18 janvier 2024 | Local, Aérospatial
Sustaining the Royal Canadian Air Force's fleet of CH-146 Griffon helicopters
The helicopters fulfill domestic and international missions, including tactical transport, emergency response, and search and rescue
8 novembre 2018 | Local, Aérospatial
Why do some planes in Canada lack potentially life-saving emergency beacons?
David Burke · CBC News
More than half of the 27,000 civil aircraft in Canada aren't equipped with a modern device that could save lives by allowing search and rescue crews to more easily find potential crash survivors, according to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
Modern emergency locator transmitters, or ELTs, emit radio distress calls that can be picked up by satellites, but many small, private and recreational aircraft use older technology that's of little use to rescuers if a plane goes down, because the signal is unlikely to be picked up.
"There's no way to tell where it's coming from, no way to tell the identity of the source," said Steve Lett, head of the Cospas-Sarsat Secretariat, the international organization that runs the satellite-based search and rescue system.
"It relies on the luck of having another aircraft possibly flying nearby and that aircraft having its receiver tuned to 121.5 MHz, and also that aircraft not assuming that it's some sort of a test."
Search and rescue satellites no longer pick up the 121.5 MHz distress signal, which isn't a problem for large commercial airplanes most Canadians use to travel because they use up-to-date ELTs.
Those systems are designed to go off when a plane crashes, sending a signal to orbiting satellites that is relayed to a mission control centre. Local search and rescue crews are then advised where they can find the crash site.
"Private aircraft, general aviation aircraft, they are not as closely supervised. They tend to crash much more frequently and yet governments ... the Canadian and U.S. governments included, continue to allow them to fly with only a 121.5 MHz ELT," said Lett, whose organization stopped monitoring the 121.5 MHz frequency in 2009.
The older distress signals weren't accurate, so Cospas-Sarsat began monitoring ELTs that emit a 406 MHz radio signal instead. Those signals are digital and capable of providing more accurate location information and even the identity of the aircraft.
But in Canada, it is not mandatory for planes to have a 406 MHz ELT.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada determined in 2016 there were approximately 27,000 aircraft registered in Canada that required an ELT, but only 10,086 equipped with a 406 MHz ELT.
Full article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/emergency-locator-transmitters-search-and-rescue-aircraft-planes-1.4895600
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14 mars 2019 | Local, Aérospatial
Canadian military wants retired pilots to come back - system needs to be flexible to allow that, says general
DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN The Canadian Forces says it is bringing in new initiatives to boost the numbers of pilots and the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff Lt.-Gen. Paul Wynnyk recently outlined some of those for Members of Parliament. At the Commons defence committee Feb. 28 Wynnyk pointed out the issue of pilots who are assigned to staff jobs but who want to keep flying. He suggested there could be changes that will allow that but didn't provide many details. Wynnyk did note that the call will be sent out for retired pilots to come back to the RCAF. “We're reaching out to retired individuals from the Canadian Forces and seeing if they'd like to join and particularly making it more flexible for pilots who have retired to go into the reserves to perhaps look at ways of getting into Cold Lake, Bagotville, or wherever we need to fly them,” he told MPs. Wynnyk also mentioned “potential bonuses” but didn't provide details. Late last year RCAF commander Lt.-Gen. Al Meinzinger told MPs the reasons behind the fighter pilots leaving but money appeared to be low on the list of issues forcing pilots to leave. “Certainly the feedback from those who are releasing is it's a question of family, challenges for their family,” Meinzinger explained to the Public Accounts committee. “There's a dimension of ops tempo, work-life balance, predictability in terms of geographical location, and then typically fifth or sixth are comments about financial remuneration.” “We find that, unless there's a degree of predictability and positive career management over that individual, we often find individuals who are vexed,” Meinzinger further explained. “They come up to a point where they may not have anticipated they were going to move, or we're asking them to move their family to a location where perhaps their spouse cannot find employment.” Another factor is that some fighter pilots are not happy being streamed into administrative jobs. They want to keep flying. “We find a lot of individuals often don't wish to move to headquarters and work in an office versus work in an aircraft,” the RCAF commander acknowledged. “We recognize that and respect it. But that dialogue, which must happen at the margin, before we force an individual to move, is very, very important.” The U.S. Air Force has had mixed results with its bonuses offered to stem the exodus of various pilots to commercial aviation jobs. Last year the USAF announced that, for the first time, some bomber, fixed-wing combat search-and-rescue, special operations, mobility and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance pilots would be eligible for the same maximum bonus that were previously given only to fighter pilots, Stephen Losey of Air Force Times wrote in December 2018. That maximum is $420,000 but to receive that a pilot must commit to serving 12 more years. “But turning on the cash spigot appears to have had limited effect,” Losey wrote. “According to statistics provided by the Air Force, the overall percentage of eligible manned aircraft pilots agreeing to take the bonuses — known as the take rate — increase from 44 percent in 2017 to 45 percent in 2018. That halted two years of declines, after the take rates dropped from 55 percent in 2015 to 48 percent in 2016, and to 44 percent in 2017. But even though the take rate ticked up, overall number of pilots signing up for retention bonuses dropped from 476 to 418, the statistics showed.” Losey's article is here: https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/12/10/alarming-number-of-mobility-pilots-decline-bonuses-to-keep-flying-overall-bonus-take-rates-tick-up-slightly/ https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/canadian-military-wants-retired-pilots-to-come-back-trying-to-make-system-flexible-to-allow-for-that
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6 novembre 2023 | Local, Naval
Canadian military begins investigation into allegation officer threatened to execute sailors on supply ship
Officer on Royal Canadian Navy supply ship allegedly threatened to execute fellow sailors because he was unhappy with their performance.