Canada’s First F-35 Flies, but 72 More Jets Hang in the Balance

Canada’s first stealth fighter flew over Texas in full RCAF colors with barely a word from Ottawa, which still hasn’t said whether it will buy the 72 jets beyond the 16 already funded.

OTTAWA (AP) — Canada’s first F-35A fighter jet completed a roughly 90-minute maiden flight over Fort Worth, Texas, on Wednesday, as Ottawa keeps weighing whether to buy the remaining 72 jets in its 88-aircraft program.

The pre-delivery test flight was the first time a new fighter model has flown in Canadian markings in more than four decades. But Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has firmly funded only 16 of the 88 jets, and its review of Canada’s F-35 fighter jet procurement remains open amid a trade dispute with the United States.

Canada signed the 88-jet agreement in January 2023 to replace its aging CF-188 Hornet fleet. The C$27.7 billion program covers the aircraft, associated equipment, sustainment setup, training and new fighter facilities at Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake in Alberta and CFB Bagotville in Quebec.

First Canadian F-35A Flight Details

The jet, carrying Lockheed Martin construction number AR-1, took off around noon local time from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, next to Lockheed Martin’s mile-long F-35 production plant, The Aviationist reported. An F-35C flew as the safety chase aircraft.

Canada’s Department of National Defence designates the conventional takeoff and landing jet the CF-35A. It mirrors the U.S. Air Force’s F-35A.

Images published by aviation photographers showed the jet in low-visibility markings like those on Canada’s Hornets. The images showed bilingual “RCAF – ARC” lettering on the air intakes, the Canadian roundel, the word “Canada” behind the canopy and a subdued maple leaf flag on the tails.

Ottawa Stays Silent

The Prime Minister’s Office, the Department of National Defence and Royal Canadian Air Force leadership issued no press releases and held no ceremony. The Department of National Defence had not responded to a CTV News request for comment as of Thursday.

Word spread instead through the Dallas-Fort Worth plane-spotting community. Gherardo and Victoria Mae Fontana, a husband-and-wife team of aviation photographers, published images of the jet on final approach. Victoria Fontana told CTV News the flight drew a crowd: “There were quite a few people!”

Lockheed Martin Canada posted a single line on X: “The first CF-35A took to the skies for the first time today.” Asked for more, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said “questions would be best addressed by the Department of National Defence.”

Retired RCAF Maj. Gen. Scott Clancy told CTV News he believes the silence came from the top.

“I think the silence is ordered… So, this is now just a political decision and that’s why the Canadian Armed Forces has been specifically told you will not comment on that,” Clancy said.

He said RCAF pilots remain “very excited about this generational advancement that they’re going to make in terms of technology and they are preparing hard for that.”

Canada F-35 Procurement Review Tied to Trade Dispute

Carney, who took office in 2025, ordered a review of the F-35 purchase in March 2025, tying it to worsening trade relations with Washington after tariff threats from President Donald Trump.

Beyond the 16 funded jets, Ottawa has begun paying for long-lead parts for 14 more to hold its place in the production queue, sources told CBC News in February. The Department of National Defence declined to confirm the payments. The government is weighing whether to complete the F-35 order or build a mixed fleet with the Saab JAS 39 Gripen E/F, a Swedish fighter.

Canadian Defense Minister David McGuinty has pushed back on the idea that the F-35 must be dropped to punish Washington.

“Canada has a responsibility to obtain an appropriate fighter jet fleet for our own responsibilities, to acquit ourselves of our responsibilities domestically, continentally, and internationally,” McGuinty said this month.

He said the review weighs industrial benefits, interoperability with NATO and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and integration with existing radar and missile defense networks.

“The F-35 acquisition is under review. It will remain under review until it’s no longer under review. We will take the time we need to get this right,” McGuinty added.

Gen. Jennie Carignan, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff, said a decision is expected “in the next few months” and that the process is moving forward independently of outside political pressure.

Some provincial leaders want the deal scrapped. In August, British Columbia Premier David Eby said Aug. 25: “When your friend kicks you in the back, one of the first rules is you don’t then go and buy $12 billion of fighter jets from that person. It makes absolutely no sense.”

Saab Pitches Jobs, Gripen

Saab says the Gripen E, which lacks the F-35’s all-aspect stealth, offers lower operating costs, the ability to operate from dispersed highway strips and capable electronic warfare systems. Saab has offered to build a production line in Canada, with technology transfer and Canadian control over software changes. It has pledged about 12,600 direct and indirect jobs if Canada buys 72 Gripens and six GlobalEye surveillance planes, CBC News reported in January.

Ottawa has already favored Saab once. In May, at the CANSEC defense show in Ottawa, Carney announced Saab as the preferred supplier for Canada’s airborne early warning aircraft, picking the GlobalEye, built on a Bombardier Global jet, over rival bids from Boeing and L3Harris. No contract has been signed.

The F-35 is built around stealth, internal weapons bays and sensor fusion that combines data from its AESA radar, distributed aperture system and electronic warfare suite, allowing it to share targeting data with NORAD and NATO allies.

Retired Commanders Push Back

In November 2025, a dozen former senior RCAF officers sent a letter to federal decision-makers, including Carney’s office, warning that adding Gripens would weaken Canada’s airpower, cost jobs and strain relations within NATO.

The signatories reportedly included Tom Lawson, a former fighter pilot who was Chief of the Defence Staff from 2012 to 2015 and earlier served as NORAD’s deputy commander. Lawson declined to confirm his role in the letter.

“Unfortunately, regarding the F-35, there just is nothing available in the free world that comes close to the quality of the F-35,” Lawson said.

“The F-35 is so far beyond anything that the Gripen can provide that anything you’d be saving in terms of money by going to a second fleet would be lost, because that fleet would be close to useless in a wartime situation,” he said.

Lawson told CBC News: “If we need more fighter capability, buy more F-35s.” He added, “It really does make us nervous as we watch our elected officials romance the Swedes in this case.”

Critics of a split fleet, including Lawson, say a second fighter type would require separate pilot training pipelines, simulators, maintenance programs and supply chains while the RCAF already struggles to recruit and keep fighter pilots and technicians.

Procurement Chief Is Longtime F-35 Critic

Canada’s minister for defense procurement disagrees. Stephen Fuhr, a former RCAF CF-18 pilot who retired as a major in 2009, was appointed in May 2025 as secretary of state for defense procurement. The new Defence Investment Agency, launched in October 2025 and run day to day by CEO Doug Guzman, reports to him.

Fuhr spent years criticizing the F-35. “It may be a great airplane, it’s not the right plane for Canada,” he said in a 2011 television interview. As recently as 2021, he called the jet “unaffordable.”

“Many of our allies … run a mixed fleet with fighters,” Fuhr said. “I don’t necessarily subscribe to the fact that we can’t do it. We certainly can and we’ve done it and our allies do it now. So it’s a function of ‘do we want to do this or not?'”

“We are going to become less reliant and more resilient. The good news is we have friends in every time zone. And everybody wants to work with Canada,” he said.

Fuhr also cited remarks by NORAD commander U.S. Gen. Gregory Guillot suggesting F-35s were not the only answer for border defense. “He is the commander of NORAD. So I think what he says, I take him at his word,” Fuhr said. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has warned that NORAD would have to change if Canada scales back its F-35 order, but told CTV News in June that a mixed fleet alone would not end the alliance. “One decision will not kill Norad,” he said.

Canadian Industry Has Billions at Stake

Canada joined the Joint Strike Fighter program in 2002 as a Level 3 partner. More than 110 Canadian companies have received over C$5.2 billion in F-35 contracts, Air Data News reported, citing Department of National Defence data, and 37 firms currently hold active contracts.

Lockheed Martin says every F-35 contains more than US$3 million in Canadian-made parts from suppliers in six provinces. Magellan Aerospace’s Winnipeg division expects to build more than 1,000 sets of F-35A horizontal tails over the life of the program, the company has said.

Richard Foster, a vice president at L3Harris MAS and a former senior Canadian Armed Forces officer, warned of layoffs last November. L3Harris MAS also competed against Saab for the airborne early warning program.

“If Canada were to decide to do a mixed fleet that was less than 88 F-35s, it is likely that we would have a job layoff of around 500 personnel and that would result in probably 1,600 jobs lost to Canada, both direct and indirect,” Foster said.

He said that without a full F-35 fleet, keeping specialized maintenance sites such as L3Harris’ facility in Mirabel, Quebec, running would no longer make economic sense.

What Comes Next

Canada’s Hornets entered service in 1982, and the government says options to extend their life are exhausted. The last are due to retire by 2032.

AR-1 and the first Canadian jets are to be delivered to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona in late 2026, where the RCAF has set up its first CF-35A training squadron. Canadian maintenance technicians are to train at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

The first jets are scheduled to arrive in Canada in 2028, with initial operational capability expected in 2029-2030. Full operational capability is expected in 2032-2034, according to the Department of National Defence’s project timeline.