Nouvelles

DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN Two RCAF Challenger aircraft are too old to be upgraded with the modern systems required to meet new regulations for civilian airspace. Canada has cut a deal with the United States to allow two of the military's aging Challenger jets to continue to operate in American airspace despite not having the required new air traffic control equipment on board. The two Royal Canadian Air Force Challenger aircraft, used for VIP transportation and other military duties, are too old to be upgraded with the modern systems required to meet new flight regulations for civilian airspace. The new rules come into effect for the U.S., Mexico, Columbia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Jan. 1. For most of Europe, those rules will apply starting June 7. In Canada, the rules are being phased in between Jan. 1, 2021, and Jan. 1, 2023. The aviation rules call for increased reliance on data links, new air traffic control surveillance technologies and satellite-based navigation. The regulatory changes are being implemented worldwide and are commonly referred to as ADS-B. Canada had been in ongoing negotiations with the U.S. government and its Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over the continued use of the Challengers in U.S. airspace. “The RCAF has confirmed with the United States Department of Defense and the FAA that we will continue to operate our aircraft in U.S. airspace under a Memorandum of Understanding,” Department of National Defence spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier said. “This interim measure will allow the RCAF to continue operating its Challenger aircraft in U.S. airspace with established processes and is a reflection of our strong relationship with our American partners.” The memorandum covers a five-year period. “Since two of our Challenger aircraft are not ADS-B compliant, they may still be subject to suboptimal flight routings in parts of the U.S., depending on location, density of air traffic and other factors,” Le Bouthillier added. That could mean, for instance, that the Canadian aircraft might need to be rerouted or take a different flight path if the level of air traffic in an area is high. The RCAF operates four Challenger jets, with the two more modern aircraft already outfitted with the new equipment. The Liberal government has been reluctant to buy new aircraft since it is expected Conservative MPs will try to score political points about planes being purchased for VIPs such as the prime minister before new fighter jets are bought for the RCAF. When the Liberals were in opposition, they criticized the Conservative government's use of VIP aircraft. Some within the RCAF support either replacing the two older Challenger jets or purchasing a new fleet of four aircraft, noting the planes are also used for military missions such as medical transportation of injured personnel. The older Challenger planes are not the only aircraft in the VIP fleet that have faced problems. The RCAF's specialized VIP aircraft used by the prime minister won't be flying until August 2020 because of an accident this fall. On Oct. 19, while being towed into a hangar at 8 Wing Trenton by contracted maintenance personnel, the Polaris aircraft was significantly damaged when it rolled into the back wall of a hangar. Engineering teams from Airbus, the original manufacturer of the aircraft, and General Electric, which made the engines, assessed the damages and have provided an initial repair plan. “We do not have sufficient detail about potential costs, or the attribution of those costs, to provide any detail at this time,” RCAF spokesman Lt.-Col. Steve Neta stated in an earlier email. Neta said the RCAF was confident it could meet travel needs of the prime minister and other VIPs. The RCAF has other aircraft that can be used for VIP transport, including other Polaris planes and as the CC-144 Challenger fleet, depending on the requirements, Neta added. In early December, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used another Polaris aircraft to fly to a NATO summit in the United Kingdom. After that plane arrived, though, problems were discovered in one engine and the aircraft was deemed temporarily “unserviceable” while it was repaired. Another RCAF Polaris, which had taken Governor General Julie Payette to Europe for a tour, was instead used to transpot Trudeau and government officials back to Canada. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/deal-allows-canada-to-continue-operating-aging-rcaf-vip-aircraft-in-u-s-airspace

DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN Procurement minister Anita Anand has been told by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that she will lead the push to create a new defence procurement organization. That will be done with the support of Harjit Sajjan, the Minister of National Defence and Bernadette Jordan, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. They will work together “in bringing forward analyses and options for the creation of Defence Procurement Canada, to ensure that Canada's biggest and most complex National Defence and Canadian Coast Guard procurement projects are delivered on time and with greater transparency to Parliament,” according to the mandate letter issued by Trudeau to Anand. “This priority is to be developed concurrently with ongoing procurement projects and existing timelines.” No timelines were provided for when the options for the new organization are needed. In addition, there are no details on when Defence Procurement Canada would be expected to be up and running. The organization is being created to deal with ongoing problems Canada faces in purchasing equipment for the Canadian Forces and the Canadian Coast Guard. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/three-ministers-to-work-on-options-for-creation-of-the-new-defence-procurement-canada

Murray Brewster The audacious attack on Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq refinery and the Khurais oil field last September sent shivers down the spines of some Canadian military planners. The stunning damage caused by a swarm of drones and cruise missiles — launched either from Iraqi or Iranian territory — proved to be an almost perfect illustration of the kind of vulnerability the Canadian Army faces in the rapidly evolving modern battlefield. It's been seven years since the army retired the last of its ground-based air defence systems. By all indications, it will be another eight years before the Department of National Defence acquires a replacement system. The Liberal government's defence policy talks about buying new anti-aircraft equipment — and perhaps now anti-drone technology — but the project is still only in what defence officials call the "options analysis" phase. The commander of Canada's army said restoring that anti-aircraft defence is one of his top priorities. "Air defence is right at the top of the pile of stuff I want to get in," Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre told CBC News earlier this month. "It is a capability shortfall right now. And as you see the emerging threats out there, it is one that concerns me." 'An emerging threat' Eyre, who recently served as deputy commander of the United Nations Command in Korea, described the technology used to attack the Saudi facilities as "an emerging threat" that Canada's soldiers need to be prepared for, especially "the swarming tactics of unmanned aerial vehicles." For more than 15 years, Canadian military planners — hip-deep in fighting a counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan — were unconcerned about updating Cold War-era equipment meant to shoot down low-flying aircraft. The Taliban had no air force. The last of the Canadian army's air defence equipment — the Oerlikon Air Defence Anti-Tank System (ADATS) — was retired in 2012 after an aborted attempt to modernize the vehicles. At the time, the federal government under then-prime minister Stephen Harper was cutting $2.1 billion out of the defence budget. But the threat picture for Canadian soldiers changed dramatically when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. That event launched a new era of state-to-state tensions — one where Canadian troops again face attack from the air. At the moment, the Canadian Forces' solution for deployments — such as the current mission in Latvia — is to pair Canadians with allied forces that have air defence capabilities. "We do it as part of a coalition to make sure somebody has that capability, but [the threat] is constantly evolving and we need to be on top of that," said Eyre. A.I. and the next generation of drones The use of drones in the Saudi attack — and the prospect of artificial intelligence linking unmanned vehicles into a more lethal swarm in the near future — is not something Canadian military planners were looking at until fairly recently. "One of the stressors in the security environment is the acceleration of technological change. How do we stay abreast of that?" said Eyre. "How do we get equipment into the hands of our soldiers that is advanced as some of our potential adversaries might be?" https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/anti-aircraft-canadian-forces-1.5399461

Calgary, Alberta, December 17, 2019 – The ability to fly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) significantly improves their effectiveness and potential. The increased range of BVLOS operations requires real-time airspace situational awareness for the UAV pilot and support crew to ensure safe, repeatable operations. Canadian UAVs and Lockheed Martin Canada CDL Systems have signed a memorandum of understanding to provide an unmanned traffic management solution to meet this challenge. This solution will build a complete airspace picture necessary to conduct unmanned operations beyond visual line of sight in Canada and beyond. “A complete airspace picture is an absolutely necessity to conduct unmanned flights beyond visual line of sight,” said Dustin Engen, Lockheed Martin Canada CDL Systems Business Development Manager. “When combined, Canadian UAV's Sparrowhawk radar and our VCSi product will offer all users this complete picture and provide the necessary situational awareness for BVLOS flights in Canada and abroad.” Lockheed Martin Canada CDL Systems will provide integration support for the vehicle control station software called VCSi, a universal Ground Control System based on more than 1.5 million flight hours in military and commercial flight operations. Canadian UAVs will integrate their low-cost, ground-based radar, Sparrowhawk, into VCSi to provide users with a complete airspace picture of manned and unmanned aviation tracking with collision avoidance. Sparrowhawk has been instrumental in Canadian UAVs' first permitted BVLOS flights outside of restricted airspace in Canadian history. The company will also develop hardware and artificial intelligence software as part of Project Skysensus, a five-year investment from Canada's Industrial and Technological Benefit (ITB) Policy. “With Canadian UAVs' advanced market position in BVLOS operations, we are seeing a lot of gaps in what the general market offers to solve fundamental technological issues in unmanned aviation,” said Sean Greenwood, President of Canadian UAVs. “As a result, we developed a technology roadmap that invests in a comprehensive toolset to increase flight safety and repeatability as these operations increase in volume and airspace complexity. We have been working with Lockheed Martin CDL Systems for several years and we are very excited by this agreement to formalize the relationship.” About Lockheed Martin Canada Lockheed Martin Canada has been Canada's trusted defence partner for nearly 80 years and has a proud legacy of providing innovative naval systems and sustainment solutions for Canada and abroad. For more than three decades, Lockheed Martin Canada has demonstrated its capability and commitment to the Royal Canadian Navy as the Prime Contractor and Combat System Integrator for the HALIFAX Class Frigates. The company employs approximately 1,000 employees at major facilities in Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, Calgary, and Victoria, working on a wide range of major programs spanning the aerospace, defence and commercial sectors. About Canadian UAVs Canadian UAVs is a military-grade unmanned aviation services company based in Calgary, Alberta. With flight safety as our first priority, we provide UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) solutions for a range of applications. We provide low-cost surveillance, monitoring, training, and reporting for commodity-based operations, utilities, military and real estate through UAVs. In 2018, CUAVS became the first company in Canadian history to fly Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) as part of Transport Canada's BVLOS Task Force trials View source version on Lockheed Martin: https://news.lockheedmartin.com/lockheed-martin-canadian-uavs-improve-unmanned-beyond-visual-line-sight-operations

By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — Congressional appropriators and authorizers have increased advance procurement funds for the newest variant of the CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter as preparation to supply the aircraft to the Army's active force, even though the service asked to only buy a small number of the helos in fiscal 2020 for special operations. The service's decision to cut the aircraft from the active force was based on the need to free up future cash to cover the cost of an ambitious plan to buy two new future vertical lift aircraft for long-range assault and attack reconnaissance missions. But Congress has gone against the Army's wishes to divert funding away from procurement for the active force, instead adding $28 million in FY20 funding — in both the recently released spending and policy bill conference reports — for advance procurement to begin to prime the pump to restore CH-47F Block II deliveries to the conventional Army. The cut the service made would only buy 69 special operations variants — or "G" models. The original plan was to procure 473 "F"-model Block II helicopters for the active force. The Army approved the Block II effort to move into the engineering and manufacturing development phase in April 2017, and the program officially began in July 2017. In October 2018, the first two EMD Block II Chinooks were already on the assembly line with plans to fly in mid-2019. Boeing, which manufactures the aircraft, expects a production decision in July 2021. While $28 million won't get the service much, based on the original plan the Army would start building five CH-47F Block IIs in 2021 meant for the active force. The advance procurement in FY20 would support buying longer-lead items from suppliers, but is still a stretch to claim that the additional funding restores the program. Those five aircraft would be delivered in 2023 based on Boeing's typical three-year lead time to build an airframe. It remains to be seen whether the congressional plus-up will prompt the Army to restore funding for the five CH-47F Block IIs in its FY21 budget request due out early next year. It's also unclear how many of those long-lead parts procured in FY20 could be used in G-model aircraft or are exclusive to F-models. Therefore, it's also murky how much of the $28 million in parts might be wasted if the Army sticks to its plan to only procure G-model aircraft. The Army has indicated it might reconsider the CH-47F Block II cut; the FY21 budget request, when it is released, will likely reveal the Army's decision. Shortly after the service's plan to cut the CH-47F Block II was revealed in its FY20 budget request, then-Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville, who is now chief, told reporters the Army was comfortable with its decision, but tempered that, adding: “I think in two to three years, we will have a better idea about where we are, as far as developing the helicopters we talked about, and that will drive the decision.” McConville was referring to the Army's plan to buy two future vertical lift aircraft. The same day, then-Army Secretary Mark Esper, who is now defense secretary, told another group of reporters that the service would not be rethinking its plans to build CH-47 Block IIs for the conventional force. The Army has also claimed it is pursuing foreign military sales of its CH-47F Chinooks to soften the blow from cuts made to its intended buy of the Block II variant, but none of the possible sales — to the United Kingdom or to the United Arab Emirates — were newly in the works at the time. And neither country has plans to buy Block II variants. Moreover, the number of helicopters the two countries plan to procure amount to less than 30 aircraft. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/12/17/against-armys-wishes-congress-primes-pump-to-buy-newest-ch-47-variant-for-active-force

WASHINGTON — BAE Systems Chief Executive Jerry DeMuro will hand over leadership to Tom Arseneault next year, the company announced Tuesday. Arseneault will transition from chief operating officer to CEO of the U.S. subsidiary of U.K.-based BAE Systems plc in April, with DeMuro taking on a newly created role of executive vice president of strategic initiatives. DeMuro will also continue to serve on the board of directors. “I think it is one of the primary responsibilities you have, as a CEO, to develop the talent,” DeMuro told Defense News when asked about succession planning in an exclusive interview Dec. 7, during the Reagan National Defense Forum. “And leadership succession, in particular CEO succession, isn't always smooth. I think this is a natural progression, making it smooth for our customers, our shareholders, all stakeholders and our employees. “It's just about progressing to that point where we on the board feel it's time to hand that baton off.” DeMuro has served as CEO since 2014, when he succeeded Linda Hudson. Among his key priorities during the last five years has been unifying a business primarily born out of acquisition. With Tom's April appointment, Jerry will transition to an advisory role, providing advice and counsel to leadership with both BAE Systems Inc. in the U.S. and BAE System plc in Europe on a number of priority programs. Within the scope of his responsibilities will be chairing the internal program reviews for several key international pursuits. He will also continue to advance the defense industry's positioning regarding evolving cybersecurity requirements. Arseneault, who in May also added “president” to his title and was elected to the company's board, is currently responsible for delivering business and functional performance across the company's three sectors. He's been with BAE for 22 years, having previously served as president of the company's electronic systems sector and executive vice president of the product sectors. “If you've been watching, we had him as the COO [chief operating officer] for several years. I also had him doing strategy and corporate development, and rounding out his portfolio" across the various business units, DeMuro said. “[I]t's just about getting him prepared, and making sure our stakeholders are comfortable.” BAE is currently in low-rate production for the U.S. Army's Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle to replace the M113 armored personnel carrier and family of vehicles. It's also scheduled to deliver its prototype for the Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle program by 2021 — required ultimately to be a 105-120mm cannon and a tracked vehicle that can withstand a classified level of enemy fire. DeMuro has pointed to electronic warfare as another key priority area for the company, delivering capabilities to the F-35 and all other fifth-generation fighter jets, as well as precision-guided munitions and technologies that support space resiliency. Parent company BAE Systems in the U.K. ranked seventh on the Defense News Top 100 list of the largest defense companies in the world. Defense revenue has dropped from $25.45 billion in 2015 to $22.48 billion in 2018. The U.S. subsidiary oversees one of the companies largest operations from Arlington, Virginia. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2019/12/17/bae-systems-to-get-new-ceo-in-april

El Segundo, Calif., December 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) will support and sustain the sensor and processor for the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System 2-A under a $217M U.S. Air Force IDIQ. Work will be performed through 2024. ASARS-2A provides the U-2 aircraft with long-range, high-resolution intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities over large areas, from as high as 70,000 feet above Earth. "With ASARS-2A, the Air Force can detect ground targets day or night, no matter the weather condition," said Chad Pillsbury, director at Raytheon Secure Sensor Solutions. "And, it's reliable. The Air Force just completed ASARS-2A's 9,000th tactical mission in Korea this year." The ASARS-2A sensor locates moving and stationary targets using its ground moving-target indicator and search and spot modes. Its on-board processing system delivers near-real time, precise target location data. This allows decision makers to respond quickly, rather than relying on ground stations to process the targeting data. About Raytheon Raytheon Company, with 2018 sales of $27 billion and 67,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 97 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I® products and services, sensing, effects and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Follow us on Twitter. Media Contact Lauren Radziminski +1.972.952.2190 saspr@raytheon.com SOURCE Raytheon Company View source version on Raytheon: http://raytheon.mediaroom.com/2019-12-16-Detecting-targets-from-70-000-feet-above-Earth

Graham Warwick Counter-drone systems continue to proliferate on the market, but technical and operational challenges in countering small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have not yet been fully surmounted, says a new report by the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, New York. The second edition of the Center's Counter-Drone Systems report lists 537 systems marketed by 227 companies in 38 countries, up from 235 in the first edition published in February 2018. This is despite removing 24 products from the database that no longer appear to be available. Citing a March 2019 solicitation by the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit which said “it has proven difficult to identify and mitigate threats using currently fielded technologies,” the report says “dozens of background interviews with military and law enforcement personnel have validated this assertion.” The challenges extend beyond the issue of effectiveness “and include complex questions around safety, practicality, policy and legality,” says the report's author, Arthur Holland Michel, founder and co-director of the Center. When it comes to detection effectiveness, radar may struggle to pick up small UAS flying close to the ground, while cameras might confuse a drone with a bird or aircraft and be degraded by poor weather, low visibility and strong sunlight. Electromagnetic interference may degrade the detection performance of radio-frequency sensors, with many potential sources of interference in urban areas. Radar, some RF systems and electro-optical/ infrared (EO/IR) sensors require line of sight to the drone, which can be problematic in urban areas. Acoustic sensors and RF detection systems rely on a library of sounds and signals emitted by known drones, but given the rapid rate at which drones are emerging on the market “even libraries that are updated often will never cover 100% of the drones that might be operating,” the report says. A major detection issue is the level of false negatives and false positives, the report said, noting that results of FAA testing of counter-drone systems showed distinguishing true positives from false positives in cluttered environments required a high level of manpower. Distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate drone use is another issue. Remote identification technology and the FAA's pending Remote ID rulemaking, “may go a long way to addressing this issue once implemented, but it will not be a total fix,” the report says. There is a short time window available in which to respond to a drone threat and potential dangers posed to bystanders by some counter-drone interdiction techniques. Long-range systems such as lasers and high-power microwaves “could pose a serious threat to aircraft operated above the targeted drone.” In terms of interdiction effectiveness, the report points to results of a 2017 counter-UAS event staged by the U.S. Joint Improvised Threat Defeat Organization that showed the drones were resilient against damage. “More recent C-AUS exercises indicate this problem remains an enduring one,” it says. Jammers have no effect against drones operating autonomously without an active RF link; many signal jammers have an effective range of only a few hundred meters; spoofing systems may not be universally effective; and all kinetic systems may struggle against drones moving fast or in unpredictable patterns. Drone technology, meanwhile, is not standing still, the report says, noting research underway on UAS that can operate in GPS-denied environments, negating jamming, and are capable of actively defeating jamming or spoofing attacks. Consumer drones may soon be controllable via mobile LTE networks rather than an RF link, the report says. LTE drones could be operated at essentially unlimited range and “would be difficult or dangerous to interdict with jamming systems without interfering with ubiquitous cellular communications,” it says. The proliferation of counter-UAS systems will inevitably accelerate the development of technology to render them less effective, the report concludes, by programming drones to maneuver in patterns that make them hard to detect by automatic target algorithms. The report also highlights the challenges posed by drone swarms. “A swarm doesn't have to be dynamic or truly autonomous to achieve these effects: 10 individual drone operators flying 10 drones in unison may just be as difficult to defend against as a true autonomous swarm of 10 aircraft,” it says. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/study-counter-drone-systems-proliferate-challenges-endure

by Ken Pole Ever since French engineer Henri Giffard flew a hydrogen-filled dirigible 27 kilometres from Paris to Elancourt in September 1852, the propeller was for nearly a century the only way to sustain powered flight. It would be another 51 years before Orville and Wilbur Wright used this “airscrew” technology in the first flight of a powered fixed-wing aircraft at Kitty Hawk, N.C. The Wright brothers also came up with the idea of adding a twist to each blade, giving a more consistent angle of attack. Despite the advent and evolution of jets since the early 1940s, propellers have remained the preferred option for smaller aircraft. But, as with all things mechanical, they require maintenance and repair. That has enabled Winnipeg-based PropWorks Propeller Systems Inc. to become the largest company of its kind in Western Canada. “Winnipeg is where we started, on the fringe of James Richardson International Airport,” company president Jim Ross, one of the founding investors, told Skies. “The company was incorporated in October 1999 and we moved into our building in December 1999.” Winnipeg is home to about two-thirds of the total staff of 30 with the rest at its shop in Edmonton. PropWorks is now privately held by Ross along with a pair of Calgary-based investors, Lorne Gray, who owns the Aircraft Canada sales and appraisal firm, and AvMax Group Inc. “I'm the only constant,” he laughed, quickly adding that some of his employees also are long-term. Before the company was founded, Ross spent 15 years with Cessna Aircraft Co., doing finance and some marketing until it shut down its Winnipeg facility in 1992. So he began marketing for several aviation-related companies, one of which was Western Propeller. When Western decided to close the Winnipeg facility seven years later, to focus on their Edmonton and Vancouver centres, Ross and an original group of investors bought the equipment, moved it into a leased 6,500-square-foot building and began operations with just five employees. It relocated to a new 12,000-square-foot building in April 2015. The Edmonton shop, which opened in December 2006, was moved in December 2017 to a 14,000-square-foot building at Villeneuve Airport, the area's main general aviation and flight training hub. PropWorks' employees, whose experience tallies up to more than 150 years, provide services which “meet or exceed” original equipment manufacturers' specifications. “Sometimes we'll go an extra step with such things with non-destructive testing that we feel gives our customers a bit of added comfort,” Ross explained. “We have a dedicated non-destructive testing room” where blades, hubs and related components are tested before propellers are reassembled and balanced. NDT procedures include magnetic particle inspection, liquid penetrants, eddy current and ultrasonic inspection. In addition to being an Avia Propeller Service Centre, PropWorks overhauls and repairs most models of Hamilton Standard, Hamilton Sundstrand, McCauley, Dowty, MT, Sensenich and Hartzell propellers. (On a historical note, Ohio-based Hartzell dates to 1917 when Robert Hartzell, a pilot whose family owned a hardwood lumber factory and who had noticed a high failure rate in wood propellers, began producing hand-carved walnut units at the suggestion of longtime friend Orville Wright.) To this day, Hartzell prizes and cultivates customer loyalty in having built its global reputation, and so does PropWorks, which has customers in Canada, the U.S. and around the world. Ross said that as with most businesses, “it's about the people as much as the product.” One of his people is director of maintenance Mike Hudec, who had been with Western Propeller and now is his longest-term employee. Cliff Arntson, manager in Edmonton and Mike Wagner, assistant manager in Edmonton have a combined 84 years experience with propellers. Much of the U.S. business is with customers in the border markets of Minnesota and the Dakotas. PropWorks has three trucks which pick up the propellers for work in Winnipeg and Edmonton. “Our customers like that service,” said Ross. His most distant customer is AvMax, which has a base in Nairobi, Kenya, and he has other large customers primarily Canada and U.S. based. PropWorks draws on a variety of sources for its employees, including the Stevenson Campus of Red River College in Winnipeg. They come out of the aviation maintenance engineer (AME) stream but are not certified AMEs because they haven't gone through the requisite apprentice program when they join PropWorks. “They can't do that in a propeller shop because that wouldn't give them a broad enough base to qualify as AMEs,” said Ross. “There's no AME licence for propellers; there was at one time but not for many years now.” The general preference is “somebody with a good mechanical aptitude who we can put in our own training program,” he added. “It takes one to two years for them to become proficient.” Asked to explain the difference between overhaul and repair, Ross said the former involves disassembly, discarding parts mandated for replacement, installing new ones and then putting the entire assembly through NDT before it's painted, reassembled and balanced. That means it's a “zero time” propeller when it leaves the shop. Repairs, on the other hand, can involve a range of things such as dealing with blade nicks or leaking hub seals. If that's all that is done, the propeller leaves the shop as “time continued.” Like everything in aviation, propellers have long since evolved since those early fixed wood two-bladed configurations. “The simple ones nowadays are the fixed-pitch propellers that you'd see on your most basic flight training airplane,” said Ross, who is part-owner of a Cessna 172 and has about 1,000 hours logged. “Then it goes all the way up, through two-bladed constant-speed propellers to three-, four- and even five-bladed propellers.” The most complex ones are Hamilton Sundstrand propellers on the Dash 8 twin turboprop introduced by de Havilland Canada in 1984 and last built by Bombardier Aerospace in 2005. “They simply take more time,” said Ross. Then there are some which can justifiably called vintage, such as the Hamilton Standard three-bladed propellers on Second World War-era Douglas DC-3s but these are “fairly standard.” Ross noted that PropWorks donated one for the equally old North American Harvard Mark II in the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum in Brandon, Man. The company is doing more composites, a capacity which required “a substantial investment” in equipment, including an autoclave to heat the laminates. Asked what the future might hold, Ross replied that while “we've just had our best year ever,” he hesitated to predict the “hectic” growth of the past 10 years would continue. “The key to growth is not necessarily going out to find new customers. It's adding to our capabilities – that way more customers are likely to send their work to us.” While he could only guess at the number of corporate or private propeller-driven aircraft in Canada, he did venture that “it's not a dying market” which bodes well for the future. https://www.skiesmag.com/news/propworks-sustained-growth-over-2-decads