August 27, 2020 | Local, Aerospace
OPINION / L'avion qui doit enfin remplacer nos CF-18 devrait être choisi dans les prochaines semaines. Débuté en 1997 (!), ce processus devrait permettre à nos Forces aériennes de recevoir leurs premiers nouveaux appareils à partir de 2025. Trois aéronefs sont en lice : le F-35 A de Lockheed-Martin, le F-18 E de Boeing, dit le Super Hornet, et le JAS 39 de SAAB, dit le Gripen. Mais comment les départager ?
Tout d'abord, rappelons que chacun de ces trois appareils répond aux exigences de nos Forces aériennes. Le gouvernement évalue les trois possibilités selon les critères suivants : 60 % pour les performances/caractéristiques techniques des avions, 20 % pour les coûts et 20 % pour les retombées économiques au Canada.
En ce qui a trait aux performances/caractéristiques, le F-35 est le seul des trois qui soit « furtif », c'est-à-dire qu'il est pratiquement invisible pour les radars ennemis. Par contre, son rayon d'action sur réservoirs intérieurs est limité et avec des réservoirs extérieurs, il perd beaucoup de sa furtivité. Étant l'appareil le plus récent, c'est celui qui dispose des systèmes électroniques les plus modernes. En fait, la principale faiblesse du F-35 réside dans le fait qu'il s'agit d'un avion extrêmement capricieux, qui est affecté par un nombre incroyable de problèmes techniques, dont plusieurs sont toujours non résolus à ce jour. Il en résulte qu'en moyenne, au moins 50 % des F-35 livrés ne peuvent voler, étant en révision/réparation. Ce taux de non-disponibilité est l'un des plus élevés de tous les avions militaires existants et on questionne fortement la capacité réelle de cet avion à livrer ses performances théoriques. Un bon exemple de cela est que, lors du dernier spectacle aérien de Bagotville, un des deux F-35 américains (qui n'ont pourtant présenté que deux courtes démonstrations de 15 minutes) est tombé... en panne ! Au niveau des performances/caractéristiques, le Super Hornet est supérieur à nos CF-18 actuels, mais inférieur au Gripen, qui est plus fiable que les deux autres. Cet appareil est aussi le plus rapide des trois, le plus maniable, celui qui a le meilleur rayon d'action et est le meilleur en termes de combat aérien. Par contre, la capacité du Gripen d'opérer avec les autres avions américains est questionnée. Pourtant, cet avion effectue régulièrement des missions conjointes avec ceux des autres pays de l'OTAN et il a été déclaré admissible à tous les appels d'offres de remplacement des CF-18. De plus, comme son coût d'acquisition/utilisation est de loin le plus bas des trois avions en lice, cela permet d'envisager que même en y ajoutant des frais d'adaptation au système d'interopérabilité du NORAD, il demeurera bien plus abordable que les deux autres.
Au niveau financier, voici le coût total, par heure de vol, des trois appareils en dollars canadiens : le F-35, 58 300 $, le Super Hornet, 17 800 $ et le Gripen, 10 500 $ (source Aviatia). L'avion suédois est donc près de six fois moins coûteux que le F-35...
Au niveau des retombées économiques au pays, le Canada est déjà un « partenaire industriel » du programme F-35. Cela signifie que plusieurs entreprises canadiennes (et québécoises) sont qualifiées comme fournisseur, à raison d'environ 2,6 millions $ par appareil. Au total, il a été estimé que 325 emplois seront ainsi créés au Canada (soit 9500 personnes/années en 30 ans). Le ministère de la Défense du Canada a affirmé à plusieurs reprises que faire partie du programme industriel F-35 ne nous oblige pas à acquérir obligatoirement cet avion. Cependant, en termes de retombées économiques canadiennes, il est utile de rappeler que depuis 2009, le F-35 est considéré par les Américains comme un appareil à technologie « sensible ». Cela signifie qu'une bonne partie de l'entretien qui est actuellement réalisé par nos militaires à Bagotville et à Cold Lake, ainsi que par l'entreprise qui a pris la suite de Bombardier à Montréal pour les CF-18 actuels, sera réalisé aux États-Unis dans le cas du F-35.
Environ 2500 militaires et civils sont actuellement employés au Canada à l'entretien des avions de chasse. Combien perdront leurs emplois, notamment ici dans la région, si le F-35 est choisi ? De plus, durant les 30 ou 40 ans où nous utiliserons le F-35, les Américains ne pourraient-ils par augmenter sensiblement ces coûts d'entretien une fois que nous serons dépendants d'eux ? Pour le Super Hornet, le même niveau de retombées économiques qu'avec l'actuel CF-18 est à prévoir, alors que le fabricant du Gripen a déjà annoncé que, contrairement au F-35 ou au Super Hornet, il s'engage à le produire dans une nouvelle usine au Canada.
Bien que théoriquement supérieur, le F-35 est donc un choix prohibitif en termes de coûts et hasardeux au niveau de la fiabilité ou du nombre d'emplois en entretien qui seront perdus au Canada. Le Super Hornet est un choix performant, beaucoup moins cher et plus fiable que le F-35. Le Gripen est de loin l'avion qui répond le mieux à nos besoins, au moindre coût et avec la fiabilité maximale.
En terminant, souvenons-nous que le Super Hornet est fabriqué par Boeing, la même compagnie qui a réussi à faire imposer des droits compensatoires de 219 % aux Série C de Bombardier destinées aux États-Unis. Cela a précipité la chute de la division aéronautique du fleuron québécois, tout en lui faisant perdre sept milliards $ (dont deux provenaient du gouvernement du Québec). Le Gripen de SAAB est d'origine européenne. Ne pas toujours être dépendant des Américains, ça aussi, c'est défendre la souveraineté du Canada!
Roger Boivin
Président de Groupe Performance Stratégique
October 19, 2023 | Local, Land, C4ISR
The country's military ombudsman says efforts by the Department of National Defence (DND) to get care and treatment for former language and cultural advisers who worked with Canadian soldiers during the Afghan war have been "inadequate or nonexistent."
December 18, 2018 | Local, Aerospace, C4ISR
Backgrounder December 14, 2018 – Ottawa, Ontario – National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces Already a leader in civilian radar earth observation as a result of the launch of RADARSAT-2 in 2007, Canada will soon launch the three-satellite RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). This mission will carry a multi-mode synthetic aperture radar and an automatic identification system to enable enhanced ship tracking and provide greater awareness of Canada's territories as well as other areas of interest around the world where DND and its Allies operate. In order to enhance Canada's current and future earth observation capabilities, research and development is required to generate new approaches and tools to simplify and accelerate the tasking, collection, processing, exploitation and dissemination (TCPED) cycle. This cycle ensures that end-users have timely, relevant, accurate and actionable information products, such as maps and reports to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) applications. This type of Canadian investment in cutting-edge science and technology (S&T) innovations will guide the design of new advanced earth observation satellites that will eventually replace the RCM. The All Domain Situational Awareness (ADSA) S&T Program has funded several calls for proposals to support innovation including in the area of compressing TCPED cycle for earth observing satellites in support of applications in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. A recent ADSA call was undertaken through the Defence Innovation Research Program (DIRP) and resulted in the Government of Canada investing $6.7 million into 12 projects aimed at improving the TCPED cycle. Structured as 50/50 cost-shared contracts with funding shared equally between government and industry, the DIRP model promotes joint ventures between Canada's innovation industry and the Government of Canada, bringing the total public and private investment under this call for proposals to $13.2 million. The following are the contracts awarded under the second DIRP call for proposals for the TCPED initiative. Title Complementary Electro-Optic/Infrared (EO/IR) payload to RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) follow-on Supplier ABB Location Quebec, Quebec Project Type Study Federal contribution $305,000 (Total: $610,000) This project aims to help define mission objectives, requirements, and concepts for a secondary electro-optic/infrared payload for the RCM follow-on mission. It will also help identify critical technologies and risks. The combination of different types of remote sensing sensors on the same spacecraft has the potential to greatly enhance situational awareness capabilities especially with respect to maritime traffic monitoring. Title Project Arviq Supplier AstroCom Associates Inc. Location Ottawa, Ontario Project Type Study Federal contribution $165,000 (Total: $330,000) Project Arviq will investigate the feasibility of a proposed capability to detect ocean waves in sea ice. Arviq builds upon recent results that show centimetre-scale ice waves can be imaged directly using synthetic aperture radar interferometry technology. Title Multi-satellite data integration for operational ship detection, identification and tracking Supplier C-CORE Location St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador Project Type Study Federal contribution $775,000 (Total: $1,550,000) This study will investigate and develop a multi-satellite data classifying approach to enhance the capacity to discriminate ships from icebergs. Efficiently and rapidly classifying detected objects of interest in or over water is a key area of interest to the maritime domain situational awareness community. Title Modelling the geospatial intelligence capability to support Canadian surveillance and sovereignty Supplier C-CORE Location St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador Project Type Study Federal contribution $940,000 (Total: $1,880,000) This project will evaluate the spatio-temporal aspects of acquiring, downlinking and analyzing imagery for the generation of geographical intelligence products in support of land and maritime monitoring. It will investigate and develop a multi-satellite data classifier to better characterize ship and non-ship targets. Title Electro-Optic/Infrared data analytics for enhanced maritime surveillance Supplier Complex System Inc. Location Calgary, Alberta Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $200,000 (Total: $400,000) This project will develop an on-board video processing system which will be used together with space-based radar and ship dectection sensors to enhance near-real time vessel detection, tracking and identification. Complex Systems Inc. will develop a new data analytics system by leveraging leading edge computer vision and machine learning technologies and deliver a suite of advanced processing tools enabling enhancing maritime surveillance capabilities. Title RADARSAT thematic exploitation platform demonstrator Supplier CubeWerx Inc. Location Gatineau, QC Project Type Study Federal contribution $485,000 (Total: $970,000) This project will study complementary Big Data and Cloud computing approaches to support scalability, agility, and on-demand availability of earth observation data products. CubeWerx will develop a RADARSAT thematic exploitation platform and demonstrate a working environment where users can package their applications and upload them to a Cloud environment that supports the processing of users algorithms at scale, avoiding the need to download and store large volumes of images locally. Title Real-time processing of large-volume space-based multimodal data Supplier General Dynamics Mission Systems Location Ottawa, Ontario Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $75,000 ($150,000) This project will develop new approaches using emerging graphics processing unit architectures and the latest algorithms to process large volumes of satellite remote sensing data from multiple sources and types such as multiband radar, electro-optical and infrared sensors. Title Augmenting Canada's maritime surveillance capability with complementary electro-optic/infrared information products Supplier MDA Systems Ltd. Location Richmond, British Columbia Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $1,000,000 (Total: $2,000,000) This project will demonstrate how incorporating various types of space remote sensing satellite data elements can augment maritime surveillance capabilities with additional detections and improve classification, identification, and tracking. Title Application of Big Data analytics techniques to extracting GEOINT from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery Supplier MDA Geospatial Services Inc. Location Richmond, British Columbia Project Type Study Federal contribution $500,000 (Total: $1,000,000) This project will investigate Big Data analytics and automatization techniques to better exploit the large and growing data archives of RADARSAT-2 and the upcoming RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). It proposes to understand and demonstrate how Big Data analytics, in particular deep learning, can be applied to large archives of synthetic aperture radar imagery to extract relevant geospatial intelligence. Title Persistent multi-sensor land surveillance and change monitoring Supplier MDA Systems Ltd. Location Richmond, British Columbia Project Type Study Federal contribution $750,000 (Total: $1,500,000) This project will explore how wide-area automated change monitoring techniques can be enhanced by using a combination of earth observing data types such as RADARSAT and electro-optical data. The expected benefits include more persistent, more operational, all-weather monitoring capabilities combined with very high change classification accuracy. The project will leverage deep learning and exploit the availability of large satellite image archives. Title Architecture innovations for analytics-ready data Supplier UrtheCast Corp. Location Vancouver, British Columbia Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $1,000,000 (Total: $2,000,000) This project will demonstrate scalable warehousing and on-demand processing of analytics-ready space remote sensing data from multiple types of earth obervation systems, to enable emerging techniques including artificial intelligence to be used for the production of geographical information products. Title Complementary sensor exploitation Supplier UrtheCast Corp. Location Vancouver, British Columbia Project Type Study and prototype development Federal contribution $499,000 (Total: $999,000) This project will develop, implement and demonstrate a new system to deliver thematic maps derived from complementary satellite earth observation data sources in support of CAF land operations. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2018/12/government-of-canada-announces-contract-awards-aimed-at-improving-space-based-earth-observation-capabilities.html
July 23, 2019 | Local, Aerospace
GATINEAU, QC, July 23, 2019 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada is ensuring the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces have the equipment they need to do their jobs. As part of its defence policy, Strong, Secure, Engaged, the government is acquiring 88 advanced fighter jets to provide the capability the Canadian Armed Forces needs to ensure the safety and security of Canadians and meet its international obligations. This is the most significant investment in the Royal Canadian Air Force in more than 30 years. With it, the government will deliver the aircraft that meet Canada's needs, while ensuring good value for Canadians. This investment will support the growth of Canada's highly skilled workforce in the aerospace and defence industries for decades to come, from coast to coast. Today, the government achieved a major milestone in the process. Following extensive engagement with industry and eligible suppliers over the past 18 months, the formal Request for Proposals has now been released to eligible suppliers. The following suppliers have until spring 2020 to submit initial proposals to Canada: Sweden—SAAB AB (publ)—Aeronautics United Kingdom and Northern Ireland—Airbus Defense and Space GmbH (with MBDA UK Limited, L3 Technologies MAS and CAE Canada) United States—Lockheed Martin Corporation (Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company) (with Pratt and Whitney) United States—The Boeing Company (with Peraton Canada Corp., CAE Inc., L3 Technologies MAS Inc., GE Canada and Raytheon Canada Limited Services and Support Division) Canada will provide two opportunities for all bidders to demonstrate that they can present a plan to meet Canada'ssecurity and interoperability requirements. The security offer is due in fall 2019, and following feedback from Canada, bidders may revise and resubmit that offer as part of the initial proposal in spring 2020. Bidders will also have an opportunity to address deficiencies in their proposals related to mandatory criteria. Rather than being rejected immediately for not meeting mandatory requirements, bidders will receive feedback from Canadaso that they can address non-compliance. This approach has already been used for other large federal procurements and has proven to be successful in maintaining a high level of competition. All bidders will be subject to the same evaluation criteria, and proposals will be rigorously assessed on elements of technical merit (60%), cost (20%) and economic benefits (20%). This procurement attributes one of the highest weightings to economic benefits for Canada in its history. All suppliers will be required to provide a plan for economic benefits equal to the value of their proposed contract, with maximum points only being awarded to suppliers who provide contractual guarantees. This open and transparent competition is being monitored by an independent Fairness Monitor to ensure a level playing field for all potential bidders. The Fairness Monitor's interim report on the supplier qualification and engagement process found that activities were conducted in a fair manner. The Fairness Monitor provided the following statement to Public Services and Procurement Canada: "As the Fairness Monitor for the Future Fighter Capability Project, we have monitored the project throughout the qualification and engagement stage, including the development of the Request for Proposals, and we have identified no fairness deficiencies. It is our opinion that the process has been conducted in a fair manner. Decisions were made objectively and free from personal favouritism or improper influence, and the process encompassed the elements of openness, competitiveness, transparency and compliance." The evaluation of proposals, including any revised proposals, is expected to result in identifying the selected bidder in early 2022, with the first aircraft delivery starting as early as 2025. The Government of Canada will continue making progress on this significant project to ensure the safety and security of Canadians over the coming decades. Quotes "Our government is delivering on its promise to replace Canada's fighter jet fleet through an open and transparent competition. Today marks an important step in the process that will provide the women and men of the Royal Canadian Air Force with the aircraft they need to help ensure the safety and security of Canadians, at the right price and with the most economic benefit to Canada." The Honourable Carla Qualtrough Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility "The procurement of a fleet of 88 future fighter aircraft is an essential step forward that our government committed to in Strong, Secure, Engaged. This investment will mean that the Royal Canadian Air Force has what it needs to protect Canadians. It is essential that we get the right equipment that will serve our women and men in uniform for decades to come." The Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan Minister of National Defence "Concrete, lasting economic benefits for Canadians are a priority for this project. This procurement is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to support the growth of Canada's highly skilled workforce in the aerospace and defence industries. We are confident Canadians will reap the full value of this procurement process through investments, research and development, and good jobs for decades to come." The Honourable Navdeep Bains Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Quick facts The Government of Canada has remained engaged with the Canadian aerospace and defence industries since the launch of this process in December 2017, to ensure they are well positioned to participate in this procurement. A contract award is anticipated in the early 2022 timeframe, and the first replacement aircraft is expected to be delivered as early as 2025. Transition to a new fighter fleet will require continuing operations with the existing CF-18s until the new fleet reaches its full operational capability. The integration of additional Australian fighters is helping ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces has the equipment it needs to continue to deliver its missions, and to meet its international obligations. Associated links Future fighter capability project Fighter jets Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook SOURCE Public Services and Procurement Canada For further information: Marielle Hossack, Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Carla Qualtrough, 819-997-5421; Media Relations, Public Services and Procurement Canada, 819-420-5501, media@pwgsc-tpsgc.gc.ca Related Links www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/canada-announces-next-step-in-future-fighter-competition-838355040.html