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It comes after the Pentagon has said the cost of each F-35 has dropped to US$100 million from $145 million and is expected to dip to about $80 million by 2019. The high cost of the Joint Strike Fighter had been one of the other major complaints in Canada.

Lockheed’s emphasis on the suitability of the JSF for Arctic operations against manned, unmanned and missile threats was designed to clear up “misconceptions about this airplane,” said Billie Flynn, a former RCAF squadron commander with many Arctic deployments on CF-18 Hornets who is a senior test pilot on the F-35.

The Joint Strike Fighter has only one engine, which critics say makes it is too dangerous to fly over the vast northern expanses. This assessment is at odds with the U.S. decision to base its entire over-the-pole fighter jet defence on the F-35 — as it has done for decades with the single engine F-16.

Two F-35 squadrons are to be based at the northernmost fighter jet base in the world near Fairbanks, Alaska. To accommodate the aircraft the USAF announced last week it would spend $500 million to upgrade the airfield. Similarly, Norway intends to fly only F-35s above the Arctic Circle. Canada’s other Arctic ally, Denmark, which sometimes sends fighter jets to Greenland, is likely to opt for the F-35 soon, too.

“Think about Air Canada no longer having four-engine airplanes,” Flynn said in explaining why other countries had decided to deploy F-35s in the Far North. “We fly across the Pacific, the Atlantic and even as far down as Australia in two-engine aircraft. It is the same with fighter engines. There is no need for two engines anymore.”