Canada

It makes sense to get the Grippen to form the bulk of the fleet as it's a made in Canada solution that gives us as much independence as any of the options. It is a gen 4.5 fighter, perfectly suited for most uses and very affordable.

If we have a fleet of Grippens, I can also see some advantages for planes like the 16 F35 we've already comitted to buying. Special purpose missions, like flying NATO missions where you don't have air superiority will benefit from Gen 5. I don't want the F35 at all. I don't trust the Americans at all. A Gen 5 fighter is indispensible.

I only see a few paths. A fleet of Gen 4.5 like the Grippens to hold us over until we can get a trustworthy Gen5.

We can try to join existing consortiums like the GCAP, the 2035 Gen5 fighter program of the UK, Italy and Japan or the FCAS, the French, German, Spanish 6th gen consortium. Both of those are 2035 and 2040 targeting. That's a long time to wait for a Gen 5 fighter, especially in this climate.

Making our own Gen 5 fighter is possible, but not feasible or practical. There is nothing we could build in time that couldn't be done better faster, cheaper than already in progress multi-partner programs. You could always try and retrofit something like the Grippen into a gen 4.9 by incorporating stealth features, but why? Half measures aren't great and pose their own problems.

Buying the minimum 16 F35 already comitted to stings. But as a temporary, stop gap measure looks like the only G5 solution. It's pissing away a lot of money and incuring a lot of risk, but the next 10-15 years will be a long time to wait without a proper Gen5 fighter. We must not, under any circumstances built our airforce's fleet on such an untrustworthy backbone.

So all Gen 4.5 for 10-15 years or 80 Gen 4.5 and 16 Gen5 for 10-15 years.