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  December 15, 2022 | Local, Aerospace

  Canada not sending fighter jets to Europe next year as Air Force rearms, regroups

  The decision is raising eyebrows given the West’s current tensions with Russia and the ongoing war in Ukraine

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  February 8, 2021 | Local, Aerospace, C4ISR, Security

  For CAE the future means expansion in cyber, space and more defense acquisitions

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — With defense budgets around the globe expected to fall, simulation and training firm CAE is moving to diversify its defense and security portfolio, with an emphasis on space and cyber capabilities. Dan Gelston, who took over CAE's defense and security business unit in August 2020, told Defense News that his team is also looking to partner with defense primes during the early stages of new competitions, a shift which could require CAE investing in research and engineering efforts. Over the last two decades, CAE was “very focused” on traditional platforms, particularly planes and unmanned aerial vehicles, Gelston said. Now, he expects the future of the company to involve “a real focus on space and cyber, not only for that customer, but also for CAE. And those are areas that we need to augment our capabilities to make sure that we're providing the best product, the best service to help our customers.” The full interview will air as part of CAE's OneWorld event Feb. 9. CAE reported just over $1 billion in defense revenues in 2019, which made it the highest-ranked Canadian company on the annual Defense News Top 100 list. Currently, Gelston's unit makes up about 40 percent of the company's overall business, but he sees a chance to hit a “much larger” market going forward. Gelston's plan includes increasing the “security” part of the company's “defense and security” portfolio by aggressively pursuing contracts for government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration. This would competing for what he describes as a “multi-hundred-million dollar opportunity with TSA here in the next few months” for training security forces for airports. “With space assets ability to target, with cyber assets ability to attack anywhere and everywhere, it's not just the Pentagon, it's critical infrastructure, it's a lot of what we traditionally have separated into DHS. So that security element is crucial,” he said. “We could really bring a lot of our research and development, our capabilities in machine learning and AI and virtual reality and augmented learning management systems” to DHS, which “you could categorize a little more of a traditional time phased approach to training.” As the company seeks to expand into the non-defense security realm, Gelston said the company is keeping an eye out for potential merger and acquisition options, saying “I certainly would like to think in the next 18 to 24 months a property would come along, that's particularly attractive to me.” 2020 was a rocky year for CAE, which was hit particularly hard given its ties to the commercial aviation space. But the company worked quickly to shave costs, and toward the end of the year issued a public offering, with the goal of raising roughly $2 billion Canadian ($1.56 bn American). The plan, as Gelston said, was to have enough “dry powder to make sure that we're coming out leaning forward out of the COVID crisis. We don't want to be hunkering down just trying to survive. We want to take advantage of this.” While not discussing specifics, Gelston emphasized that “I'd love to get a little more robust training capability in the cyber realm... that's an area that that I can certainly see augmenting with potential acquisition here in the next 18 to 24 months if the right property comes along, I think we would be positioned to potentially pursue that.” Teaming with defense manufacturers That focus on new areas doesn't mean the company is turning away from traditional defense projects, but it does come with a greater focus on teaming up with prime contractors early in the process to offer the DoD and other customers a package solution from the start, as opposed to bidding on training and simulation contracts after a design has been selected. He pointed to the surprise rapid test-flight of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) demonstrator from last September as an example of how defense acquisition is speeding up. “Our defense acquisition officials are really looking for skin in the game from industry” early on, he said. “We don't have the time for the classic cost-plus development work, years and years and multiple phases” of a project. “No company, even the big OEMs, have unlimited research and development budgets. No company, even Lockheed Martin, has unlimited engineering assets,” he continued. “So if I can partner with these OEMs on these major next generation platforms now and start co developing as they develop the platform, I'm codeveloping the training in the simulation experience, and sharing some of that burden, adding skin into the game for research and development engineering — It's not just money, it's also time, and time, arguably right now is our is our biggest enemy — I can really help those OEMs and give them a true discriminator in their offering.” “And certainly at the end, that international or us customer is going to be much better off as they've got a fully baked, fully integrated training and simulation solution with that new platform.” In addition to looking into NGAD, Gelston said the company plans to pursue nearer-term contracts related to the F-35 joint strike fighter, MQ-9B drone, and the Army's Future Vertical Lift competition, while also continuing ongoing efforts like its C-130H business, which was awarded in 2018. https://www.defensenews.com/training-sim/2021/02/08/for-cae-the-future-means-expansion-in-cyber-space-and-more-defense-acquisitions

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  September 29, 2020 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  COVID-19 further delaying some overdue military procurements

  Lee Berthiaume OTTAWA — While the federal government is pressing ahead with plans to buy billions of dollars worth of much-needed equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence's top procurement official says COVID-19 is further slowing down some already delayed purchases. The past six months have seen a number of major milestones for Canada's beleaguered military procurement system, including last week's unveiling of the first of 16 new military search-and-rescue planes after 16 years of delays and controversy. Procurement officials are also now reviewing three bids that were received from fighter-jet makers at the end of July as Canada inches closer to selecting a replacement for the aging CF-18s following more than a decade of political mismanagement. The list of recent successes also includes Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding having delivered the first of six new Arctic offshore patrol vessels in late July, while progress has been made on a number of other files, such as the long-overdue purchase of new engineering vehicles for the Army. Yet some of those milestones would have been achieved earlier had it not been for COVID-19. And Troy Crosby, the Defence Department's assistant deputy minister of materiel, acknowledges many other projects are being affected as well. That includes the more than 100 military procurements — roughly half of them dealing with new equipment and the rest focused on building new infrastructure on Canadian Forces bases across the country — that were listed as already delayed before the pandemic hit. "COVID didn't speed anything up," Crosby said in an interview with The Canadian Press. "I think everybody would understand that that's going to have some impact. And exactly what that impact is difficult to tell right now." Delays in military procurements can have several impacts. In some cases such the CF-18s, the Canadian Armed Forces is being forced to keep using equipment that was supposed to have been retired years ago. In others, delays drive up the cost of the new purchases due to inflation. The projects most likely to be delayed due to COVID-19 are those in production, Crosby said. Examples include the construction of new naval ships by Irving and Seaspan ULC in Vancouver, which have had to adopt physical distancing and other COVID-19 measures at their shipyards. "For the projects that are at a stage where the work is office-based ... once we got over that initial hump as everybody had to as we moved toward a remote-work posture, the work continued," said Crosby. "If you're in a shipyard and you're trying to advance the production of a ship given all of the physical distancing requirements and the health and safety considerations, that's challenging." Crosby has previously argued much of the frustration around military procurement is the result of unrealistic expectations born of a lack of understanding and appreciation for how the system — which is dealing with more projects than at any time in recent history — actually works. COVID-19 has also prompted speculation the Liberal government could start cutting back on its promise, unveiled in 2017, to spend $553 billion on the military over the next 20 years. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan told The Canadian Press earlier this month that the funding is "secure." Asked about the spending plan — which is contained in the Liberals' defence policy and known as Strong, Secure, Engaged — Crosby said: "Strong Secure Engaged continues to be our focus and it laid out a program of work and we're trying to get that program of work delivered. "It's been that way right through this whole COVID situation. That hasn't changed anything. ... The people in the materiel group, the people we're working with across government, we're all seized with the program forward." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2020. https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/covid-19-further-delaying-some-overdue-military-procurements-1.24211049