Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Through you, Mr. Chair, to Colonel Burt, there seems to be a misunderstanding that somehow we're changing the mission, we're changing the roles. The CF-18 was a multi-role, air-to-air and air-to-ground, very complex airplane for its day. The F-35 is a very complex, multi-role, air-to-air and air-to-ground aircraft.
So just to confirm, it's not that we're changing the missions and the roles; we're just doing it against a threat that is going to be much more sophisticated over the next 30 to 40 years. It's going to be the same type of mission, just in a much higher threat environment, where the capabilities of a fifth-generation aircraft like the F-35 will allow us to continue to do those jobs that we did with the CF-18, but in fact do them better and do them in a more survivable fashion than we would be able to do with a CF-18.