RCAF Fighter Sqn ReOrg

[Downhiller229]

The jets fly training missions every day at a constant rate. They already go on Det about twice a year to "surge" training as suggested but it only gets the system caught up. Doing that as a constant practice would be impractical.

In the US the airspace is much more scarce, leading to much of the airspace being over water and the ranges small and congested. A lot of time is devoted to transit to and from and less to actually doing the meat of the work which is the tactical stuff.

We are definitely lucky to have the CLAWR easily accessible to the fighter community and others but there is much more to it then just convenience. It allows a higher degree of flexibility in training which probably produces a better product.

 

[BurmaShave]

Cold lake just needs to be shut down. Period. There is no reason to keep a permanent presence there. The range would be just as easily accessible from Edmonton or Saskatoon. Hell, build up Moose Jaw, it’s already an established CF base that’s close to civilization. The majority of people aren’t into the whole redneck style of life, hunting, fishing or woodland activities. This is 2018 now, people want urban areas with malls, coffee shops, big box stores, modern movie theatres and easy access to a major airport and health services. Cold lake will always be a huge retention crap storm of the RCAF. People aren’t going to waste away their lives in a crap hole that their spouse hates as well, nevermind having to deal with the whole PLD rate non sense.

The leadership is obviously aware of the issue and either A: doesn’t care or B: doesn’t care enough to push for changes.

I will always recommend the new guys coming in to seek other forms of employment or career options that doesn’t involve living in f***ville.

I'm having the opposite problem in Toronto. Lines! 25 minutes for groceries. Traffic! 30 minutes each way minimum. Strangers everywhere; haughty, busy people. People busy doing the rat race in their God damn leased Mercedes turning right on pedestrians.

Redneckville? Sounds like home, sign me up! Just get me the hell outta here.

 

[dimsum]

I'm having the opposite problem in Toronto. Lines! 25 minutes for groceries. Traffic! 30 minutes each way minimum. Strangers everywhere; haughty, busy people. People busy doing the rat race in their God damn leased Mercedes turning right on pedestrians.

Redneckville? Sounds like home, sign me up! Just get me the hell outta here.

Well, besides Goose Bay, I think the Toronto v Cold Lake divide (in terms of population and isolation) is probably the largest you'll get in Canada.  But it does illustrate that there are some people who like big cities, and some who don't.  However, it is a hard sell to post young, single folks to CL for a decade or more, especially if said folks came from a place like Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.

I don't think I can move back to Toronto because of what you said, but I'd be perfectly happy with London ON, Kingston, or such.  Big enough that it has everything, but small enough that it's all busy for no reason. 

Actually, on second thought, I'll stay in Vancouver Island  thanks

 

[Quirky]

We have airspace where we train which is 25nm North of the base.  To drop weapons, we go to Valcartier (75 nm).  There is no such airspace around Edmonton.  The closest is the airspace surrounding the CLAWR which is too far (130 nm) from Edmonton to be useful (fuel limited) or efficient.  You'd spend 30-40 minutes transiting for 30-40 minutes of training.  Our transit is normally litterally 5-10 minutes normally.  The flight time fraction spent training would reduce dramatically, reasulting in more hours required to train someone up to the same level.  And that's for good weather with a 2-bag jet.  Then you are in the BFM/ACM phase (single centerline fuel tank jet) and need to hold alternate fuel and you get 10 minutes of training.  Not even worth launching for.

This seems like an issue with poor aircraft range of the F18 more than anything else. With the eventual purchase of the F35 this won’t be as big of an issue with the internal fuel load being 1500lb more vs a three bag F18. That will give you enough fuel to takeoff from YEG, go to CLAWR, do the mission, come back and do a couple low passes over whyte ave.

 

[GR66]

This seems like an issue with poor aircraft range of the F18 more than anything else. With the eventual purchase of the F35 this won’t be as big of an issue with the internal fuel load being 1500lb more vs a three bag F18. That will give you enough fuel to takeoff from YEG, go to CLAWR, do the mission, come back and do a couple low passes over whyte ave.

Is that an efficient use of fuel, time and airframe life?

 

[Quirky]

Is that an efficient use of fuel, time and airframe life?

The same question could be asked of loitering around Eastern Europe for 4 months training Romanian MiG-21 pilots.

 

[dapaterson]

Is that an efficient use of fuel, time and airframe life?

What's wrong with Whyte ave?

 

[PuckChaser]

Sure. But what do you do when you are not in Cold Lake?  Stop flying?  My point is that Edmonton is not suitable in term of distance from the training areas to have meaningful training accomplished.

Are not most Gen 4 and 5 aircraft supposed to be far more simulator heavy, vice actual butt in seat flight hours? There's absolutely no airspace anywhere near Edmonton you can fly in with a temporary ROZ? This is a future fighter problem, as moving the Sqns to Edmonton would likely coincide with the CF-188 replacement as you can't just pick up and move that many things.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Are not most Gen 4 and 5 aircraft supposed to be far more simulator heavy, vice actual butt in seat flight hours? There's absolutely no airspace anywhere near Edmonton you can fly in with a temporary ROZ? This is a future fighter problem, as moving the Sqns to Edmonton would likely coincide with the CF-188 replacement as you can't just pick up and move that many things.

Civilian airspace doesn't use a ROZ or any other ASCM though class F may be possible. Class G in a major city is right out of the picture. Even class F would be unlikely as ATC is unlikely to shut down approach/take off corridors to allow fighters to do anything other than to move somewhere else.

While I agree that army units should be garrisoned in cities and rural bases such as shilo and pet left only as trg bases I don't velieve it's feasible for the RCAF due to airspace restrictions.

 

[SupersonicMax]

The airspace you need has to be at least 40x80nm from 5,000 ft to 50,000 ft to be of use for the beyond visual range training.  Oh, it also needs to be supersonic.  Try setting up a supersonic airspace of those dimensions for most of the day during weekdays around an international airport...

5th gen or not, 20-25 minutes (one way) is still a long time to transit to your working area.  Now, add the requirements to hold enough gas to go to an alternate an you are stuck with the same as you would with the Hornets, unless you are an F-15E or an F-22 then gas is never an issue.

You could collocate tankers with then but then how many tankers do we have and how many are we going to get?

Quirky:  because it holds more gas doesn't necessarily mean you can stay up longer.  That engine burns a lot of gas... 

The Romanian deployment has a purpose for our government: pulling (or at least projecting we are) pulling our weight within NATO. 

 

[Underway]

The Romanian deployment has a purpose for our government: pulling (or at least projecting we are) pulling our weight within NATO.

Don't forget learning how to fight against the North Korean airforce.  Seems like they still operate Mig-21's as well...

 

[Good2Golf]

We have airspace where we train which is 25nm North of the base.  To drop weapons, we go to Valcartier (75 nm).  There is no such airspace around Edmonton.  The closest is the airspace surrounding the CLAWR which is too far (130 nm) from Edmonton to be useful (fuel limited) or efficient.  You'd spend 30-40 minutes transiting for 30-40 minutes of training.  Our transit is normally litterally 5-10 minutes normally.  The flight time fraction spent training would reduce dramatically, reasulting in more hours required to train someone up to the same level.  And that's for good weather with a 2-bag jet.  Then you are in the BFM/ACM phase (single centerline fuel tank jet) and need to hold alternate fuel and you get 10 minutes of training.  Not even worth launching for.

Really? 

A 0.3 each way is not practical? 

Fack!  And I thought a tanked CT-114 was fuel-critical at V2.  I didn't realize a CF-18 was such a useless hunk of metal. 

:not-again:

G2G

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Really? 

A 0.3 each way is not practical? 

Fack!  And I thought a tanked CT-114 was fuel-critical at V2.  I didn't realize a CF-18 was such a useless hunk of metal. 

:not-again:

G2G

To be charitable, I think the issue is a lack of viable IFR alternates within the Edmonton-Cold Lake cooridor.

 

[SupersonicMax]

You'll do a 1.5 in a mission.  So a 0.6-0.7 for transit isn't ideal.  That's half of your time spent transiting.  Depending on the training objectives, it may not be enough to complete the sortie.

Of course, we could just cruise at maximum endurance and fly a 2.5 but then you don't achieve anything....

Flying both the Tutor and the Hornet now, the Tutor is a LOT worst.

 

[Good2Golf]

To be charitable, I think the issue is a lack of viable IFR alternates within the Edmonton-Cold Lake cooridor.

As opposed to the plethora of viable IFR alternates in the YWA-YOW corridor in a 146. 

#sympathymeterbroken

 

[SupersonicMax]

To be charitable, I think the issue is a lack of viable IFR alternates within the Edmonton-Cold Lake cooridor.

Alternates in the "Cold Lake-Edmonton corridors" (or lack thereof) are irrelevant as you would still need to plan on flying to destination then to your alternate.  But of course, you knew this...

If you want to argue, at least bring up something relevant.  I am saying that from my fairly significant fighter experience, basing fighters in Edmonton isn't viable unless we get Raptors or Strike Eagles, or base a fleet of tanker to support daily operations in Edmonton.

I am happy to discuss but please bring uo facts and stop letting your hatred for me get in the way.

 

[Good2Golf]

Alternates in the "Cold Lake-Edmonton corridors" (or lack thereof) are irrelevant as you would still need to plan on flying to destination then to your alternate.  But of course, you knew this...

If you want to argue, at least bring up something relevant.  I am saying that from my fairly significant fighter experience, basing fighters in Edmonton isn't viable unless we get Raptors or Strike Eagles, or base a fleet of tanker to support daily operations in Edmonton.

I am happy to discuss but please bring uo facts and stop letting your hatred for me get in the way.

So let me get this right.  Protect CANR from Alaska to Greenland you're okay.  Transit from YED to YOD and you need a large fleet of KCs?  ???

Why don't you need  fleet of KCs to get from Bagtown to Valcatraz?

 

[SupersonicMax]

We have tankers to protect CANR.  We don't do it on our own and we don't exactly have the same mission profiles than let's say an opposed self-escort strike. But I somewhat expected you to know this.

As far as Bagtown is concerned, it's half the distance to the range and we only conduct some very limited mission profiles there (Academic Range, or Academic practice at dropping dumb weapons (and sometimes laser guided weapons).  The rest of the missions are conducted in the restricted areas North of Bagtown.

 

[Good2Golf]

We have tankers to protect CANR.  We don't do it on our own and we don't exactly have the same mission profiles than let's say an opposed self-escort strike. But I somewhat expected you to know this.

So when you eventually get to your ground tour in NDHQ, don't be surprised in your first interaction with Treasury Board Secretariat, should you be so lucky to have the opportunity to see past your aircraft checklist or unit SOPs or CONPLAN, that you consider that maybe that hill you would gladly have died on to defend the YED-YOD issue was in fact a mole-hill and there were bigger issues, as far as how Government sees that capability, writ large.  But until then, enjoy living life pushing into the NW quadrant - and I mean that genuinely. :nod:

Cheers
G2G

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Alternates in the "Cold Lake-Edmonton corridors" (or lack thereof) are irrelevant as you would still need to plan on flying to destination then to your alternate.  But of course, you knew this...

If you want to argue, at least bring up something relevant.  I am saying that from my fairly significant fighter experience, basing fighters in Edmonton isn't viable unless we get Raptors or Strike Eagles, or base a fleet of tanker to support daily operations in Edmonton.

I am happy to discuss but please bring uo facts and stop letting your hatred for me get in the way.

How in the actual Fcuk do you get that I "hate you" out of that quote?

I was stating a fact- if you do a hypothetical mission plan from Edmonton to the CLAWR and the nearest viable alternative is, say, Saskatoon and your fly to destination, fly to alternate plus hold gas add up to more than you can carry onboard, you don't launch. In effect, I was supporting your position that, for a lot of reasons, YEG would not be a good fighter base.

But go ahead- keep on being that charming ambassador of good will that we have come expect from the fighter world.  :