23 novembre 2018 | Local, Naval

Frigate design decision challenged in Federal Court, putting $60B program in limbo

Murray Brewster · CBC News

Winning bid 'incapable of meeting three critical mandatory requirements,' says Alion Canada

One of the losing bidders in the competition to design the navy's next generation of warships has asked the Federal Court to overturn the recent decision to award the contract to a group of companies led by Lockheed Martin Canada.

Alion Science and Technology Corp. and its subsidiary, Alion Canada, asked for a judicial review on Friday — a challenge that could mean more delays to the $60 billion program.

The company had pitched the Dutch-designed De Zeven Provinciën Air Defence and Command (LCF) frigate as their solution for the Canadian navy.

It's asking the court to set aside an Oct. 19 decision to select Lockheed Martin Canada the preferred bidder and to prevent the federal government from entering into negotiations with the company, which has offered up the BAE Systems-designed Type 26 frigate.

In their court filing, Alion officials argue that the winning bid was "incapable of meeting three critical mandatory requirements" of the design tender.

Notably, they say the Type 26 cannot meet the mandatory speed requirements set out by the navy and that both Public Services and Procurement Canada and Irving Shipbuilding, the yard overseeing the construction, should have rejected the bid outright.

Alion said it "submitted a fully-compliant and conforming bid at enormous expense" and argued it "has been denied the fair treatment (it was) owed."

The court application also points out that the design tender was amended 88 times during the 22 months it was under consideration and that the changes "effectively diluted the [warship] requirements" and allowed the government and Irving to select "an unproven design platform."

Rising cost estimates

Over two years ago, the Liberal government said it wanted to select a "mature design" for the new frigates, rather than designing a warship from scratch. Former public works minister Judy Foote said it would be a faster, cheaper solution.

Unlike its two competitors, the Type 26 has yet to enter service with the Royal Navy and competitors have privately knocked it as "paper ship."

Navantia, a Spanish-based company, was the other failed bidder. It headed a team that included Saab and CEA Technologies and proposed the F-105 frigate design, a ship in service with the Spanish navy.

The Liberal government plans to build 15 new warships and hoped to get construction underway in the early 2020s. The program, which has been beset with delays and rising cost estimates, is intended to replace the navy's aging Halifax-class frigates, the backbone of the nation's maritime fighting force.

Federal procurement officials had hoped to nail down a complete design contract with Lockheed Martin by the winter. The court challenge now puts that timeline in doubt.

It also has enormous implications for Irving, which has been concerned about a slowdown in warship production between the current Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship program and the frigate replacements, which are formally titled 'Canadian Surface Combatants'.

No one at Public Works or Lockheed Martin was immediately available for comment on Wednesday.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/frigate-design-decision-challenged-in-federal-court-putting-60b-program-in-limbo-1.4915501

Sur le même sujet

30 janvier 2018 | Local, Aérospatial

Auditor general to issue new fighter jet report in the fall
Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press Published Monday, January 29, 2018 2:03PM EST Last Updated Monday, January 29, 2018 4:31PM EST OTTAWA -- Six years after his explosive report on the F-35 derailed the Harper government's plan to buy the controversial stealth aircraft, federal auditor general Michael Ferguson is diving back into the fighter-jet file. Ferguson's staff have been going over internal government records for several months, though the auditor general's office won't reveal exactly what aspects of the program are under the microscope. The final report is scheduled for release in the fall. Ferguson's last report on fighter jets in April 2012 was a bombshell which found senior defence officials twisted rules, downplayed problems and withheld information about the Harper government's plan to buy 65 F-35s. The report forced the government to suspend the project pending a complete review, which eventually pegged the full cost of buying and operating the F-35s at more than $45 billion. Six years later, Canada still has not chosen a new fighter jet to replace its aging CF-18s. It is unlikely the auditor general will find the kind of serious problems with the government's efforts to buy fighter jets as the last time, as the overall procurement system has been revamped with a variety of checks and balances. The new review could instead turn on the government's plan to buy interim fighter jets and its arguably slow progress in holding a competition to replace the CF-18s, said defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. "How much benefit and at what cost will Canada obtain fighter aircraft by virtue of going through an interim fighter purchase as well as doing a life extension?" Perry said. "For me, one of the biggest concerns is that the process from this point forward is not exactly lightning quick." The Liberals announced in November that they plan to buy used fighter jets from Australia -- rather than new Super Hornets from Boeing -- as a stop-gap until the entire CF-18 fleet can be replaced. The new planes were originally expected by 2025, but documents provided to industry last week show the new target is 2031, as the government plans to take its time with a competition. The delay is almost certain to mean another round of expensive and complicated life extensions to the CF-18s, which will be 50 years old by the time the last are retired. Previous reports have determined that any life extensions to the CF-18s beyond 2025 would be "a high-risk option in terms of cost, schedule and technical factors." Many defence analysts and retired military officials have questioned the need for interim fighters and urged an immediate competition, rather than waiting several years. https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/auditor-general-to-issue-new-fighter-jet-report-in-the-fall-1.3780244
12 mars 2019 | Local, Aérospatial

Simulating the ‘SuperScooper’
by Lisa Gordon The Viking CL-415 “SuperScooper” is more akin to a pick-up truck than a sports car. It's a hardworking, amphibious turboprop that was built to fight wildfires. It flies low, battling blistering heat and blinding smoke, before releasing 13,500 pounds of water in six seconds – and then returning to a nearby lake where it skims the surface to reload. Introduced in 1993 by Bombardier, the CL-415 was essentially a turboprop version of its predecessor, the piston-powered CL-215. Today, there are close to 170 CL-215/415 aircraft in operation, mostly in Europe and North America. They are now supported by Viking Air, which acquired the program from Bombardier in 2016. Pilot training in the CL-415 has historically been done in the aircraft, but TRU Simulation + Training says that due to the unique mission it performs, those training flights can be dangerous. The South Carolina-headquartered company is a division of industry giant Textron Inc., and was formed following the amalgamation of several specialty flight simulation and pilot training companies, including former Montreal-based Mechtronix. About two years ago, TRU's commercial aviation division in Montreal began designing the world's first CL-415 full flight simulator (FFS) with the capability to replicate operations not only in the air, but also on the water. The company was able to draw on its recent experience of successfully building a Series 400 Twin Otter FFS for Canada's Pacific Sky Aviation in Calgary, Alta. – the world's first seaplane simulator with water-handling capabilities. “Before the Twin Otter project, hydrodynamic modelling is something we hadn't done before,” acknowledged Thom Allen, TRU's vice-president of Technology and Innovation. “It's like a boat simulator because you're modelling the buoyancy of the floats or the fuselage in the water. Interestingly, our engineers working on the Twin Otter program actually went to the library and researched how boats work on the water. Mixing the boat sim with the aerodynamic sim is the whole package.” He said the CL-415 experience took things one step further by adding the mission component – scooping the water – to the Twin Otter build. “From a safety point of view, the types of missions you do in a waterbomber are quite a bit different from a commercial aircraft. When you're scooping water and dropping it over a fire, training in those conditions is very dangerous. The tradeoff has always been between the quality of the training and the danger of doing that sort of training.” TRU's CL-415 FFS was delivered to Ansett Aviation Training in Milan, Italy, in September 2018 and certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in December to Level D standards. Although training courses have yet to be completed in the simulator, the hope is that both initial and recurrent pilot training will be done exclusively in the device. Allen said the operational characteristics of a CL-415 are complex and unique. “When you're flying over a very hot fire, you drop your water and the mass of the aircraft is cut in half. The turbulence effect is quite significant when you hit the updraft. The fire is creating turbulence, smoke, reduced visibility – and pilots are dropping every five or 10 minutes repeatedly, usually in rugged terrain at low altitudes. This is the part that made this project something new.” To gather accurate performance data, TRU rented a CL-415 and equipped it with flight test instrumentation. “We weren't doing fire drops with our engineers on board, but we did all the manoeuvres around that, and we brought in a number of senior CL-415 pilots to evaluate our work.” The result is the world's first high fidelity CL-415 simulator with the capability of replicating not just air and water operations, but various types and intensities of forest fires and changes in related environmental conditions. The cockpit noise level is accurately reproduced by a secondary audio system that – like the real aircraft – requires crewmembers to wear a noise-cancelling headset. Full article: https://www.skiesmag.com/news/simulating-the-superscooper
21 mars 2023 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense

Assistez à une séance d'information sur le programme DIANA de l’OTAN
Tout comme le Canada, nos alliés de l'Organisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN) cherchent à suivre le rythme de développement des technologies émergentes et perturbatrices. C'est pourquoi l'OTAN met en place l'accélérateur d'innovation de défense pour l'Atlantique Nord, ou DIANA. DIANA proposera de nouveaux programmes d'innovation dans toute l'Alliance, qui chercheront à profiter des opportunités et à contrer les menaces présentées par les technologies de pointe. L'équipe du Directeur général Innovation Recherche et Développement (DGIRD) du ministère de la Défense nationale et les Forces armées canadiennes (MDN/FAC) et le personnel du programme DIANA de l’OTAN tiendront des séances d'information virtuelles sur DIANA et sur la façon dont ce programme peut profiter aux innovateurs canadiens, à partir du 25 avril 2023. Le Canada étant membre de l'OTAN, les innovateurs canadiens pourront participer à tous les processus initiés par DIANA. À la suite de leur sélection par le programme, les innovateurs auront également accès à un réseau d'accélérateurs et de centres d’essai dans plus de 20 pays alliés en Amérique du Nord et en Europe. Les séances d'information suivantes sont disponibles pour les innovateurs canadiens intéressés. Notez qu'aucune inscription n'est requise pour ces sessions mais qu’un nombre maximum de 1000 participants est permis par session. Si vous n’êtes pas capable de participer à une des 4 sessions plus bas, un enregistrement sera disponible à une date ultérieure. Option 1 Date: 25 avril 2023 à 9h (HAE) Langage: Anglais Option 2 Date: 25 avril 2023 à 11h (HAE) Langage: Français Option 3 Date: 26 avril 2023 à 9h (HAE) Langage: Anglais Option 4 Date: 26 avril 2023 à 11h (HAE) Langage: Anglais Cliquez ici pour joindre la réunion Ou appelez (audio uniquement) +1 343-803-5382, 784218200# Canada, Ottawa-Hull ID de conférence téléphonique : 784 218 200# Trouvez un numéro local Cliquez ici pour joindre la réunion Ou appelez (audio uniquement) +1 343-803-5382, 784218200# Canada, Ottawa-Hull ID de conférence téléphonique : 784 218 200# Trouvez un numéro local Cliquez ici pour joindre la réunion Ou appelez (audio uniquement) +1 343-803-5382, 784218200# Canada, Ottawa-Hull ID de conférence téléphonique: 784 218 200# Trouvez un numéro local Cliquez ici pour joindre la réunion Ou appelez (audio uniquement) +1 343-803-5382, 784218200# Canada, Ottawa-Hull ID de conférence téléphonique: 784 218 200# Trouvez un numéro local Chaque séance d'information comprendra une présentation, suivie d'une période de questions et réponses. Les questions devront être soumises à l'avance, au plus tard le 14 avril 2023 à la boîte de courriel suivante : drdcnatodiana-rddcotandiana@forces.gc.ca. Pour avoir des informations additionnelles au sujet du programme DIANA, vous êtes invités à visiter le site internet du programme (en anglais seulement).

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