Another CF-18 Down

I always hate reading news like this. We lost aonther CF-18 out of Bagotville yesterday morning. Happiy, the pilot survived, was taken to hospital with no word on injuries. The plane, however, has seen better days.

This makes me wonder. I think I read a long time ago that we were originally supposed to receive some 138 F-18s, but never did get that many. The fact that we have already mothballed some of them is interesting enough, but then you look at the number we have lost in operation since then and it makes you wonder. How many do we have left? How long will they last? Is the Canadian government considering these issues and planning ahead? Nobody knows the answer to the second question, though some could offer educated guesses. I'm sure aviation enthusaists out there know the answer to the first one, and know the tailnumbers of the remaining ones (Please post!). The last one, I think we all know the answer to. Someone somewhere is looking at it seriously and having a hard time convincing someone in a position of power to realize that it's something to look at now and not at election time somewhere down the road.

Until then, we can only read of the reports and see the odd CF-18 at an airshow unless we're lucky enough to live close enough to one of the few places these things are stationed at. *sigh*

Here's the news item: http://www.aviation.ca/content/view/1254/117/