November 9, 2020 | Local, Naval
David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, Postmedia News (dpugliese@ottawacitizen.com)
Published: Nov 06 at 10:29 a.m.
Updated: Nov 06 at 7:20 p.m.
The Canadian government is spending around $650 million to buy new missiles and launchers from the U.S. for the Royal Canadian Navy.
Canada is buying 100 Standard Missile 2 Block IIIC missiles and 100 MK 13 Vertical Launch Systems.
The total estimated cost of the purchase is $500 million U.S., according to the U.S. government, which posted details of the deal on Thursday.
The U.S. State Department announced it had approved the pending sale and Congress has also been notified. It is expected to proceed but there were no details about when the weapons would be delivered.
The missiles will be installed on the 15 Canadian Surface Combatant ships, according to the U.S.
Raytheon Missiles and Defense of Tucson, Ariz., will build the weapons.
Last year the Liberal government signed a deal that would lead to the eventual construction of 15 Canadian Surface Combatant warships in the largest single government purchase in Canadian history. A final contract, however, has not yet been signed.
Lockheed Martin offered Canada the Type 26 warship designed by BAE in the United Kingdom. Irving is the prime contractor and the vessels will be built at its east coast shipyard.
Construction of the first ship isn't expected to begin until the early 2020s.
But the Canadian Surface Combatant program has already faced rising costs. In 2008 the then-Conservative government estimated the project would cost roughly $26 billion.
The overall project is currently estimated to cost around $60 billion.
The $60 billion price tag is now being examined by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
That report was supposed to be delivered to the House of Commons government operations committee on Oct. 22 but has been delayed. No new date has been provided on when the report will be delivered.
“Approximately one-half of the CSC build cost is comprised of labour in the (Irving's) Halifax yard and materials,” according to federal government documents obtained by this newspaper through the Access the Information law.
But some members of parliament as well as industry representatives have questioned whether the CSC cost is too high. There have been suggestions that Canada could dump the Type 26 design and go for a cheaper alternative since the project is still in early stages and costs to withdraw could be covered by savings from a less inexpensive ship.
In 2017 then Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette, estimated the CSC program would cost $61.82 billion.
The entry of the BAE Type 26 warship in the Canadian competition was controversial from the start and sparked complaints the procurement process was skewed to favour that vessel. Previously the Liberal government had said only mature existing designs or designs of ships already in service with other navies would be accepted, on the grounds they could be built faster and would be less risky. Unproven designs can face challenges as problems are found once the vessel is in the water and operating.
But the criteria was changed and the government and Irving accepted the BAE design, though at the time it existed only on the drawing board. Construction began on the first Type 26 frigate in the summer of 2017 for Britain's Royal Navy.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
March 30, 2022 | Local, Aerospace
The Canadian government has chosen the F-35 as its preferred replacement for the air force's four-decade-old CF-18 fighters and will open negotiations with the stealth jet's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.
April 9, 2019 | Local, Aerospace
Montreal, Canada, April 2, 2019 – Marinvent is pleased to announce the successful delivery of its Airfoil Performance Monitor product (APM) to the Government of Canada following extensive independent flight testing by the National Research Council under the Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP). APM monitors and displays the margin to stall of an airfoil and detects the real-time effects of icing, contamination, and degradation on the lifting surface of any airfoil and in all phases of flight. The recently-concluded flight evaluations conducted independently by NRC-FRL conclusively demonstrated the following unique capabilities of APM: Provides stall warning and backup airspeed indications and is completely independent of all aircraft-side inputs except power. (it needs no airspeed, air data, angle-of-attack, or flap position inputs). Gives the correct stall warning margin, even with contaminated (iced or otherwise degraded) airfoils. Correctly detects compressibility stalls at high altitude. Provides tail stall warning which is particularly relevant to a number of UAV platforms. Provides correct diagnosis of contamination early during the takeoff roll (Air Florida Flight 90, Arrow Air, and Dryden, among others). Provides real-time data enabling significantly reduced fuel consumption and brake wear and enabling better predictive maintenance scheduling, helping to pay for itself by reducing aircraft operating costs. “APM is a mature product having been successfully tested on several Part 25 jet and turboprop aircraft, as well as numerous Part 23 light aircraft and business jets”, said Dr. John Maris, President of Marinvent. “It is available for installation today. The Canadian government is our first customer under the BCIP program, and we have also made our first forays into the UAV market, which desperately needs this technology particularly for Canadian winter operations”. Dr. Maris, whose doctoral thesis “AN ARCHIVAL ANALYSIS OF STALL WARNING SYSTEM EFFECTIVENESS DURING AIRBORNE ICING ENCOUNTERS” led to the final development of APM, has made his academic life's work the study of the relationship between aircrew and angle of attack/stall warning systems. He is one of the world's leading authorities on this subject, which is particularly pertinent currently, and is also a Transport Canada Test Pilot DAR. Dr. Maris is an Adjunct Professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada as well as being President of Marinvent Corporation and inventor of APM. In recognition of the potential impact of APM, SAE named APM as the 2017 Aerospace & Defense category winner in their Create the Future competition: https://contest.techbriefs.com/2017/entries/aerospace-and-defense/8422 About Marinvent – Marinvent is a privately held Canadian company, founded in 1983. Marinvent is headquartered on the outskirts of Montreal, the leading aerospace center in Canada and one of the largest aerospace centers in the world. Marinvent provides consulting, services, training, tools and IP to reduce customers' program/product risk, cost and schedule and to help them innovate quickly. Its engineers, experience, TCCA DARs, flying avionics test bed, research simulator and IP make it a reliable and trusted partner for the planning and management of projects, regardless of size and complexity. Marinvent's customers include aircraft OEMs, integrators, tier 1s, tier 2s and Government customers around the world. Marinvent prides itself of helping its customers bring their products to market and has a stellar track record of doing exactly that. As a result, Marinvent has won numerous awards in recognition of that fact. http://www.marinvent.com/wp-content/uploads/APM-First-Customer-April-2019.pdf
May 12, 2021 | Local, Naval, C4ISR
The Liberal government has approved the purchase of a U.S. radar system for installation in the Royal Canadian Navy’s new fleet of warships.