That was my point You ignored the main point and the rest of the text around there . The F 35 will yes not be tested , but neither has anything else in those conditions . The only mark of how capable modern aircraft really are is how they ' ve done in actual exercises and certain simulations of which as I pointed out and linked too the F 35 despite still being not entirely finished already does better than most other things out there . Critique and call out issues or limitations with the F 35 by all means just aim for true or realistic ones , don ' t make them up but don ' t do it with double standards and then act like other stuff is automatically good or perfect or better . Spend some time examining them all . There ' s a reason I ' m generally a supporter of the F 35 , by all means it ' s got some issues , mainly in it ' s management from earlier on , but realistically it ' s a solid design idea and is turning out to work very well . I say this having spent time paying attention to other aircraft and military equipment and often being fans of many of those other systems . Don ' t be biased , look at the facts of all the things involved , and be pragmatic . And who says two years ? Who says canada doesnt wait 5 or 10 years before nabbing a set of F 35 s ? When they are cheap . Well , that ' s around when the next competition in Canada is going to happen , and around when they would actually get deliveries of Super Hornets if ordered from the company and not from the US Navy or such to get ones instantly and that ' s going to be trickyunlikely , and with the current talk doesn ' t sound like what they are doing . And with a likely delivery time of a year or two after order that would mean that unless they take this competition and drag it on for years again then that ' s the timeline for the replacement aircraft . If Canada did decide to wait five or ten years , then there would be an actual capability gap and bigger issues that the aforementioned Super Hornets won ' t fill , so unless they get caught in political quagmire to an insane degree over multiple elections that ' s not happening . And lastly , the F 35 will again not be getting noticeably cheaper beyond around 201819 with FRP . You might scrape anther two or three million off each aircraft , but like I said that ' s nothing compared to the three billion they are spending on this decision . You keep pointing out cost on the F 35 end but besides not seeming to know and ignoring when told the numbers you are ignoring the cost factor of this SH matter . Something that is very , very significant . Syrian war is winding down right now as isis is destroyed and Assad is winning . where do you see the need for canada to buy 70 F 35 s in the next 2 years ? For what conflict ? We have plenty of time to kick up our heels and wait . Nobody is starting WW 3 just as they haven ' t for the last 70 years . Canadas need for defense is for more reasons than a known conflict . It took less than ten years for Germany to go from being the low thought of country awhile after it ' s defeat and restrictions in WW 1 to having annexed half of Europe . Major wars happen generally at least once every century , just because you haven ' t had one for ten or fifty years doesn ' t mean squad . As it stands right now we ' ve had Crimea annexed , Ukraine is fighting Russia and separatists , Turkey is losing many of it ' s relations with NATO , Trump is becoming president of the US and looks likely to stir up a ton of trouble , the world today is looking less stable than it has from my point of view anytime in the past decade or so . Conflict can happen , you don ' t know when , but you want to be prepared for when it does . And you might be surprised about all the conflicts that have happened in the past two decades other than the major ones in the middle east that have required participation from NATO members . Canada is a member and being able to support them is part of it ' s obligations for that . Direct military purposes aside , it also helps a lot in politics when your country has some semblance of power to back it up . And for future purposes you need to keep humans , pilots , engineers , and all the other associated people trained . You can ' t just let your air force drop off to a quarter it ' s number for ten years and expect to bring it back up on a moments notice when something goes wrong . Potential conflicts will be with more terrorists in Africa or the M . E which we dont need 70 state of the art jets for considering we barely contributed in Syria or Libya for that matter , and would contribute little in the air for the next conflict . Take the money saved and buy some ice breakers and subs . Again that is not all known , and while you won ' t need 70 state of the art jets for that , you will need some jets , and you ' ll also want some to patrol and defend your own country , you ' ll want some for training , all that stuff . And if you need some aircraft then there ' s not much point in not getting something that ' s state of the art and better than everything else when it ' s the cheapest real option you have .