New Fighter Aircraft Project
| New Fighter Aircraft (NFA) | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| A Canadian CF-18, winner of the NFA Project, flies off the coast of Hawaii. | |
| Project for | Multirole fighter |
| Issued by | Canadian Forces |
| Proposals |
General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet |
| Outcome | F/A-18 selected for production as the CF-188 |
The New Fighter Aircraft Project (NFA) was a Government of Canada defence procurement project undertaken in the late 1970s that saw the Department of National Defence (DND) select a single new fighter jet to replace the fleets of CF-101 Voodoo, CF-104 Starfighter and CF-116 Freedom Fighter aircraft in the Canadian Forces.
Several aircraft were considered for the project, which led to some internal friction among federal government procurement staff as different aircraft were favoured among different departments. Despite several changes of government, and after a somewhat contentious selection process starting on 17 March 1977, the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet was selected as the winner of the NFA project on 10 April 1980. Designated, the CF-188 Hornet by Canadian Forces Air Command (now called the Royal Canadian Air Force), a total of 138 aircraft were delivered between 1982 and 1988.
Air resources within the Canadian Forces had suffered from a long period of neglect and downsizing during the late 1960s and early 1970s that led to the aging of much of their military equipment. In the early 1970s the government came under increasing pressure from its NATO allies to redress this imbalance. This period came to an end in November 1975 after the governing Liberal Party of Canada's tenth National Convention saw a policy reversing defence budget cutbacks in the early 1970s and the beginning of a modernization process across the entire Canadian Forces structure; this followed a decision in September 1975 that saw all air resources within the Canadian Forces merged into a new entity called Air Command (AIRCOM). As there had been little military capital expenditure over the prior five years, modernizing the forces would be an expensive process. In order to lower fiscal spending for the ambitious program, a series of individual procurement projects were proposed to be spread out over the five-year period from 1977 to 1982.
...
Wikipedia