The Best That Never Was 2 (Prototypes)

[cawest]

How about the F-18L I cut his from a wiki page

From a strict technical point of view the F-18L (the Northrop version) was the better aircraft for the NFA project, with performance roughly equal to the F-16, Sparrow capability, and the twin-engine design that the Canadian Forces favored. Compared to the F/A-18A (the McDonnel-Douglas version), its lower weight and resulting better range would also be very useful in the air defence role over Canada. The F-18L was also offered with a lucrative industrial program; Northrop agreed to move major portions of the F-18L project to Canada

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Although the following site is Brazilian so the language is Brazilian Portuguese, there's a lot of useful images for the F-18L including some data sheets for those inclined to do the stats.
https://www.cavok.com.br/blog/a-vers...t-da-northrop/

[Vespers War]

Speaking of the Canadian New Fighter Aircraft, it's worth noting that before the "Canadian Caper" in Iran (popularized in Argo), Canada was in negotiations to acquire Iran's F-14 Tomcats as their replacement for the Voodoo and Starfighter. It would take only a very mild historical tweak for Canada to be flying Tomcats in the 1980s and 90s.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

Speaking of the Canadian New Fighter Aircraft, it's worth noting that before the "Canadian Caper" in Iran (popularized in Argo), Canada was in negotiations to acquire Iran's F-14 Tomcats as their replacement for the Voodoo and Starfighter. It would take only a very mild historical tweak for Canada to be flying Tomcats in the 1980s and 90s.

Very interesting! Are there any websites - in preference to books - that go into any detail about this ? (I'm interested in reading more about this but not so interested in laying out money for a book that may have only a few paragraphs on the subject!)

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Very interesting! Are there any websites - in preference to books - that go into any detail about this ? (I'm interested in reading more about this but not so interested in laying out money for a book that may have only a few paragraphs on the subject!)

Tacairnet has a small piece about the CF-14-Eh.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

Tacairnet has a small piece about the CF-14-Eh.

Very interesting indeed, thanks for the link.
And to think the Canadians practically had it all in the bag until the Iranians found out about the "Caper".
Would have made a very different Cold War landscape in North America if the Canadians were flying Tomcats but I'm left to wonder how they would have made nice with Grumman (I'm presuming Grumman would have remained unhappy with the Canadian's lower cost purchase and also that Canada would eventually have to get new spares etc. etc. from Grumman at some point in time).

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Very interesting indeed, thanks for the link.
And to think the Canadians practically had it all in the bag until the Iranians found out about the "Caper".
Would have made a very different Cold War landscape in North America if the Canadians were flying Tomcats but I'm left to wonder how they would have made nice with Grumman (I'm presuming Grumman would have remained unhappy with the Canadian's lower cost purchase and also that Canada would eventually have to get new spares etc. etc. from Grumman at some point in time).

In a non-Twilight scenario, it also makes me wonder if the Canadian use of the Tomcat would have prevented Cheney from having the tooling scrapped in the early 90s and left an updated Tomcat as a potential candidate for the fleet defense role on US carriers instead of the Super Hornet. The longer-ranged AMRAAM makes the Phoenix mostly obsolete, but the F-14's track-while-scan capability is (to the best of my knowledge) still unmatched by carrier-capable aircraft.