a decently-sized mining operation may have 10,000t of equipment, leaving the other 90,000t available for initial pressurized habitation construction.

We need tracked all-terrain earth movers powered by SCO2 gas turbine engines and electric motors to eliminate gear boxes, drive shafts, and as much of the working fluids as is practical.  The fuel will be a finely powdered Carbon fluidized with CO2 for pumping, compressed O2 or LOX for oxidizer.  The electric motors will save wear and tear on the brakes by mostly not requiring them.  A super capacitor bank will provide the jolt of energy to overcome initial rolling resistance to get the vehicle moving, and then be recharged by the traction motors during braking.  This is essentially an advanced turbine-electric locomotive power train.  Daily maintenance tasks will include fuel replenishment, checking hydraulic fluid levels, track tension adjustment, determining if someone accidentally bent one of the soft stainless steel structural members holding the vehicle together.  When turbine power is not being demanded to propel the vehicle, an electric pump will siphon CO2 from the atmosphere.  At the end of each shift, the LCO2 tanks will be emptied back at the shop where it will be used to supply CO2 for shop air tools and making fresh batches of powdered Carbon fuel and O2 oxidizer using Gallium-Indium-Copper liquid metal.  If we happen to discover a natural gas well nearby, then we might consider using Methane instead of synthetic coal, provided that the rockets don't consume all of the Methane.  Regardless, the Martian atmosphere is the fuel / oxidizer and working fluid of choice.

Since we cannot readily use gigantic rubber tires in a cryogenic environment, we'll use steel track links instead.  The dramatic reduction in relative vehicle gross weight means we need less power, even with tracks vs tires.  The Cat 797F haul truck's gross weight with 400t max payload is 623.7t on Earth, but only 237t on Mars.  Top speed is officially 65kmh when fully loaded, though I would surmise speed depends greatly upon local terrain and room to maneuver.  Instead of 4,000hp, we can manage with less than that, say 1,520hp.  1,500hp corresponds with the output of the M1 Abrams AGT-1500 conventional gas turbine.  Fuel consumption over an 18 hour shift is about 75gph.

US EIA rates diesel fuel at 138,500btu/gallon, so 75 gallons is 10,387,500BTU.

Net electrical output vs fuel burn for the big Cat C175-20 diesel engine which powers the 797F are as follows:
Max rated electrical output is 3.2MWe in an electric generator application.
It's burning 208gph at full output, so 28,808,000BTU.
10,918,400BTU (net electrical output) / 28,808,000BTU/hr (fuel consumption) = 37.9% overall thermal efficiency
Let's be very generous to the Cat engine and assert it's 40% thermally efficient at reduced engine load.

10,387,500BTU * 0.4 = 4,155,000BTU
4,155,000BTU / 2,545BTU/hr = 1,633hp

An average of 1,633hp constant power output on Earth equates to 620hp on Mars.

For a 50% thermally efficient SCO2 gas turbine, 620 * 2 * 2545 = 3,155,800BTU/hr
Pure Carbon produces 14,100 to 14,600BTU/lb, so let's use 14,100.
3,155,800BTU / 14,100BTU/lb = 223.8lbs of pure carbon per hour
223.8lbs of pure C * 2.67lbs of pure O2 per lb of pure C = 597.5lbs of pure O2 per hour
18 hour shifts would therefore require 4,028lbs of pure Carbon and 10,756lbs of pure O2
At 700bar, 10,756lbs of pure O2 would required 12.195m^3 of tank capacity
Pure Carbon powder is 1,800-2,200kg/m^3, so approximately 1.015m^3 of fuel tank capacity

5X 1mDx3mL O2 tanks will easily fit within the engine bay previously occupied by the C175-20, as will the fuel tank and SCO2 turbine and electric generator, although maybe the fuel tank should be in its standard location for what should be obvious reasons.

Anyway, we just did enough simple math to figure out that all the oxidizer and fuel will fit inside the engine compartment with lots of room to spare for the SCO2 gas turbine and electric generator.  The haul truck doesn't require a complete redesign, it only needs to be gutted internally and the best layout for the new power train equipment established.  Therefore, a Caterpillar 797F mining haul truck can be fabricated primarily from 300 series stainless cannibalized from Starships vs mild steel and ADI (already used in Earth-bound 797Fs).  It can then be operated in a Martian metals mining operation with concessions made to use of a more thermally efficient SCO2 gas turbine engine driving an all-electric power train and delivering the power to ADI or high-Manganese forged steel tracks vs giant rubber tires.  It's not perfectly ideal, but nothing ever is.

Note to self:
Make sure the high temperature radiator surface area can be a simple forward-facing steel panel.

Now back to ground pressure and power consumption, and rolling resistance for tracked vs wheeled vehicles...
US Army Published a Table Regarding Generally Observed Coefficient of Rolling Resistance vs Surface Type:
Concrete / Hard Soil / Sand
Heavy Truck: 0.012 / 0.06 / 0.25
Tracked Vehicle: 0.038 / 0.045 / (no value provided for sand in this table)

By the time you move the wheeled vehicle over hard soil, the tracked vehicle already has lower rolling resistance.  If you have to move the vehicle through soft sand, then the wheeled vehicle is all but guaranteed to consume more fuel at equal weight.  Wheels almost always deliver more speed in both on-road and off-road environments with sufficient power available / appropriate gearing, but not for equal fuel burn at equal vehicle gross weight.  If you have a concrete or asphalt or hard rock quarry road, then the tracked vehicle is all but guaranteed to be less efficient.  This follows reports I've seen regarding the actual fuel economy of our wheeled Stryker APCs, which while very fast and fuel efficient on roads, suddenly become fair to terrible in the deep sand drifts of Iraq and loose gravel mountain roads of Afghanistan.

Rubber Tracks vs Steel Tracks:

Go to Page 29 to see the observed rolling resistance coefficients table I referenced above:
US Army Engineer Research and Development Center - Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory - Standard for Ground Vehicle Mobility - February 2005

National Academies of Sciences - Engineering - Review of the 21st Century Truck Partnership: Third Report (2015) - Vehicle Power Demands

The mining haul truck is one of the largest pieces of equipment that needs to fit inside the garage, so 7.75m minimum height, preferably 16m high so the bucket can be tested inside the garage.  The 797F is 9.5m wide, so perhaps the garage should be 25m in width to accommodate a pair of trucks.  Overall length is 15m, so the garage should be 30m long.

Minimum Equipment Garage Dimensions for a pair of trucks, with room to spare for equipment and mechanics:
16mH x 25mW x 30mL

I feel like turbulent flow is the only way to reduce the gas velocity and build pressure so that the Hydrogen absorbs sufficient thermal energy to achieve 3,000K before it reaches the nozzle.  Asymmetric sound suppressor baffles are what is needed, and that's exactly what the internals of that arc jet rocket engine I posted about actually look like in cross-section.

tahanson43206,

If we continue to develop computers to the point that they operate almost entirely on photons rather than electrons, then there's a case to be made for putting data centers in orbit, where an unobstructed line-of-sight to the best light source in the solar system is available to power them.

SpaceNut,

I made several attempts, but it kept saying "waiting for the meeting host to admit you".

SpaceNut,

Were you able to join the call?

SpaceNut,

There is no "hard evidence".  The person making the accusation claimed to have such evidence, but then later said she lied about that and never had any such evidence.  If such evidence does exit, giving a copy of it to the FBI would've been a great place to start.

Accusing someone of a crime is not "evidence" of anything.  An accusation of a 20+ year old crime by someone who had their entire deposition thrown out after she later stated that "she made it all up to draw attention to the Epstein case", doesn't help prove anything in a court of law, except that the person making the accusation is a proven liar, by her own admission.

This is why, in the complete absence of corroborating evidence, if someone merely accuses you of a crime, the government doesn't automatically throw you in prison.  Maybe you think an accusation alone is sufficient if it's made against someone you don't personally like, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want that same "standard of evidence" applied to you.

RobertDyck,

How many times does hard evidence need to directly refute your personal beliefs before you question why you believe what you do?

Start by reading something that actually came from our government:
WhiteHouse.gov - National Security Strategy of the United States of America - November 2025

The section pertaining to Europe makes no claim about Europe or Europeans being viewed as a threat by the US government.  This is actual governance policy that guides American strategic decision making / military alliance strengthening / opposition to adversarial nations, as opposed to fleeting political rhetoric.

ODNI.gov - Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community - March 2025

There's scarcely a mention of Europe there, apart from threats to Europe from Russia and terrorists.  It's entirely focused on China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and non-state terrorist groups.

1. America's economy has not been destroyed by President Trump.  His economic policies have consistently improved American economic self-reliance and productivity.  Self-sufficiency ensures that America's economy cannot be greatly affected by external factors beyond its control.  President Biden's administration only furthered our self-reliance for advanced electronics tech, so there is no serious dissent on pursuit of these strategic goals, only how to best achieve them.  That means we'll continue to pursue self-reliance over globalism.
2. If America's trading partners are only interested in trading with America when there's a very lopsided benefit in their favor, then it's a bad business deal for America.  Many of America's "allies" are only interested in this kind of relationship with America- "I love American dollars, but I hate Americans and America."  An ever-growing number of Americans have had enough of that.  If you hate America that much, then stop doing business with America.
3. The average American worker has been "made much poorer" by perpetuating globalism and materialism.  Americans don't need an endless variety of meaningless choices to live well, and neither do the citizens of other nations.  I think most nations, certainly all of the most advanced economies, will ultimately benefit from the highest degree of self-reliance they can achieve.
4. The people who most frequently take freedoms from others are radical leftist collectivists.  Leftists have a dramatically better track record of impoverishing their own people and taking away freedoms as compared to any other political party more interested in economic prosperity than dogmatic party ideology.
5. Short of space aliens with the technology to travel between stars, America cannot be militarily defeated by external forces, only from within by its own people.  The only people trying to do that are universally leftists.  Nobody on the political right is attempting to destroy America from within.