Canada to Spend $5.0Bil on AEW Aircraft

[GR66]

I am not sure what would be worse: Paying Bombardier to plumb the Global 650 for AAR or paying Airbus to make a bespoke A220 AEW aircraft. (Hint: both will be spendy for Canada).

I do like the idea of buying more A330 MRTT. Too many tankers? Said no one, ever.

While it would be nice if Airbus had an AEW aircraft (and an MPA) to give us commonality across our heavy fleets, we've got the MRTT's and we've got the P-8's. To me it would make sense to go with the E-7 for the AEW for commonality of supply chains with the P-8's for many of the base mechanical components as well as pilot training.

With several other key purchases coming from the US however (P-8's, MQ-9b's, F-35's) I imagine there will be huge political pressure to go with Bombardier for the AEW aircraft. I'm all for diversifying our defence purchases (and onshoring where possible) but only when it makes sense.

Personally I'd rather get the E-7's (and F-35's) and have Bombardier instead partner with Saab and Canadian companies like Dominion Dynamics to develop a domestic UCAV family to work with our F-35's and P-8's

 

[dapaterson]

I do like the idea of buying more A330 MRTT. Too many tankers? Said no one, ever.

The Airbus tanker is moving from the soon to be discontinued A330-200 to the -900, so we're into mixed fleet territory. (I believe it's a single type for pilots, but there a re physical differences between the two).

 

[Navy_Pete]

I like the jenga game we're already playing with all the hangars required for the existing fleet upgrades, and feel bad for the people in IE trying to keep up with the projects. Also why I'll believe 10 Hangar in Trenton is in it's final year only when the wrecking balls are swinging.

Fortunately the RCAF is awesome at building maintenance so the existing hangars and other support buildings are all in tip top shape.

 

[Baz]

Fortunately the RCAF is awesome at building maintenance so the existing hangars and other support buildings are all in tip top shape.

I see what you did there…

 

[Navy_Pete]

I see what you did there…

Yeah, when a lot of it predates RPOps existence, and base commanders still de-prioritize RPOps work indirectly it's really not just an IE issue. On the plus side, 10 Hangar in Trenton is finally up to basic code after a few decades of not being there.

Really weird to see zero downtime allowed for some of these RCAF facilities as well so you can actually the regular maintenance that takes it offline, and then not have some kind of redundancies in the requirements for the replacement that would let you do that. But somehow a single point of failure that the wing keeps saying it's critical for Defence of North America to have that up and running is fine. Ah well, just don't let friends become LOx technicians.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Yeah, when a lot of it predates RPOps existence, and base commanders still de-prioritize RPOps work indirectly it's really not just an IE issue. On the plus side, 10 Hangar in Trenton is finally up to basic code after a few decades of not being there.

Really weird to see zero downtime allowed for some of these RCAF facilities as well so you can actually the regular maintenance that takes it offline, and then not have some kind of redundancies in the requirements for the replacement that would let you do that. But somehow a single point of failure that the wing keeps saying it's critical for Defence of North America to have that up and running is fine. Ah well, just don't let friends become LOx technicians.

Weirdly, I actually understand the situation that you are trying hard not to describe.

Most people today serving in the CAF have grown up in a zero redundancy environment where we only have one (or sometimes less than one) of a thing, because that is all we had the money for. Or we rode legacy equipment (sometimes from the 50s or 60s) into the ground, without replacing it when we should have. The Ops part of “O&M” was always prioritized for what little money we had, because the consequences (real or perceived) of saying “no” were too high. So, we have normalized “making do”.

It is going to take a decade of real effort just to get the baseline to normal..

 

[OldSolduer]

Weirdly, I actually understand the situation that you are trying hard not to describe.

Most people today serving in the CAF have grown up in a zero redundancy environment where we only have one (or sometimes less than one) of a thing, because that is all we had the money for. Or we rode legacy equipment (sometimes from the 50s or 60s) into the ground, without replacing it when we should have. The Ops part of “O&M” was always prioritized for what little money we had, because the consequences (real or perceived) of saying “no” were too high. So, we have normalized “making do”.

It is going to take a decade of real effort just to get the baseline to normal..

It sounds like the City of Winnipeg as well.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Weirdly, I actually understand the situation that you are trying hard not to describe.

Most people today serving in the CAF have grown up in a zero redundancy environment where we only have one (or sometimes less than one) of a thing, because that is all we had the money for. Or we rode legacy equipment (sometimes from the 50s or 60s) into the ground, without replacing it when we should have. The Ops part of “O&M” was always prioritized for what little money we had, because the consequences (real or perceived) of saying “no” were too high. So, we have normalized “making do”.

It is going to take a decade of real effort just to get the baseline to normal..

Yeah, and I absolutely get the lack of funds part; the large amount of redundancy built into warships means you can have a lot of broken things and still make it work, and the surface fleet has eaten a sustained cut to O&M in the 100-200M range since Afghanistan that money won't get us out of anytime soon.

Part of it is absolutely cultural though; there is a lot of 'it's always been like this' and 'nothing bad has happened yet, so the risk is low'. Some of the issues are so far outside the norms that it's not actually possible to really assess the risk, as there isn't really stats for pressure vessels decades past end of life, especially when we are talking about uncommon systems. But when multiple buildings end up getting restricted to CAF only because it falls below basic Canada Labour Code requirements, you would think that the culture might get a bit of a kick in the ass, especially when money is not an issue. It's really weird to see as an outsider, especially when we're just talking about minimum legal requirements that we've been ordered to meet for CAF members as well.

There are enough risks to the jobs that I don't think we should accept things like that on our bases, but it's part of the unsexy 'fix the basics' that doesn't get PR announcements, even when we're going to spend billions on it in the next decade.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Yeah, and I absolutely get the lack of funds part; the large amount of redundancy built into warships means you can have a lot of broken things and still make it work, and the surface fleet has eaten a sustained cut to O&M in the 100-200M range since Afghanistan that money won't get us out of anytime soon.

Part of it is absolutely cultural though; there is a lot of 'it's always been like this' and 'nothing bad has happened yet, so the risk is low'. Some of the issues are so far outside the norms that it's not actually possible to really assess the risk, as there isn't really stats for pressure vessels decades past end of life, especially when we are talking about uncommon systems. But when multiple buildings end up getting restricted to CAF only because it falls below basic Canada Labour Code requirements, you would think that the culture might get a bit of a kick in the ass, especially when money is not an issue. It's really weird to see as an outsider, especially when we're just talking about minimum legal requirements that we've been ordered to meet for CAF members as well.

There are enough risks to the jobs that I don't think we should accept things like that on our bases, but it's part of the unsexy 'fix the basics' that doesn't get PR announcements, even when we're going to spend billions on it in the next decade.

I wonder if I should be submitting a CF98, given that I have interacted with some of those things over my flying career…

 

[ytz]

I am not sure what would be worse: Paying Bombardier to plumb the Global 650 for AAR or paying Airbus to make a bespoke A220 AEW aircraft. (Hint: both will be spendy for Canada).

We're paying them to plumb the Globals as part of the future VVIP contract:

RCAF to acquire six Bombardier Global 6500 multi-role aircraft - Skies Mag

Bombardier and government officials made the announcement at Bombardier’s Global Aircraft Assembly Centre in Toronto, where the Global 6500 aircraft is assembled.

skiesmag.com

I do like the idea of buying more A330 MRTT. Too many tankers? Said no one, ever.

There's an airlift review underway now, looking at how this fits in more modernized doctrine, like Agile. Betting on more MRTTs wouldn't be the worst thing.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I wonder if I should be submitting a CF98, given that I have interacted with some of those things over my flying career…

I don't think it's an issue for the flight crew, but a lot of the maintainers in those facilities should be. A few spots have had work refusal orders on safety grounds that have been validated, and part of what drove some of these issues coming to light and got all civilians pulled from the buildings, but CADPAT doesn't somehow make a building deemed unsafe for civvies safe for CAF members.

A lot of people in the Navy should have done that a lot more for things like mold, POL exposure etc, but usually too late when you get sick as the actual records are no longer on file after the 7 years or whatever.

Anyway, bit of a thread drift, but hopefully now they will at least stop assuming they can just chuck whatever planes in whatever hangars without doing any kind of repairs/upgrades now that a bunch of flags and project arisings have come to light, with a few going to L1 level and higher.