Canada orders more Airbus A330 tankers, hires firm to convert planes

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  January 28, 2021 | Local, Aerospace

  ‘First-class’ fighter pilot becomes eVTOL entrepreneur

  BY NATASHA MCKENTY | JANUARY 28, 2021 Estimated reading time 14 minutes, 58 seconds. Brandon Robinson's Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and Top Aces fighter pilot exploits compare to those of a protagonist in a blockbuster movie. After graduating from the Royal Military College of Canada with First Class Honours, his career quickly skyrocketed from frontline fighter squadron to being selected for the prestigious Fighter Weapons Instructor Course (FWIC) – the Canadian version of Top Gun. He obtained an MBA at Royal Roads University, and then did a tour in Ottawa where he “managed over $4 billion in procurement projects for the Fighter Force.” He spent the next few years instructing for FWIC. “Think ‘Viper' from the movie Top Gun,” he laughed. I then completed our Joint Command and Staff College program for those flagged for senior leadership.” While instructing for FWIC, Robinson earned the CF-18 fighter pilot instructor role at 410 Squadron in Cold Lake, Alberta, leading into oversight of CF-18 Fleet Tactical Standards, and then onto senior project management with a deputy director role in multiple Air Force projects. Robinson is modest. He credits his competitive nature “and a lot of luck” for his success. “I fully acknowledge that without exceptionally talented and competitive friends, I would not have passed, let alone have been fortunate enough to fly jets,” he told Skies. He found Military College to be physically and emotionally demanding, having a way of teaching you your limits and how to “be at peace with them.” Despite the challenges, he was one of the top five engineers in the program all four years. For Robinson, aviation was innate. His grandfather, RCAF Capt Eric Robinson was a Second World War bomber pilot. His father, Brian Robinson, began flying at the age of 14, but his hopes of joining the Air Force were grounded when he learned his vision wasn't good enough. “My father was very young when he and [my grandfather] built from scrap metal what is now a family airplane — an old RC-3 Republic Seabee aircraft.” Brian retired from his day job to turn the family hobby into a successful custom aviation engineering business. There was always “an army of airplanes” in and around Robinson's home. The first time Robinson piloted a plane, he was three years old. His grandfather let him sit in the seat in front of him. “I couldn't sit. I had to stand,” he laughed. “He said, ‘OK, you have control, so take us over there.'” That experience “made an imprint” for Robinson. After high school, much to his “mother's chagrin,” he joined the RCAF to “fly fast jets.” After military training, “there's a big [graduation] ceremony where they hand out the slots, and I remember looking at the card and seeing the CF-18 symbol on the bottom,” he said. Internally, he was bursting. Not surprisingly, when asked about the memorable moments of his career, he said it's difficult to choose. Robinson recalled, after being on the Squadron for just three months in Bagotville, Quebec, he was deployed to Hawaii for a joint exercise with the U.S. Navy. “The U.S. Navy has this big exercise, and the Canadians were asked to go,” he said. “So, we ferried CF-18s across the country, from Quebec to Comox, British Columbia. We overnighted, met up with an aerial refueler and then the next thing I know I'm in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, tanking off a refueler. There's a portion where, if you can't get gas, you're going to have to eject because you can't get back to land. I'm a 27-year-old kid who only has 200 hours of experience in this CF-18, and I'm over the middle of the ocean thinking, ‘OK, you better make this happen.' It's not the easiest maneuver either,” he laughed. Robinson shared the story of how he earned his call-sign: Repo. “I was flying, and my left engine essentially blew up; one of the main turbine hubs fractured. It severely crippled the aircraft, placing it into a reversionary control architecture. The engine was destroyed, and the aircraft was on fire,” he said. After 10 “very long seconds” of being “out of control,” he “dealt with the fire” and regained control. “I was able to land it safely back at the base. However, it was too badly damaged to fix. So, the joke was that the government had to repossess or repo it,” he laughed. “The damaged engine almost fell out when I landed.” He remembered flying low-level over the ocean while “shooting missiles at drones and dropping bombs on remote-controlled moving ships; being in front of 100 angry fighter pilots leading a NATO coalition strike mission; [and] early morning departures over Torrey Pines in California to dogfight over the ocean.” In 2018, with 20 years of service and a list of neck and spine injuries in his rear-view, he knew it was time to find adrenaline elsewhere. “You can't pull seven-and-a-half Gs for 20 years without hurting a few things,” he laughed. Leaving, he admitted, was a difficult decision, but entrepreneurship was also on his radar. The kid that grew up in rural Ontario, Canada, with an “army of airplanes” at his disposal and a military career most would envy, headed out to his next call of duty. He joined forces with his father to start Horizon Aircraft, an aerospace startup that is currently developing the Cavorite X5 — a new eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) design for the urban air mobility market. Horizon has been developing the Cavorite X5 for the past two years. The concept for the X5 came from the company's initial prototype, the X3 — an amphibious design with a hybrid electric power system. “When we were asked to push the performance even further, we naturally began investigating distributed electric propulsion and the potential for eVTOL modification of the core X3 concept,” explained Robinson. “That's how the X5 The five-seat Cavorite X5 is powered by an electric motor coupled with a high-efficiency gas engine, but is ultimately built for fully electric flight. Horizon is building the aircraft to fly at speeds up to 350 kilometers per hour, with a 450-km range. The focus is to produce an aircraft “able to do real work in harsh environments,” including disaster relief, medevac, air cargo and personnel transport. Today, Robinson has his hands full with multiple patents pending, including a “fan-in-wing design” that would allow the Cavorite X5 to fly either like a conventional aircraft or an eVTOL when required. The X5 “flies like a normal aircraft for 99 percent of its mission,” said Robinson. The wing design “allows the aircraft to return to normal wing-borne lift after its vertical portion is complete; when moving forward, the wings close up and hide the vertical lift fans.” Horizon is working towards a large-scale prototype it hopes to have flying by the end of 2021. Robinson has become comfortable fielding questions based on skepticism. He's built an army of support from his highly-skilled network, including Virgin Galactic test pilot and close friend, Jameel Janjua. “Our team is extremely experienced, formed out of my father's previous custom aviation engineering business. We also have an individual leading the technical development who has designed, built and tested two novel aircraft designs from scratch. https://skiesmag.com/news/first-class-fighter-pilot-evtol-entrepreneur

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  July 17, 2018 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  IDEaS Communiqué - Second Call for Proposals for Innovation Networks

  As outlined in Canada's defence policy, Strong, Secure, Engaged, adapting and innovating quickly are crucial to developing and maintaining capabilities that address the challenges presented by today's evolving global defence and security environment. To this end, innovation, knowledge, and problem solving are essential for Canada and its allies to mitigate threats and meet evolving defence and security needs. In that context, the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program will foster creativity and ingenuity in Canada by enabling the creation of networks of experts, providing support and opportunities to innovators, and by facilitating the integration and adoption of new capabilities for the defence and security communities. Multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary teams, termed Micro-nets, are invited to submit research proposals on the following Innovation Challenge area from the defence and security community: · Autonomous Systems: Trust and Barriers to Adoption The IDEaS Second Call for Proposals for Innovation Networks will provide non-repayable contribution funding to seed and sustain Micro-nets of at least five investigators from a minimum of three separate institutions or organizations from the academic, non-federal government, public and/or private sectors. A Canadian university must administer the contribution funds. Full details are available in the Innovation Networks Application Guide. Micro-nets must propose interdisciplinary research programs aligned with the Innovation Challenge. Funding will be provided by the IDEaS Transfer Payment Program, a federal government contribution program administered by the Department of National Defence. The total budget for this call is $9,000,000. Each Micro-net can request up to $1,500,000 over three years. Co-funding is not mandatory, however participants from for-profit organizations will be required to contribute up to 50% of their costs. Important dates: Online portal for submission of Letters of Intent: opens July 16th, 2018. Deadline for submission of Letters of Intent: August 31st , 2018, 12:00 pm (noon) EDT. Deadline for submission of the Full Proposal: November 30th, 2018, 12:00 pm (noon) EST. An information session will be held in English on July 31st, 2018. To register for this session please click on the link https://gts-ee.webex.com/gts-ee/onstage/g.php?MTID=e0abbbd4d9021dd4ade9bbd3d109c4d38 by July 26th, 2018. Please visit our website to learn how to register and apply for this call, and for more information about IDEaS. You may also contact us by email at IDEaS-IN.IDEeS-RI@forces.gc.ca.

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  December 1, 2020 | Local, Aerospace

  Canadian defense minister talks fighter competition and geopolitics

  By: Aaron Mehta; DefenseNews.com 20 November 2020 WASHINGTON — When the Trudeau government took office in 2015, one of the first appointments was tapping Harjit Sajjan, a combat veteran who served in Afghanistan, as Canada's minister of national defense. Sajjan is now one of the lonest-serving ministers of defense in Canadian history. After an appearance at the Halifax International Security Forum, Sajjan talked with Defense News about the country's long-awaited fighter jet procurement, as well as the nation's future on the world stage. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. Regarding the fighter competition, the plan is to either downselect to two jets in 2021, or make a final decision in 2022. Where does that decision stand? How has the coronavirus pandemic impacted the timing and size of the program? I'm very happy with the progress of the selection for our next fighter. And it's gone to a very good stage where we actually have three companies. I don't know exactly — because the team there that does the analysis is independent — which direction they'll go, of downselecting or how that's going to happen. So we'll see how the progress moves ahead. I can turn to your direct question regarding COVID-19. We initially, obviously, just like anybody, had some minor delays because we had to shift a lot of the resources to the pandemic fight. But we were able to shift our people back into dealing with our procurement very quickly because, as you know, defense is an essential service, and making sure that those jobs continue was very important to us. So the delays were actually very minor. And all the updates that I've reviewed so far [shows] that things are actually progressing extremely well. So you don't see any delays for that program likely coming as a result of COVID-19 or anything else? Right now I'm confident that we'll be able to make up any time because the shift that we made. [We have some] very good people [who] are running these very large projects, so we needed to shift some of that talent to the COVID-19 fight initially, for good reason. But in a few months, we were able to shift those people back to this program. Canada's defense budget is set to significantly increase in the coming years based on the 2017 defense policy agreement. You've recently said this will still happen, but some experts said that given the economic impact of the last year and given post-pandemic priorities, the defense budget might end up either changing or taking a cut. How confident are you that the targets that have been set are going to be hit, budget wise? First of all, the security challenges that we face around the world don't change. And that's an important point for everybody to take note of, and it's something that we took note when we conducted our defense policy review. This is one of the reasons why, when we put this defense policy together, we wanted to have a thorough cost analysis done early on based on the capabilities that we felt that we needed, not only for the defense of Canada but to be good partners as part of this financial command at North American Aerospace Defense Command or the Five Eyes [intelligence-sharing alliance] and the work that we do at NATO. So we made a decision to fund the defense policy for the duration, which is 20 years. So there was a government-level decision to do this, to carve it out of the fiscal framework, and that should give assurance to people how seriously we took this from the beginning. We looked at any type of financial challenges that a nation might go through, but we also knew that we needed to maintain the defense funding because, as you know, in the past, defense policies have been put out, but the money has not been included, and they had to be agreed upon every single year. Based on that experience, I can understand some of the concerns that some of these experts actually have, but this is something that we looked at right from the beginning, and the reason why we made a government-level decision to fund the defense policy for the 20 years. So it can't be just a very quick decision to change the defense budget. But more importantly, one of the things — probably one of the most important things that we need to take a look at, especially as we deal with COVID-19 — is the economic downturn, [is that] the defense industry adds a significant amount of well-paying jobs. So it's very important to keep these investments moving because this is about maintaining well-paying jobs across the country and supply chain that we have, connected with our allies, especially with the U.S. You mentioned global challenges. Something that recently emerged is this idea of the “Quad” between India, Japan, the United States and Australia. Do you see Canada having a role in that, and would you want to join? I can see what that initiative — what it was trying to achieve. But let's keep in mind: We already had some good mechanisms where we were working with — so for example, with the United Nations Security Council resolutions on sanctions monitoring in North Korea, that was where nations came together from all the nations that participated in the Korean conflict, Korean War early on, where we decided to up our support for [monitoring.] We created Operation NEON in Canada to provide the direct support. In fact, one of our frigates just completed their work with monitoring, and we have a surveillance aircraft still in the region conducting that work. So the work that the Quad does — I think it's extremely important. I think we need to have a much wider conversation of not just looking at the Quad, but we need to look at how allies are going to come together to look at how do we support places like the Asia-Pacific region and our Association of Southeast Asian Nations partners in the Indo-Pacific region. So I think it's a good effort, but I think we need to look at even more thorough analysis and look at what are the things that nations can contribute. There's also talk about whether to expand Five Eyes, perhaps by formally including Japan. Is the idea of a formal Five Eyes expansion something you support? First of all, Five Eyes is probably one of the most trusted agreements that we have. It's not just: “You sign an agreement, and you're part of a trusted group.” There are some very strict measures that every nation needs to take in terms of the security architecture that's needed inside your country, how we communicate — that provides a framework. That framework also includes a set of laws about governance, as well. But it does not preclude us from working with other partners, and [partners] having greater cooperation with the Five Eyes. And if ever down the road there's an opportunity, I think that's something that's to be kept on the table. But I think Five Eyes allows us to be able to work with likeminded partners, like Japan, and we're already doing some great work as it is. We'll see where the discussion goes. It seems like you're saying you're happy to work with other nations, and already do that, but that Five Eyes requires such a strict legal measure that a formal expansion might not make sense. What I'm going to say here is that there's a lot of good work already being done. When you have an expansion, that alone would require a significant amount of effort toward that. But I think right now we need to take a look at how do we use our current mechanisms to create the effects we need. Because there is a concern right now, and we need to support our ASEAN partners in the Pacific. And so it's better to look at mechanisms that we have in place and work toward a larger relationship. You've made pointed comments about China and the challenge from Beijing. Where's the greatest challenge from China for Canada? The Arctic? The Pacific? Is it economic? It's not just one thing, or pick one over another. I would say overall, the unpredictable nature that China has created, that when you go outside the international rules-based order — that was set up for good reason after the Second World War, of creating predictability — it's the unpredictability that China has created that's giving us significant concerns. So everything from freedom of navigation to how finances are used in countries to bring in influence. About the most important, the biggest one for us, is when they have a disagreement [they will] arbitrarily detain citizens. So we have two citizens who are detained. Australia just, I believe, had an incident very similar to ours. These are some of the things that cause nations around the world to take a [concerned] look. So I wouldn't say it's just one. The Arctic, I'll be honest with you, it will always be a concern for Canada because our sovereignty is extremely important to us. We want to work within partnerships under international laws. We want to do this, but a pattern that's created in other areas has caused concern for us in Canada. There's a debate among foreign policy experts over whether Canada has been too passive. Does Canada need to take a more robust foreign and national security policy stance, or are you comfortable with where it is now? I would say our stance has been misunderstood, then. If you look at the last five years alone, when we formed the government and I became defense minister, we didn't have a consistent engagement in the Pacific. Now we do. We're officially part of Operation NEON, conducting sanctions monitoring; we obviously, because of COVID-19, weren't able to do this, but we've had ships in the Pacific conducting visits, doing exercises as well, or being part of Exercise RIMPAC. And also increasing our whole-of-government approach. We put a battlegroup into Latvia that we lead, [forces] in Ukraine, we actually increased our role there, increased our footprint with the coalition to fight ISIS [the Islamic State group]. And the list goes on. We've actually commanded the NATO training mission in Iraq for the last two years. So when you look at what we do, it is quite significant. But I think in terms of — you can look at it as passive or active. We have to take a look at what does each nation bring to the table. And I remember having a conversation with [U.S. Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis about this. It's about utilizing the skill set of your closest allies and how you work together in creating effects for our diplomats. And that's exactly what Canada has been doing: being a credible partner to convene conversations to be able to move toward peaceful resolutions to disagreements. I wouldn't say that we've actually had to step back in any way. In fact, if you look at the record of what we've actually done, not only we've talked about increasing our spending, we've actually increased our capabilities and contributions at the same time. Aaron Mehta is Deputy Editor and Senior Pentagon Correspondent for Defense News, covering policy, strategy and acquisition at the highest levels of the Department of Defense and its international partners. https://www.defensenews.com/global/the-americas/2020/11/30/canadian-defense-minister-talks-fighter-competition-and-geopolitics/