Lockheed Martin Canada has been strangely silent about trumpeting the news that the F-35 was selected by the Danes. Nothing was sent out to Canadian journalists; no marketing push came from the company highlighting the decision and tying it into the Canadian competition to replace the CF-18s. In fact, the last news release sent out by the firm was highlighting the modernized Halifax-class frigates. Maybe Lockheed Martin Canada is waiting for CANSEC next week to promote the news? (I asked CFN Consultants’ George Macdonald, Lockheed Martin Canada’s lobbyist in Ottawa, about the reasoning behind the company’s low key strategy in Canada on the news from Denmark but he hasn’t yet provided a response).
The Danish defense ministry has committed to a public debate period of about two to four weeks before the final parliament decision on the purchase, writes my Defense News colleague Lara Seligman.
In addition, she reports that Boeing is challenging the Danish government’s recommendation that Denmark select Lockheed Martin’s F-35 for its next-generation fighter fleet, claiming that the Danes used flawed data to determine the cost of each plane. Here is more of what Lara Seligman writes:
Boeing Vice President Debbie Rub told a Danish parliamentary committee in a private hearing Thursday that the recommendation that Denmark buy 27 F-35s to replace its aging F-16 fighter fleet was based on “incomplete and possibly flawed data,” the company confirmed to Defense News. The news was first reported by Reuters.
In a detailed analysis of the type selection for Denmark’s new fighter, the Danish government pegged the overall procurement cost to buy 28 F-35s at $2.33 billion, or $83 million a piece. By contrast, it determined the number of Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornets they would need to complete the same mission over 30 years is 38 aircraft, and calculated the overall cost to buy those jets at $4.65 billion. This works out to a unit cost of about $122 million.
Full article here:
