Search results

I think the RCN (and the Canadian Army) are not large enough to take on the management of airworthiness. The Minister of Defence is the responsible Minister for airworthiness of military aircraft, and has directed the CDS to designate the C Air Force as the Airworthiness Authority. The operation...

Even if the helicopter was the best ship to shore connector (see daftandbarmy's reply), it's not the best use of an an ASW helicopter. The tend to have very expensive sensors hanging off the bottom of them. Hence why in the UK the ASW/Crowsnest force and the Commando force are two distinctly...

There used to be Maj’s position, is it still there? And if so, is it filled?

Is there a lesson to be gleaned from the USN’s termination of the Fire Scout program? Are long(‘ish) endurance UAV’s best flown from ashore? Have we reached the point where autonomous ASW is best conducted with unmanned surface or subsurface platforms? Can more smaller single sensor platforms...

If they are retired, then a version of this is probably the best course. They are a unique version of the H-92, so are pretty much orphaned now.

In a perfect world we would have not even tried to design our own 101, but just bought the Merlin. But we didn’t. However, this option is not without risks. It won’t happen overnight, and it won’t fix the other problems that exist. In my opinion, this doesn’t mean regenerating the fleet, it...

Speaks a truth about helicopters… How about we start with cost. The Air Force, driven in part by the Navy, spec’d “the best helicopter in the world.” GOFOs were even saying it was until a couple of years ago. Even when Chrétien said “not the Cadillac “ we didn’t really change the systems spec...

Progress? https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2025-07-22-Lockheed-Martin-Reports-Second-Quarter-2025-Financial-Results

I can see that. I’m just worried the end result will be the death of Canadian MH.

How about a completely different idea? Since the S-92 is no longer supported, in favour of the S-92A, and the 148 is a different beast altogether (fly by wire…), why not “upgrade” the airframe to the S-92A. “Move” the mission system and avionics over to the new airframe, and when possible even...

That was, and is, a Cyclone capability. It’s called MPAS (mission preparation and analysis service) and is installed in the ADR. There was an interface to CCS-330 but that has been removed. It’s not just for RMP. It was in addition to Link-11. The Sea King had a much more modest RMP upload and...

Speaking of independant ops on the Cyclone thread... I've been trying to run to ground what happened to move from carrier controlled ops to "independant" ops in the Sea King around 1970... it's not entirely clear. Three things converged: the loss of Bonnie, and her dedicated control...

So, I was answering questions about deck ops on Facebook, and somebody called me an "Attention-W" (I had to look it up) and told me to get a life... but here goes. Independantly, as discussed in the CONOPs, is the ability of the aircraft to make most tactical decisions itself, instead of...

Psssst; I know. Iwas using the OPs terminology.

Except the MH CONOPs is not just an MH operating from an FFGH/DDGH. It’s an MH operating independently from an FFGH/DDGH. So: the Cyclone, on paper, yes, in reality, ? a Merlin, yes a 60R, at a stretch, maybe a Lynx or any other small helicopter, no Therefore, before we can talk about those...

Not to be pedantic, but if we’re throwing away the MH CONOPs because we feel it can’t be met by our current helicopter or any logical replacement, shouldn’t we decide on what we want to do and have a new CONOPs before thinking about which helicopter?

The 148 has no TCDL at all. Last I heard (2 1/2 years ago) they were just developing a requirement. Hard to get people who think "ASW is just underwater ISR" to understand actual ISR requirements. Plus, historically, it wasn't part of the Navy's thought process. Until it was... The Sea King...

Yep, but there are two limitations: can't use high gain directional antennas can't do two way (although there was some work going on, haven't kept up) The Sea King was capable of C-Band and non-directional Ku. During trials I actually had a laptop out on the outer ramp at Shearwater and was...

Link-22 is not "better" than Link-16. It was designed when Link-16 was really expensive (because it contained it's own, sophisticated radio) as a "poor man's Link-16." The reason is it could use existing UHF and HF radios. It actually reuses a bunch of the Link-16 J-Series messages as NJ-Series...

There are three big parts to any Link system: the bearer nad a way for multiple platforms to use it (ie for Link-16 a netted RF system in the 1 GHz range) the formatted messages (ie for Link-16 J-Series) the way to use it to create a common operating picture (ie correlation, reporting...