peaches said:
You'd think from a common sense point of veiw they'd give 4 to each brigade and to Gagetown...
I wouldn't.
That's just spreading things too thinly. In our old doctrine, which is quite valid, Chinooks were a Corps-level resource as there is not sufficient continual emplyment for them at Div-level and below. They are in demand in Afghanistan simply because nothing else will do the job in that environment.
And while Afghanistan is our prime focus today, that must be regarded as a temporary situation. Our next focus will quite likely be in a cooler and/or lower environment.
A driving factor for permanent basing will be suitable infrastructure - new hangars are very expensive.
Proximity to CMTC would be desireable, so Edmonton makes sense from that perspective, but deployment from anywhere else would satisfy its requirements as well. Not having been to Edmonton for about a decade, I have no idea what hangars still exist, what state they're in, or what they're being used for. Borden has two suitable hangars if CFSATE is pushed out of its remaining one (we pushed them out of 18 Hangar when we moved in in 1996).
That would probably generate a revolt amongst the local citizenry, though, if we tried to do any local training. I'm still surprised that we don't generate more complaints with the Griffon (like over my four nights straight of 2200-0100 batting around at 200 feet over people's houses last week). We do a fair amount of tac flying in the Muskoka region, but that's not exactly ideal due to the transit time.
Pet has about 5500 sq km of wilderness on the north side of the Ottawa River established as a Tac Low Fly Area, but smaller hangars. I have not looked at them with Chinooks in mind, though.
All that I know for sure is that I do not want to fly them. The Griffon is too bulbous and ungainly for my tastes as it is.
