Warbird Information Exchange

Forces to scrap jet parts worth $200M
Countries unwilling to buy outdated CF-5

David Pugliese
The Ottawa Citizen


Saturday, April 22, 2006


The Canadian military is sending an estimated $200 million worth of fighter jet parts to the scrap heap after trying unsuccessfully to find buyers for the equipment.

The decision to destroy the components and use the remaining CF-5 jets as training aids for Canadian Forces avionics technicians comes as efforts to sell the aircraft fleet and associated supplies have hit a brick wall. The international marketplace is flush with used sophisticated fighter jets and countries are looking to buy planes more advanced than the CF-5.

The warplanes were removed from service in June 1995, shortly after the Canadian Forces pumped $79 million into upgrading some of them. Since then, the government, along with its marketing agent, Bristol Aerospace of Winnipeg, has been trying to find buyers for the aircraft.

Defence Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Hodges said that during the last 10 years, there has been more than $120 million in sales of items from the CF-5 inventory. The bulk of that is from a deal in the late 1990s to sell Botswana 16 aircraft as well as a supply of spare parts. Another 57 of the planes were sent to museums or to Canadian Forces bases for use as training aids.

But running that sales and disposal program has cost around $26 million, and over the years the market for used fighters dried up, so Canada will stop trying to sell the CF-5s. There are 17 of the planes left. If no more sell, they'll be used to train aircraft technicians.

"Remaining aircraft that have not been sold will be made available as training aids to the Canadian Forces School of Aerospace Technology and Engineering," said Ms. Hodges. "All remaining spares will be demilitarized and scrapped as the Canadian Forces continues to purge dormant stock and free up inventory storage space."

Defence Department records released last year put the "book value" of the spare parts at around $200 million.

The decision to scrap the CF-5 inventory came after military officials raised concerns about increasing costs for storing the material and planes. Trying to sell the aircraft in a marketplace saturated with excess Cold War equipment has been an uphill battle. In 2001, Canada offered Greece 28 CF-5 fighters for $75 million U.S., but that deal never went through.

In addition, over the years the Defence Department lost the capability to exhibit a flyable CF-5 as well as provide engineering and pilot knowledge to potential customers. The Defence Department was also limited in who it could sell the planes to, since any deal would have to be approved by the U.S. government as the CF-5s contained American technology.

In March 2004, then Brig.-Gen. Doug Langton summed up the problem in an e-mail. "Those we can sell the CF-5 to aren't really interested (or are only interested if we give them away) and those who would be interested, we probably can't sell to," he wrote. "I think it's time to cut our losses."

In late 2004, the Public Works Department recommended the immediate junking of all CF-5s and related equipment and parts, but the Defence Department argued for one last push in marketing the planes.

Canada used the aircraft as a fighter trainer for pilots who later graduated to the more advanced CF-18. But other nations use the equivalent of the CF-5 as a frontline combat aircraft.

Canada's air force pulled the planes from service in an effort to save money during a period of reduced defence spending. At the time, some of the planes were still in the process of being upgraded as part of a $79-million program to modernize their avionics and other systems.

Some of the past sales of CF-5s have not been without controversy. In September 2000, the purchase of two of the warplanes by a small Ontario museum made headlines after it was discovered that the jets had been resold at a substantial profit to private American aircraft enthusiasts. The U.S. government had not approved the resale.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2006

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Cheers,
Peter

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That is sad news..too bad our Forces were not able to find a suitable buyer...and I am guessing I will not find them for sale thru Lancaster Aviation will I??

As a cockpit section would look great in my backyard!!

Andrew

Probably not, the sale of the F-5's is through Bristol Aerospace.

Brian...

Didn't Bristol Aerospace maintain one of Canada's CF-5 in flying condition at some point in the mid 90's for evaluation or something like that?

Andrew

They had one flying for demonstrations for the sale of the fleet. Now there are no current pilots available on the cf5 hence the sale?

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Cheers,
Peter

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I would like to see them go to the new Iraqi and Afghani Air Forces. They could be flown by contract pilots and would be easy for these emerging new govt.s to maintain.
There's probably a million US and foreign pilots that did their training on the T-38/ F-5 series of aircraft. The Iraqis are going to need something to use after the U.S. gets the heck out of there, after the next presidential election, IMO. Back in the 80's I met a guy named "Jerry" that use to fly Ray Mabry's (Captain Midnight) T-33 to some airshows. His real job was flying as a mercenary for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. Can't remember what they were flying, it may have been F-5's. My guess is the Canadiens maintained them well.

I new someone who worked for Bristol A/S Winnepeg Manitoba back in the 90's, he was upgrading the avionics on quite a few CF-5's

I remember a picture he showed me of him sitting in the cockpit of one with all the wiring hanging outside, and the whole hanger was full of CF-5's

no sooner did they finish the contract and the CAF mothballed the whole fleet.