Thales Appoints Chris Pogue as New Managing Director of Canadian Defence & Security Business

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  11 janvier 2019 | Local, Aérospatial

  AETE to join testing “centre of excellence” in Ottawa

  by Chris Thatcher The Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment (AETE) is unlikely to move from 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alta., until at least 2021, but already its location is attracting interest from potential future tenants. “The AETE building is the second-largest we have on the base, [so] there are a lot of eyes on my hangar,” Col Eric Grandmont, AETE's commanding officer, told Skies in a recent interview. While no one has shown up with paint swatches and asked to measure for new drapes, “a few people at different levels did walkthroughs,” he said. “There is a lot of interest, and rightly so. It could help a lot in the transition as new fighter capabilities come in and allow the base to grow.” The AETE hangar had been considered a likely destination for a new squadron of Boeing F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornets, had the government proceeded with a plan to acquire 18 aircraft as an interim measure to augment the Royal Canadian Air Force's current fleet of 76 CF-188 Hornets. Though the Liberals have since opted to acquire 25 Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18 Hornets–18 operational and seven for spare parts–following a commercial dispute with Boeing, the AETE building is still part of the RCAF's future expansion plans for the fighter fleet. AETE's pending move made headlines in early December when Patrick Finn, the assistant deputy minister for materiel (ADM Mat) at the Department of National Defence (DND), told the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that the $470 million allotted for acquisition of interim fighter jets and an upgrade program to the entire Hornet fleet also included funding to cover AETE's relocation. The comment touched off an exchange with the committee chair, Conservative MP Kevin Sorenson of Battle River-Crowfoot, Alta., over when the decision was made and whether it might impact jobs in Cold Lake. In fact, the possible relocation of AETE dates back to the Defence Renewal Plan, an effort begun in 2012 to streamline business processes, find efficiencies, and maximize operational results across the Canadian Armed Forces and DND. As part of a change introduced in 2016 to how the RCAF and ADM Mat contract maintenance and support service, known as the Sustainment Initiative, DND conducted a review called the Engineering Flight Test Rationalization to assess ways to make AETE more sustainable, effective and efficient. The Flight Test Establishment had originally moved to Cold Lake from Ottawa in 1971 to take advantage of the large test range and more favourable flying climate. At the time, AETE owned a substantial fleet of instrumented test aircraft. Today, of the RCAF's 19 fleets of aircraft, AETE operates just two: two CF-188 Hornets and two CH-146 Griffons. It also has five CT-114 Tutors that are used mostly for proficiency flying. “For the remaining 17 fleets, we go on the road and deploy to do testing,” explained Grandmont, a flight test engineer. “Which means we are on the road a lot.” As fleets have become more digital, AETE has changed how it conducts tests. Where in the past an aircraft might have been instrumented from nose to tail–a process that could take months–AETE now has instrumentation packages that leverage the digital architecture of aircraft and can be quickly installed on location. “The technology is there to be able to get pretty much all the data we need,” he said of the newer and upgraded fleets. “Every project will have specific requirements, so it doesn't mean we don't have to put string gauges and stuff like that on an aircraft, but we are trying to maximize the existing systems onboard the aircraft.” However, that expanded travel, which can range from three to seven months a year, has made it difficult to attract test pilots and flight test engineers to Cold Lake. Aside from fighter pilots, who are already based at 4 Wing, few from the transport, tactical aviation, maritime patrol, maritime helicopter and search and rescue fleets are willing to volunteer. “We are asking people to move their family to Cold Lake and then deploy all the time to do testing,” said Grandmont. “And it's not that easy to travel to and from Cold Lake. It can become a 14- to 15-hour day or a two-day (trip) each way.” In addition to attracting and retaining talent–“I am starting to have a line up just based on the news from a couple of weeks ago; there are already people calling and asking, when are you guys moving?” said Grandmont–the return to Ottawa would also allow AETE to capitalize on testing resources already at the Ottawa International Airport operated by Transport Canada, which also employs test pilots and flight test engineers, and the National Research Council Canada's flight research laboratory. Transport Canada and the NRC focus primarily on commercial flight, but all three organizations use similar support systems to develop aircraft instrumentation packages, to test basic systems, and to analyze data. Transport Canada also has a new flight simulator building to accommodate the CAE 3000 Series helicopter cockpit simulators for the Canadian Coast Guard Bell 412EPI and Bell 429 helicopters, as well as fixed-wing simulators for a Cessna Citation C550 and a Beechcraft King Air. “We gain a lot of efficiency because those simulators are way cheaper to operate than what we do right now,” said Grandmont. The aim would be to create a Canadian centre of excellence for flight test science, engineering instrumentation and evaluation, he added. Among AETE's 50 to 60 recent and current projects were systems testing on the CH-147F Chinooks prior to their first operational deployment to Mali under hot and dusty conditions; preparation of the CH-148 Cyclone maritime helicopter for its first deployment aboard HMCS Ville de Quebec in summer 2018; test and evaluation of CF-188 Hornet systems and gear as the RCAF finalizes an upgrade package; and testing of systems and the airframe as the CP-140 Aurora completes a four-phased incremental modernization project and structural life extension. “Any question that cannot be answered using computer models or wind tunnels, then flight test is the last test to be able to answer those questions before a system on an aircraft can get an airworthiness certification,” explained Grandmont. https://www.skiesmag.com/news/aete-to-join-testing-centre-of-excellence-in-ottawa

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  25 novembre 2019 | Local, Autre défense

  Defence Procurement’s Effectiveness Dissected at Ottawa Conference

  By James Careless How well is Canada's defence procurement actually working, and are industry-boosters like ITBs paying off? These and other questions were tackled at the ‘Defence in the 43rd Parliament' one-day conference on November 20, 2019. It was staged by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI) at the Chateau Laurier hotel, before a full house in the Adam Room. During the opening session, ‘Canadian Defence Procurement – The State of the Union', DND Associate Deputy Minister Claude Rochette was cautiously upbeat about the state of Canadian defence procurements. In the last year, DND has signed about 12,000 contracts and spent about $6 billion on procurements, he said. Most of these contracts were on time and on budget. 2019's defence procurement spending is up from $4.9 billion spent by DND in 2016, Rochette noted. In addition, this year DND will “close out its budget” by spending its allocated funds, he said. Despite some criticisms that Canadian defence procurements are not moving fast enough, “we are doing pretty well,” said Claude Rochette. But the process isn't perfect, he admitted. “We have more work to do.” Rochette's positive assessment was echoed by PSPC Associate Deputy Minister Michael Vandergrift. 2019 “has been a very busy time” in Canadian defence procurement, he said, During the past year, the federal government issued an RfP for the Future Fighter Capability project; sole-sourced Light Armoured Vehicles from General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada; and selected Lockheed Martin to built 15 Canadian Surface Combatant ships. Asked which defence procurements are going well and which are posing challenges, Rochette replied that smaller projects that fall within DND's $5 million spending authority are easy to manage. Where issues crop up is in large multi-million dollar projects with long time lines: Trying to cost them accurately and manage them effectively is akin to asking, “I want to have a car and buy it next year, so tell me how much I'll pay for it (right now),” he said. In a later morning session entitled, ‘Offsets – Is the ITB Policy Delivering?', the panel considered the impact of procurement bidders ‘overcommitting' to ITBs (promising financial benefits worth more than the contracts they are bidding for) on the Canadian defence industry. Such ITB overcommittments, which can be worth 300% or more than the contract being sought, are “introducing unnecessary risk” in the Canadian defence industry, said Rich Foster, Vice President of L3 Harris Technologies - Canada. The result of overcommitting is that contractors are “now focussed more on quantity than quality” in making their procurement decisions, he said. The real victims of ITB overcommittments are SMEs, which lack the resources available to large companies to pay for these big ITBs. The choice facing these SMEs is to directly/indirectly seek such contracts – which can run 20-40 years – “or you go out of business,” said Brian Botting, Director of Strategic Offsets at General Dynamics Missions Systems. “It is a terrible dilemma for them to be in.” The CGAI procurement conference ended with the panel discussion, ‘Defence Procurement Canada'. This is the name of the integrated procurement agency the Liberals proposed during the October 2019 election, to replace the multiple ministries currently sharing this responsibility. The common sense reason for having a single defence procurement agency comes down to human nature: “If you ask two of your kids to take out the garbage, it won't get done,” quipped Alan Williams, President of The Williams Group. “If you ask one of your kids, maybe it will get taken out.” He explained that sharing procurement among ministries causes requires agreement between multiple ministers and deputy ministers – which wastes time -- and that Canada's military allies manage their procurements through single agencies. Creating a separate Defence Procurement Canada (DPC) agency would not be easy, said Jim Mitchell, Research Associate with the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Speaking from his own government experience, Mitchell observed that such changes are “disruptive, costly, difficult, hard on people, and hurt efficiency and effectiveness for a few years.” Mitchell added that creating DPC would not prevent Treasury Board and other ministries from having a role in defence procurement afterwards. CGAI Fellow Gavin Liddy was just as pessimistic about the value of creating DPC when so many defence procurements are underway. If the government wants “to do one single thing to delay the procurement agenda in the next five to seven years,” then they should instruct defence bureaucrats to create the DPC, Liddy concluded. “Nothing would divert their attention more than doing that.” http://www.canadiandefencereview.com/news?news/2765

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  15 juin 2018 | Local, Naval

  It's make or break time for Canadian Surface Combatant bidders

  DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN The companies bidding on the Canadian Surface Combatant program will provide Irving Shipbuilding with their “cured” bids by July 21. Earlier this year, Postmedia reported that all three bidders in the competition failed to meet some of the federal government's requirements. The problems centre around technical issues. Some are minor but in other cases there is a view among defence industry officials that Canada is asking for too much in some areas such as radar, which may be causing problems with meeting requirements. Public Services and Procurement Canada spokeswoman Michèle LaRose earlier said the bids received for the Canadian Surface Combatant project have not been disqualified. Three bids have been received. The federal government and Irving Shipbuilding are still evaluating the proposals, she added. LaRose pointed out that the evaluation is at the second stage in the process. Government officials say that involves what is known as “the cure process” in which bidders will be given details of how their proposals have failed to meet the stated criteria. They will then be given only one opportunity to fix issues with their bids. So those fixes are to be submitted by July 21, according to industry representatives. If the bids are still considered “non-compliant” after the cure period they “will be eliminated from the competition,” according to the federal government. The budget for the Canadian Surface Combatant project is estimated by the federal government to be between $55 billion and $60 billion. That is a range but specific costs won't be known until contacts are signed and more details worked out. Fifteen warships will be built. Pat Finn, assistant deputy minister for materiel at the Department of National Defence, told Defence Watch he expects a winning bid to be selected by the end of this year. http://calgaryherald.com/news/national/defence-watch/it-is-make-or-break-time-for-canadian-surface-combatant-bidders/wcm/49777bbd-d1e9-44df-88f8-603850e12ae3