Airbus withdraws the Eurofighter from the contest to provide Canada with a new fighter

In the process are Lockheed, Boeing and Saab

Eurofighter fighter plane. Photo: Eurofighter

The Eurofighter He has been left out of the Canadian contest and will no longer be the one chosen to provide the country with 88 new fighter jets. The difficulties of European hunting for meeting the requirements of North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad, for its acronym in English) and the new requirements of the obligations of industrial technological benefits (ITB, for its acronym in English), which do not sufficiently take into account the commitments to which the manufacturer was willing, are used as the main reasons for the decision. In this way, Airbus Defense and Space, main partner of Eurofighter, follow the same path of withdrawal that he undertook last year Dassault by removing his Rafale model from the process because he could not meet the requirements that force the winner to share confidential information with the United States.

Canada is associated with the United States in the Norad, a joint organization that seeks defense and air control to the North American region and implies that the new fighters acquired by Ottawa must have certified their connection to maximum security intelligence systems. This requirement left the European options that were still in the contest, the Eurofighter and the Gripen from the Swedish Saab, with few possibilities, as he collected Infodefensa.com last may.

With the departure of Eurofighter, announced by Airbus Defense and Space and in whose decision the British Ministry of Defense, mentor of this offer, there are only three manufacturers with possibilities in the Canadian program. It's about the Americans Lockheed Martin Y Boeing, fighter aircraft manufacturers F-35 Y F / A-18 Super Hornet; respectively, and the aforementioned Saab, which for the reasons stated has few possibilities. These candidates have until next spring to present their initial proposals to the program, in response to the request for proposals (RFP, issued by Canada a couple of months ago.

According to the entity of Public Services and Acquisitions of Canada (PSPC, for its acronym in English) the winner of the contest must deliver the first devices in 2025, after it has been selected in early 2022.

The process opened by Ottawa to equip itself with 88 new fighter jets has an estimated value between 15,000 and 19,000 million Canadian dollars (between 10,300 million and 13,000 million euros).

Canada revealed in February 2018 the names of the five manufacturers that it considered as candidates for this program, which on the other hand were the same as those in 2013 already considered in a process that was unsuccessful.

The F-35 wins options

The intention of the previous conservative government to acquire the American plane F-35, a project in which Canada is a partner, was strongly criticized for an alleged manipulation of the requirements of the initial contest in its favor. Thus, in 2015 the current Government, headed by the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which undertook a thorough review of the defense of the country, chose to reopen the contest after the cancellation of the planned purchase plans of 65 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Trudeau already advanced during his campaign that he would not buy the aircraft developed by Lockheed Martin if he won the election.

The doubts about F-35 of Canada are in any case previous. Before Trudeau came to power, an audit calculated that the cost of these fifth-generation aircraft would exceed 40,000 million Canadian dollars (around 27,400 million US dollars in exchange), which led the Executive at that time to expand the search for the five manufacturers that now return to the program. The F-35, paradoxically, it is becoming the candidate with the most possibilities for finally taking over the program, given Saab's scarce possibilities, which Norad also negatively affects, and due to the condition of F / A-18 Super Hornet Boeing of heirs of a design that already accumulates half a century.

The difficulties Canada has experienced in recent years to choose a new fleet of military aircraft have led Ottawa to seize second-hand aircraft so as not to lose capacity while the new devices from the winning manufacturer arrive.

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