May 14, 2018 | Local, Aerospace
In a two-by-three metre wind tunnel at the National Research Council of Canada's (NRC) aerospace research centre in Ottawa, aerospace engineers are gathering data for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) this week to validate the placement of the sniper pod on the centreline station of the CF-188 Hornet.
“For this configuration, we are running at close to takeoff and landing speeds to simulate the take off and landing of the F-18, about 100 metres per second or almost 200 knots,” explained Melissa Richardson, an aerodynamics research officer and the project manager for the testing process, as wind whipped over the inverted nose landing gear and sniper pod.
The CF-188 fighter jet has carried a certified sniper pod on the left side of the fuselage, below the engine intake, since the aircraft were upgraded in the early 2000. But lessons from recent operations over Libya in 2011 and Iraq and Syria between October 2014 and March 2016 convinced pilots they would have a better view of possible targets with the centerline placement.
“We found a lot of our missions revolved around looking at the ground, monitoring areas of interest and targets for missions that are four to five hours long,” said Capt Tom Lawrence, a CF-188 pilot and the project officer for fighter weapons and equipment.
“When [pilots] are manoeuvring their aircraft, there is a chance of the aircraft actually masking the targeting pod. Putting [it] on the centre of the aircraft allows a larger field of regard.”
Rather than bank left to maintain focus on a target, the new placement should ensure an uninterrupted view of the ground or target aircraft, “taking that frustration out of the pilot's mind,” he said. “They can just focus on the imagery and the task at hand.”
Lawrence said it could also make it easier for pilots to employ weapons and assess battle damage effects.
The purpose of the wind tunnel tests is to measure the aerodynamics created by the nose landing gear on the sniper pod mounted behind it at times when it is most exposed to turbulence, said Richardson. Among concerns before the tests began were the effect of significant vibration on the pod and the possibility of debris being kicked up by the wheels and striking its protective glass shield.
“[We need to] make sure the aircraft is safe to operate with the sniper pod on this new location. That means it can take off and land without excessive vibration, that the loads are still within acceptable limits,” explained Capt David Demel, the certification authority with the RCAF's Technical Airworthiness Authority.
“This is the goal of the current wind tunnel test, to confirm that before we move to the flight test phase in Cold Lake in the September timeframe.”
A second a high-speed equivalent test will be conducted by the NRC at its high speed trisonic wind tunnel in about three weeks, using a six per cent scale model, that will include ensuring engine intake airflow is not affected. Test pilots with the Operational Test and Evaluation Unit in Cold Lake will then recertify operational airworthiness of the sniper pod in its new placement.
While the testing facilities are being provided by the NRC, the vibration data is being gathered and analyzed by Bombardier, which has provided some of the instrumentation. The sniper pod and landing gear were installed in the wind tunnel by L-3 MAS, which will have the task of mounting the pods in the new location on the entire CF-188 fleet–including the 18 F/A-18 Hornets the government is negotiating to buy from the Royal Australian Air Force–once approved.
“We're all collaborating on the project as it goes through each phase, from technical airworthiness to operational airworthiness,” said Lawrence.
https://www.skiesmag.com/news/rcaf-planning-new-sniper-pod-placement-cf-188-hornet/
December 19, 2022 | Local, Naval
The new figures presented to the House of Commons provide a limited window into some of the spending so far on the Canadian Surface Combatant or CSC project.
April 7, 2020 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
By Elliot Hughes. Published on Apr 6, 2020 10:20am "It's safe to say that everyone involved in defence procurement should expect a significant shift to the right in timelines, and a retrenchment and re-focus towards projects that align with the government's recast military and geopolitical priorities." Since everyone is either overrun with work or inundated with COVID-19 news, here's the bottom line up front (or the BLUF in military jargon): the COVID-19 pandemic will have a material impact on all aspects of Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE), Canada's defence policy. These changes will be felt acutely in defence funding, overseas operations, and defence procurement, though it's too early to predict the scale of the impact. There you have it. You can now go back to watching Tik Tok videos. For those choosing to forge ahead, it was only last week that Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Chief of the Defence Staff General Jonathan Vance laid out the domestic military response plan to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dubbed Op LASER, the plan will prioritize slowing the spread of COVID-19, support vulnerable communities, and assist provincial, territorial and municipal partners, if needed, by mobilizing up to 24,000 regular and reserve force members, all while maintaining the Canadian Armed Force's (CAF) ability to respond to natural disasters in Canada via Op LENTUS. This announcement was preceded by a letter to all CAF members from General Vance where he outlined the global pandemic's impact on Canada's military. In the letter, General Vance tells troops and their families in no uncertain terms that ‘normal activities have changed dramatically'. Too true. But the impacts of COVID-19 won't stop with the women and men in uniform. SSE was a historical investment in Canada's military, with new funding in the tens of billions of dollars ($48.9B on an accrual basis, $62.3B on a cash basis) from a party that some felt was not inherently defence friendly. The 20-year plan set aside hundreds of billions of dollars ($497B on an accrual basis, or $553B on a cash basis) to rebuild, retool, and refocus Canada's military after years of neglect during the Harper years. With unprecedented levels of new funding, DND finally had the plan, the funding, and the political commitment to move forward with confidence, poised to become the agile and adept military of the future. Then the world was hit with a global health crisis. In the face of the pandemic, the federal government has, to date, announced combined direct economic measures and tax deferrals of $190B. The numbers are eye-popping, and the implications of such spending are hard to fathom. The deficit this year and next could creep up towards $200B. Now, there's no question these fiscal measures are necessary and non-structural, meaning they could be unwound depending on how the Canadian economy looks post-COVID-19. The soaring deficits will place tremendous pressure on government to reduce its spending in non-COVID-19 areas in favour of healthcare and related priorities. DND/CAF had already been struggling to spend the money it had been allocated in SSE, and that was before their annual budgets increased significantly. People within and outside of government were beginning to question the department's ability to absorb the money they had been given. It is my view that COVID-19 will force Defence officials, with or without urging from Finance Canada, to use the upcoming five-year review period of SSE to re-assess and re-prioritize the entire strategy. In fact, that work is likely already underway. There are some who suggest that defence spending is a good way to get money flowing back into the domestic economy, particularly through the manufacturing supply chain. And there are areas that should remain off-limits to claw backs including big ticket procurements like the Canadian Surface Combatants (CSC) and Future Fighter Capability Project (FFCP), programs that directly support troops and their families, domestic operations and disaster relief, investments to support the development of defence and security capabilities such as the IDEaS program, IT investments (including in data analytics and updating key IT infrastructure), deferred maintenance, and perhaps most critically, cyber defence. Everything else will be fair game. Ring-fencing and reprioritizing essential programs won't be easy. But under the current circumstances, it's the right thing to do. Every department should be prepared to do the same. Overseas operations, including joint military exercises and training, is another area COVID-19 will have a direct and material impact. At this juncture, it's hard to know how big a role the CAF will be asked to play domestically. The situation in Canada is evolving by the hour. The dreaded peak of the pandemic has yet to hit. While we should remain optimistic, we also need to be realistic. This means the military should be poised to intervene if required. We know that close to a quarter of all active troops are on standby and depending on the severity of the crisis, this number could go up. On any given day, approximately 8,000 troops are involved in some form of deployment – preparing to ship out, actively engaged in theatre, or returning from mission. It's hard to see how this rotation rhythm escapes the reaches of COVID-19. Indeed, General Vance alluded to this in his letter stating, ‘mission postures would be reviewed', and that this year's ‘Annual Posting Season (APS) will be seriously disrupted'. It's likely the pull towards supporting domestic efforts will be strong. That doesn't mean the desire to re-engage internationally won't persist. However, the ability to do so will depend on how the situation unfolds here in Canada, the willingness of countries abroad to welcome back foreign troops, and the impact COVID-19 has on the geopolitical landscape. (This is by no means an endorsement of that view. Canada should do everything it can to remain engaged internationally wherever possible, particularly with respect to humanitarian missions). Cyber defence is one domain we should do everything we can to remain engaged in. But while Canada's expertise and influence on the world stage is undoubtedly a positive one, this global pandemic will inevitably lead to a further focusing of our most critical interests. Defence procurement, and the potential implications of COVID-19, is an area of acute interest to the defence community. This subject could be an entire article in and of itself (and if you're looking for the latest analysis on how DND/CAF was doing on procurement spending I'd encourage you to read David Perry's piece from December 2019). However, broadly speaking, it's worth noting that before this global health crisis hit, DND/CAF were progressing on procurement. Many projects, though not all, were moving ahead, even with the structural constraints and limitations of government processes holding them back. Large procurements, namely jets and ships, were plagued with delays that are expected for any large procurement. Now, given the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic, those typical speed bumps are bigger than before. The reality for defence procurement today is that the pace of work has come to a grinding halt. Nearly all personnel across government are working from home. Government IT challenges persist, with DND staff having to coordinate amongst themselves to schedule when they can log on to their system. And any work requiring access to a secured system is a non-starter as this would require being in the office. The Defence department is a bit like an aircraft carrier in that it takes time to get up to full speed and doesn't handle sharp corners very well. This crisis will expose that rigidity. But it isn't simply DND that needs to get back to work for defence procurement to start moving again – it will take a government-wide effort. For the process to run effectively officials from a range of government departments, including Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS), Finance Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard and Global Affairs Canada, need to be fully engaged. Today, those Departments are focused almost exclusively on addressing the immediate challenges posed by COVID-19, with this to continue for the foreseeable future. Moreover, one also needs to consider the impact COVID-19 is having on companies bidding on projects. The entire supply chain has been hit and it will take months to get it humming again. How significant an impact this delay will have, and on which projects, is difficult to predict today. But it's safe to say that everyone involved in defence procurement should expect a significant shift to the right in timelines, and a retrenchment and re-focus towards projects that align with the government's recast military and geopolitical priorities. We are still in the early days of this crisis. Government is projecting a return to some sense of normalcy in July, at the earliest. The run-on impacts of that kind of pause are hard to comprehend, with a full understanding of the entirety of COVID-19 impacts likely to take even longer still This is a once-in-a-century event, with every person and institution expected to face indelible consequences. The very nature of the defence department, its size and scope, means we should expect a proportionate impact. https://ipolitics.ca/2020/04/06/how-covid-19-could-remake-canadas-military/
December 7, 2018 | Local, Aerospace
MIRABEL, QC, le 15 août 2013 /CNW Telbec/ - L-3 MAS, avec son partenaire Avianor Inc., a annoncé aujourd'hui que le gouvernement canadien lui avait accordé le contrat pluriannuel subséquent visant à poursuivre le soutien en service (SES) complet de la flotte d'Airbus CC-150 Polaris du ministère de la Défense nationale (MDN). Ce nouveau contrat pluriannuel de SES du CC-150 représente une valeur potentielle de 683 millions de dollars et établit L-3 MAS comme entrepreneur de soutien au CC-150 du gouvernement jusqu'en 2018, entente à laquelle pourraient s'ajouter deux périodes de cinq années d'option. L-3 MAS avait obtenu le contrat intérimaire de SES du CC-150 en juin 2012. Les t'ches relevant de ce contrat seront exécutées à la base d'opérations du client à Trenton, Ontario, ainsi qu'aux installations de L-3 MAS et Avianor à Mirabel, Québec. « Nous comprenons l'importance stratégique des missions de la flotte de CC-150 et nous sommes honorés que le gouvernement canadien nous ait sélectionnés une fois de plus pour ce programme », a déclaré Jacques Comtois, vice-président et directeur général de L-3 MAS. « Depuis l'attribution du contrat intérimaire en juin dernier, l'équipe de L-3 MAS s'est consacrée à fournir à cette flotte stratégique du MDN un soutien stable et le meilleur rapport qualité-prix possible. Ce succès démontre toute l'importance que L-3 MAS accorde à ses clients, à la qualité de son travail et à ses relations d'affaires à long terme en tant que principal fournisseur canadien de SES pour des aéronefs militaires. » « Avianor est extrêmement heureuse de pouvoir continuer à participer au soutien de la flotte canadienne de CC-150 et de démontrer ses capacités exceptionnelles en maintenance, réparation et révision (MRO) commerciales », a ajouté Sylvain Savard, président et copropriétaire d'Avianor Inc. « Notre expérience avec les Airbus, notre agilité et notre structure tarifaire très concurrentielle nous permettront d'assurer une disponibilité opérationnelle maximale et d'offrir le meilleur rapport qualité/prix au gouvernement canadien. » La flotte de CC-150 Polaris est exploitée par le gouvernement pour des fonctions de haute importance comme le transport VIP et le ravitaillement en vol stratégique, ainsi que pour le transport de passagers et de marchandise et pour le transport médical. En tant qu'entrepreneur principal, L-3 MAS assurera la gestion globale du programme et du matériel, les services de soutien technique ainsi que l'entretien quotidien des appareils de la base des Forces canadiennes (BFC) Trenton. De son côté, Avianor prendra en charge les travaux d'entretien majeurs de la flotte ainsi que les services de réparation et révision des composants depuis ses installations à Mirabel. https://www.newswire.ca/fr/news-releases/l-3-mas-choisie-une-fois-de-plus-pour-assurer-le-soutien-en-service-de-la-flotte-dairbus-cc-150-du-mdn-512805701.html