Canada’s F-35 costs are soaring to crazy levels. Time to bring on the drones instead

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An axiom of defence spending is that the price always goes up, making a mockery of the original budget. So it is with Canada’s F-35 fighter jets. The project to buy them has turned into a fiscal monster that could suck the life out of other procurement projects.

Canada has ordered 88 F-35s from Lockheed Martin (so far, Ottawa has committed to buy just 16 of them; the rest of the order was put under review by Prime Minister Mark Carney). Two and a half years ago, the purchase price was set at $19-billion. An updated estimate published this week by Auditor-General Karen Hogan’s office puts the new price tag at $27.7-billion – and that figure does not include advanced weapons and infrastructure upgrades to fighter bases, which would add another $5.5-billion to the bill.

There’s more. The purchase price is relatively small compared with the overall costs of operating the highly advanced stealth fighters over their expected 30-year lifespan. It’s like buying a good razor: the blades cost more.

In 2014, the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense published a report on the cost of weapons systems, from helicopters to submarines. It found that the procurement costs of fixed-wing aircraft accounted for only 30 per cent of the total lifecycle costs. More than double that amount – 63 per cent – went to operating and support costs, known as “sustainment.” The small amount left over went to research and development and disposing of the planes once their wings were clipped.

Assuming these figures are accurate today, the total lifetime costs of Canada’s F-35 fleet, if all 88 planes were bought, would be almost $90-billion, equivalent to the GDP of Slovenia or Belarus. That’s a fortune for a single weapons system for a relatively small economy such as Canada’s.

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The price of the American F-35 program is climbing, too. In 2023, the U.S. Government Accountability Office put the lifetime cost of the fleet at US$1.7-trillion. By last year, the tab had climbed to US$2-trillion because of a massive increase in estimated sustainment costs. It’s all about keeping the planes in the air, not buying them.

Mr. Carney was entirely right to call for a review of the F-35 program based on the relentless cost increases alone. But there are other questions.

Is the F-35 the best choice for Canada’s air-defence requirements? Should the F-35 order be cut back to make room for a cheaper aircraft, such as Sweden’s Saab Gripen? What other military assets, from missiles to ships, could be bought if some of the money devoted to keeping F-35s flying were freed up? And, crucially, are F-35s needed at all, given the arrival of aerial-robot warfare? Why not replace most of them with drones?

There is no doubt the F-35 is capable of acting deftly in fighter, interceptor, ground-attack and, with its dazzling suite of sensors, surveillance roles. It is billed as a “multirole” aircraft. But all this comes at an eye-popping cost to the taxpayer.

Drones of both the surveillance and attack variety may be the way to go. The Ukrainians have used a combination of old-fashioned artillery and leading-edge drones to not only stall Russian advances but take the war deep inside enemy territory. Early this month, Ukraine reportedly destroyed a third of Russia’s strategic bombers, the ones used to launch cruise missiles. Taking out US$100-million planes with US$1,000 drones is terrific value for money.

Long-range drones that could be used in the vast Canadian Arctic, a potential resource and military frontier as global warming eradicates year-round ice, are already flying. The U.S.-made Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton is an example of the capabilities of such aircraft. The Triton is the size of a small private jet and highly expensive, but it can fly for 30 hours and cover 15,000 kilometres (an F-35’s range is about 2,200 kilometres). As the technology advances, future models may be a lot cheaper.

The French appear to understand that drones are the future. Renault, the French automaker that last made military hardware in the Second World War, plans to make drones in Ukraine with local specialists. As the war drags on, mass production will be the goal.

You can see where this is going: The partnership would put Renault on a fast learning curve, allowing it to build drones for the French military too. When the war in Ukraine ends, there is little doubt Renault will send Ukrainian drone engineers to France, giving the country a head start in launching a world-class drone industry.

Italy’s Leonardo, one of Europe’s biggest defence contractors, appears to have a similar goal. It recently formed a joint venture with Turkish drone giant Baykar.

Could Canada develop drones adapted to the needs of the world’s second-largest country? Sure it could. But doing so may come at the expense of running a full fleet of painfully expensive F-35s – a weapon Canada may not need.