September 14, 2018 | Local, Naval
DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN
The Lockheed Martin-BAE team pursuing the Canadian Surface Combatant created a stir on social media among defence observers when it suggested earlier this week that its bid had been qualified for the program.
Three consortiums had submitted bids for the CSC program, with a winner expected to be announced by the end of the year.
Industry is closely watching which firms might be qualified for the $60 billion project.
So on Sept. 10 a tweet by the Lockheed Martin/BAE team raised more than a few eyebrows. “BAE System's Type 26 meets all requirements in the CSC proposal, including speed.”
So was the team announcing their bid had been qualified? What was particularly intriguing is that some industry representatives have been for several months continuing to claim that the Type 26 can't meet speed requirements for the Royal Canadian Navy. It appeared that the Type 26 folks were confirming they had received the thumbs up from the CSC evaluating team. Or had they?
A spokesman for Public Services and Procurement Canada gave Defence Watch a rundown on where the program was at. The CSC evaluation is still ongoing and none of the three bidders have received any details yet on whether their proposals have been deemed “compliant.”
It turned out that the tweet was simply the view by the Lockheed Martin/BAE team that their bid would be deemed compliant.
Here is what Lockheed Martin responded with when asked by Defence Watch about the tweet: “Based on our technical and professional expertise and analysis of the requirements established for CSC, we are confident that our entire solution meets or exceeds the technical requirements established in the RFP and it is based on that degree of certainty that we have communicated our message.”
April 8, 2022 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
OTTAWA - The federal Liberal government responded Thursday to months of pressure from the NATO military allian...
February 13, 2019 | Local, Naval, C4ISR
DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN Here are some updates on defence and aerospace industry contracts and appointments, that I outlined in the latest issue of Esprit de Corps magazine: The Canadian government has awarded a contract to Saab Microwave Canada for radar upgrades on the Halifax-class frigates. The $21.7 million contract is to procure a modern electronically-stabilized antenna set for the Sea Giraffe 180 radar, already installed on the frigates. The contract includes an option to acquire 12 more antenna sets, which could bring the total investment to $97.5 million, according to the federal government. Sea Giraffe 180 is a medium-range air and surface search radar. The upgrades to the antenna set will enhance its performance, increase its reach to up to 180 km, and provide new 3-D detection and tracking capability, according to the government. The frigate to receive the first antenna is currently expected to be HMCS St John's, in early 2021. The installation will coincide with its planned maintenance period schedules. The first M-345 HET (High Efficiency Trainer) production basic/advanced trainer aircraft built by Leonardo successfully performed its maiden flight at Venegono Superiore airport in Varese, Italy in late December. The Italian Air Force, the launch customer, has a requirement for up to 45 M-345s (designated the T-345A by ITAF) to progressively replace 137 MB-339s, which first entered service in 1982, and to become the Italian Air Force's new aerobatic team airplane. At this point, the Italian Air Force has placed an order for five aircraft and the first will be delivered in early 2020. The new M-345s will integrate the M-346s used during the advanced training phase of the Italian Air Force's pilots. The new M-345 HET (High Efficiency Trainer) reduces the time required by Air Forces to train pilots, according to Leonardo. It also gives trainees the chance to fly an aircraft that features higher performance characteristics than other basic/advanced trainer aircraft currently in service around the world. The performance of the M-345 allows it to carry out the most demanding mission types found in a training syllabus, delivering high quality training at significantly lower cost. The M-345 cockpit architecture is the same as the frontline fighters. The M-345 can also perform operational roles, thanks to an extended flight envelope, with a high-speed maneuvering capability even at high altitudes, modern avionics systems, high load capacity and performance. Rheinmetall recently transferred a new nautical training facility to the German Navy School in Mürwik on the Baltic. One of the most advanced facilities of its kind, the German Navy will use it for training its bridge personnel, the company noted. It will be used for training all German Navy cadets, all future watch officers, and for preparing bridge personnel for nautical operations. The capability spectrum of the facility ranges from basic navigation and nautical training through to crew resource management, according to Rheinmetall. The facility includes two large and four small bridge simulators, six trainer stations, an auditorium for post-operation briefings as well as additional infrastructure for planning exercises and administrating and updating the database. Every surface combatant now in the German inventory – from minesweepers to supply ships – is modelled in the facility. This applies not only to the physical depiction of various ships and boats, but to their exact performance characteristics, Rheinmetall noted. In mid-December the Canadian Coast Guard received from Davie Shipbuilding the Captain Molly Kool, its first new icebreaker in the last 25 years. It is the first of three icebreakers that Davie will refit for the Coast Guard to fill a capability gap. The ship is named after Myrtle “Molly” Kool of New Brunswick who went on to become the first woman in North America to become a licensed ship captain. The federal government has approved a five-year contract extension with Quebec-based firm L3 MAS for the continued maintenance of the Royal Canadian Air Force's fleet of five CC-150 Polaris aircraft. The contract, valued at up to $230 million, is a renewal of the original in-service support contract awarded in 2013 to L3 MAS in Mirabel. The original contract included extension options for two five-year periods. The work will be done at Mirabel and at 8 Wing Trenton, ON where the fleet is based and operated by 437 Transport Squadron. The CC-150 Polaris is a multi-purpose, twin-engine, long-range jet aircraft that is used for strategic air-to-air refueling and transport. Two CC-150 Polaris aircraft are configured for strategic air-to-air refueling and the rest are used for transport and other roles. First-level maintenance will continue to take place at 8 Wing Trenton. The contract secures L3 MAS as the government's CC-150 support contractor up to March 2023, with eligibility for additional years (up to March 2028), subject to satisfactory performance. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/radar-upgrades-for-halifax-class-frigates-and-other-news-on-defence-contracts
November 23, 2018 | Local, Aerospace
CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA — The Trudeau government pressed ahead with its plan to buy second-hand fighter jets from Australia on Tuesday despite withering fire from the federal auditor general, who warned that the military might not have anybody to fly them. Six years after blowing up the Harper government's plan to buy new F-35s without a competition, auditor general Michael Ferguson targeted the Liberals' own attempts to buy jets. He first picked apart the government's aborted plan to purchase “interim” Super Hornets to bolster Canada's aging CF-18 fleet, and then its current plan to buy used Australian fighters. The government says those extra fighters are needed to address a shortage of CF-18s until a state-of-the-art replacement can be purchased and delivered — a lengthy process that will run through 2032, at which point the CF-18s will be 50 years old. But the auditor general's office arrived at a very different conclusion: The military doesn't need more planes because it doesn't even have the pilots and mechanics to operate what it already has. What it really needs, the office found, is more people. “The shortage of personnel in relation to technicians means that they don't have enough technicians to prepare and maintain the planes,” Casey Thomas, the principal auditor on the fighter jets study, told reporters on Tuesday. “And they have 64 per cent of the pilots that they need, so they don't have enough pilots to fly the planes. What National Defence actually needed was to increase its personnel.” The auditor general's report also flagged concerns that the government's plan to sink $3 billion into the current CF-18s and additional Australian fighters to keep them flying to 2032 won't be enough, as the money won't actually improve the aircrafts' combat systems. Without more money, which some analysts have suggested could mean hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars more, Canada's fighter-jet fleet will become even more obsolete, to the point where the plans might not be any use at home or overseas. Yet only a few hours after the auditor general's report was released, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced that the Liberals had signed a contract to buy the 18 second-hand jets from Australia. Officials have pegged the cost at around $500 million. Sajjan also said he had directed officials to look at options for upgrading the combat systems on the CF-18s and Australian fighters, which he acknowledged would mean investing more money into aging fighter jets. Missing from the announcement: Any new funding or other initiative to increase recruiting and retention of pilots and technicians. Instead, Sajjan said the government and military have already introduced several initiatives through the Liberals' defence policy last year, such as giving tax breaks to military personnel deployed on overseas missions, to give them reasons to stay. At the same time, the minister sidestepped questions about recruitment, saying the military can't reduce its standards for new pilots. He noted that commercial airlines are also facing a significant pilot crunch. Air-force commanders have previously said the current training system, which can only produce 115 new pilots each year, a fraction of whom are fighter pilots, is not fast enough to replace all those who move on to commercial opportunities. The subtext to much of the auditor general's report on Tuesday was the question of how Canada ended up in a position where the military will be flying fighter jets until they are 50 years old. The Liberals were urged early in their tenure to launch an immediate competition to replace the CF-18s. Instead they spent two years working to buy those stopgap Super Hornets before a trade dispute with the company that makes them, Boeing, saw the government move on to the used Australian jets. The Trudeau government insists that it was doing its due diligence, but critics — including numerous retired air force and defence officials — have accused it of trying to bend procurement rules to avoid buying the F-35. Yet even before the Liberals took the reins, the Harper government was having a hard time making any progress on buying new fighter jets. The Tories championed the F-35 before resetting the entire process in 2012. That move was prompted by Ferguson's first report, which accused defence officials of misleading parliamentarians about the stealth fighter's costs and various technical issues. National Defence later pegged the full lifetime cost of the fighters at $46 billion. “Lot of people had a hand in this,” said defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, adding that the worst part is there is no easy or obvious solution to what has become a very troubling situation for Canada and its military. “I think our fighter force is in trouble.” https://lfpress.com/news/national/liberals-press-ahead-with-second-hand-jets-amid-questions-over-who-will-fly-them/wcm/859a3329-9d8b-4856-af7f-5c8064e778e7