Spencer100 said:
I can not comment if this is right or not. But I usually don't agree with Byers on the face of it. But I would love to hear everyone else's take on it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/rescues-require-helicopters-not-parachutes/article25042329/
He is way off base here. I am not sure why, but it may be a pre-emptive strike at the expected FWSAR "announceable" that no doubt will occur before the election. That is just my speculation though.
Some of his arguments may have merit, but the overall argument is weakened by his examples:
- SAR in Greenland - There are 2 x helicopters that do SAR under contract - a Sea King in Sondestrom, and a Griffon (Bell 212) on the southern tip. That is it. And the Cormorant is FAR more capable than the Sea King or Griffon. https://www.airgreenland.com/charter/products/search-and-rescue
- US Coast Guard - Has HH-60 Jayhawks and MH-65 Dolphins. The Cormorant has more range and payload capacity than both of these types. Oh, and they also have 42 FWSAR assets too..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipment_of_the_United_States_Coast_Guard
- The Americans, British, and Danes - bad examples if you are trying to say that they use commercial aircraft, which is the reason for that example. The USCG uses Hercules and CASA's, the RAF now uses Hercules since the Nimrods were retired, and the Danes don't have a dedicated FWSAR asset.
In a country the size of ours, it is astounding that someone would suggest that we DON'T need FWSAR. Considering there are plenty of locations that are simply out of reach of Cormorants but still within our area of SAR responsibility (mid-Atlantic Ocean, vast stretches of the Arctic), we simply must have some means of getting to people as fast as possible, and a Hercules is much faster than a Cormorant (with a lot of other advantages as well - range, endurance - amount of droppable kit, etc). The suggestion that we could simply have a commercial aircraft forgets the fact that we
already use commercial aircraft for searches. RCC's will use whatever asset is available to start searches immediately (commercial, CASARA, CF, whatever....), while the primary SAR assets are enroute. However, searching is all the commercial aircraft can do. They can't "rescue", and surely the rescue portion is rather important.
What Mr.Byers also didn't mention about the Igloolik incident is that Sgt Gilbert was the 3rd of 3 SAR Techs that jumped to the site. The hunters
were successfully recovered, but obviously at a tragically high cost. Had that been a commercial aircraft only conducting the search, they would likely have found the hunters and waved to them while waiting for the Cormorant. The Hercules which did arrive on site dropped rafts, equipment, food, radios, etc in addition to the SAR Techs. And you need a ramp to do that...
One item that I agree on is his point about having a common asset between Tactical Airlift and SAR. That would seem to be an efficient use of resources. It is what the Air Force has now with the Hercules, though it uses the old fleet for SAR, and the new fleet for Tac Airlift. Should the C130J win the FWSAR bid, that dual-role would be continued.
I am sure we would all love to see SAR assets and crews on 24/7 Standby everywhere in the country, including the North. But with only 14 Cormorants, 13 Hercules, 5 Buffalos and some Griffons allotted, it is simply not possible to have more than the number of bases the CF has at the moment. Heck, the loss of that single Cormorant in Nova Scotia a few years ago was directly responsible for the reduction of the number of Cormorant bases from 4 to 3 (with Trenton replaced with the Griffon).
But feel free, Mr.Byers, to advocate for a significant increase in the defence budget to increase aircraft, crews, bases, etc for SAR. Or, if no more money is coming, then please identify which current CF capabilities you would like to see abandoned to make room (financially and personnel-wise) for an increased SAR role. Ideally this discussion would be part of a National Security Strategy.
I am certainly not against an increase in SAR resources, but there are no easy or perfect solutions that don't involve some sort of compromise between cost and capability.
Harrigan