By themselves, no.You really think that would make a difference when USA invades Canada? A few J-39 against USAF?
But it's possible to create a significant enough defensive system against USAF - US is not a magic state. Granted, aircraft are icing on the cake of such system rather than its basis, but this is a price for Canada's own planning mistakes.
As western "allies" found out, those who can't even resist aren't really valuable.
80 F-35s don't add any longer competitiveness when compared to 40.I am sorry, no.
In that situation, there is no practical difference whichever plane to have but in the case where Trump drops dead or whatever, having F-35 gives a longer competitiveness in the future. The CF-188 is 44 years old now, to put in perspective, if we get a new fighter today, the next fighter we get would be 2070.
What they do add is x2 stronger day 1 capability in offensive strikes, and lower chance of losing pilots in foreign adventures under US lead.
But realistically, 40 is 100% enough for these participations.
Same is true for single largest selling point for F-35 - aka its combination of LO and data fusion, which benefits rest of the force. This is indeed a major argument - problem is, mono force of F-35s doesn't gather qualitively different data from 1/2 amount of F-35s, there's just no "rest of force" to benefit from it.
Otherwise, Stealth or not, Gripen E is a newer aircraft than F-35, and there's significantly more of them, cheaper(esp. over time) at a similar pricepoint. While they can't pen without taking attrition - everything else, they can, including things F-35 can't and won't be able to do(escort jamming).
Furthermore, SAAB does their usual thing and sticks an entire sovereign AEW capability with secondary maritime patrol into the price margin.
Frankly speaking, mixed force design is such an obvious no-brainer(as compared to aggressive all black ford campaign), that as soon as F-35 stop being ticket into white man's privilege, it shouldn't even be discussed.
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