A decent Canadian Purchase! (CC-117)

[yultoto]

And Northrop, in order to give the birds a bit more life, extensively rebuilt them from the ground up before installing the new electronics. They pretty much tore apart and built a whole new airplane. The JSTARS is now planned to be replaced by possibility the E-10 MC2A or a variant of the RQ-4 Global Hawk. As of right now, they plan to re-engine.

The USAF don't fly that many missions with the JSTARS. Then USAF has a fleet of 17 of them, meaning that hours are spread out across a larger fleet.

You see you knew, and didn't admit I was correct until it was squeezed out of you.

The Russians might have attacked an Estonian computer. Bid deal! The US attacked Iraq causing close to a million deaths so far and a major world crisis.

Are you blind?

[WJflyer]

And Northrop, in order to give the birds a bit more life, extensively rebuilt them from the ground up before installing the new electronics. They pretty much tore apart and built a whole new airplane. The JSTARS is now planned to be replaced by possibility the E-10 MC2A or a variant of the RQ-4 Global Hawk. As of right now, they plan to re-engine.

The USAF don't fly that many missions with the JSTARS. Then USAF has a fleet of 17 of them, meaning that hours are spread out across a larger fleet.

You see you knew, and didn't admit I was correct until it was squeezed out of you.

The Russians might have attacked an Estonian computer. Bid deal! The US attacked Iraq causing close to a million deaths so far and a major world crisis.

Are you blind?

Yeah, if totally rebuilding from the ground up is our job...

The fact was that the USAF wanted a uniform JSTARS fleet. They went and purchased any Boeing 707-300 that was still flyable and did major structural work to standardize them. This cost them billions of dollars to do alone, besides the installation of electronics. From the amount of work they have done to the 707's, you might as well have called them Northrop 707's. We didn't have the money at the time to do such drastic work, so we essentially went to a bankruptcy auction and purchased the Polaris fleet on the cheap.

I can tell you that rumor is patently false. There hasn't been much of a opportunity to do much flag waving as Canadian Forces operations take precedence over flag waving and airshows right now. My sources comes direct from the guys operating the aircraft.

Perhaps. I have no data to say otherwise, but in time we'll know.

And you should learn to keep your mouth shut about topics you don't know. There's enough useless drivel from the left than there needs to be.

And your research does not include the rest of NATO; I know the Brits were denied AN-124 charters by the Russians on a number of occasions since the mid 1990's.

So now you know what my reseach included? If you have proof, such as reference, articles, reports, post them here, or else give it up. I think Senator Colin Kenny did mention that in one of his Defence papers (why dont you quote him as your source?) , but many of the things Senator Kenny says are false. He's the one who wrote that the "An-124s are old rickety aircraft and there are not many left". The oldest civilian An-124 was certified in 1991 and two crashed out of the 29 that were manufactured (plus one prototype during certification flights). The newest was delivered in 2004. They are all younger than Canada's CF-18s and CC-150s. I hope you have a better source than Senator Kenny.

British MOD. We share tons of information with most of our NATO partners. We know that they have been denied AN-124 transports before in the past.

Senator Kenny is a whole lot more smarter and better qualified than you to be making such statements. The youngest An-124's airframe was built in the mid 1980's. It was only until 2004 were the airframes finished. So they are old.

suspected of sabotaging or willfully ignoring saboteurs who damaged a pipeline running from Armenia through Russia into Georgia

Have you looked at a map recently? Russia and Armenia do not have a common border. That pipeline goes from Russia, through Georgia and then into Armenia. It was sabotaged by South Ossetian Georgian separatists (who are ehnic Russians).

The problem with the separatist movements in ex Soviet Republics, is that when they became indepnedent, most of them had a backlash against ethnic Russians. In many of the "Stans", the ethnic Russians who in many cases had been born and raised in those republics, were forced to leave and moved to Russia, a place they did not know or never been to. This occured in Kazahkstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaidjan, Kysgyzstan, Tajikistan (all predominently muslim republics). (Its a bit their fault because an ethnic Russian, even afer three generations in Kazahkstan, still calls himself "Russian" and never "Kazahk" who for him are peasants) It also happened to a lessor degree in the three Baltic republics. Where it did not occur is Armenia, where the Armenian share the Othodox faith of the Russians, Georgia where in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, ethnic Russians who are in majority, decided to stay part of Russia and break off from Georgia to defend their rights. They just did not want to be kicked out of their homes like it happened to millions of ehnic Russian in most other Ex-Republics.
The same think occured in Moldova when the predominently ethnic Russian area of Transnistria (a thin stretch of land between Moldova and Ukraine) declared itself indenpendent from Moldova.

In all three cases, Russia came to the rescue of its ethnic Russian minorities, but did not in either of the 3 cases, impose separation or facilitate it. The powerful Russia could have crushed Georgia and Moldova with great ease but is trying to find a negociated political solution that does not involve force.

The Georgians have been receiving threats from Russia, stating that the Russians will make the Georgians pay severely if the Georgians do not hand over control of the pipelines. The fact that the pipelines were bombed simultaneously and did not affect Russian supplies (as the Chechens will usually target Russians, not anyone else) raises a lot of questions. And this sounds a lot like making the Georgians pay.

And why does Russia interfere and meddle in the affairs of INDEPENDENT STATES? I can point out that the China has a large expatriate population, and they don't interfere at the level of the Russians are with the affairs of it neighboring nations that have large Chinese populations. The same can be said about the South Koreans, who have a large expat community in Japan, and yet the South Koreans have kept their noses out of Japanese affairs except when it directly involves them.

If France decided to hand out citizenships to Quebecers and openly supported Quebec independence, that would be interference of our internal affairs. If France sent troops to Quebec as 'peacekeepers' and gave Quebec direct aid in getting independence from Canada, that would be interfering with another country's affairs. Both are true in the Georgian case.

Russian restraint? The only restraint the Russians have done was to not use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, yet. Carpet bombing cities, indiscriminate attacks on civilian population centres, directly targeting civilians are all what the world considers war crimes. Amnesty International has criticized the Russians for gross violations of international law over the current war (note the Chechens are just as guilty, but the Russians cause more casualties and do it at a far larger scale).

[Hedley]

No, but Alex Litvinenko is dead now:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00258.html

[CYOX]

And your research does not include the rest of NATO; I know the Brits were denied AN-124 charters by the Russians on a number of occasions since the mid 1990's.

I have to call Bullsh!t on that one. First of all the Antonov is a Ukraine buit aircraft with its headquarters and manufacturing in Kiev. All parts come from Kiev. Only half of the world fleet fly under an RA registration (Volga Dnepr and Polet) the other half is operated by Antonov Design Bureaus aviation arm Antonov Airlines. Since the early 1990's the marketing and sales office of Antonov Airlines joint Venture, Air Foyle operated out of an office at Stansted which supplied Heavy Lift to the British MOD. They have never been denied a charter, sometimes with the limited fleet the availability is quite tight but not being able to accomplish a charter because of lack of availability does not mean it was denied.

Ilyushin is a Russian design and built aircraft.

[WJflyer]

And your research does not include the rest of NATO; I know the Brits were denied AN-124 charters by the Russians on a number of occasions since the mid 1990's.

I have to call Bullsh!t on that one. First of all the Antonov is a Ukraine buit aircraft with its headquarters and manufacturing in Kiev. All parts come from Kiev. Only half of the world fleet fly under an RA registration (Volga Dnepr and Polet) the other half is operated by Antonov Design Bureaus aviation arm Antonov Airlines. Since the early 1990's the marketing and sales office of Antonov Airlines joint Venture, Air Foyle operated out of an office at Stansted which supplied Heavy Lift to the British MOD. They have never been denied a charter, sometimes with the limited fleet the availability is quite tight but not being able to accomplish a charter because of lack of availability does not mean it was denied.

Ilyushin is a Russian design and built aircraft.

Not all parts; the An-124 was primarily produced at the Russian Ulyanovsk Aviation Industrial Complex (now Aviastar-SP), with a smaller parallel production in Ukraine.

[CYOX]

And your research does not include the rest of NATO; I know the Brits were denied AN-124 charters by the Russians on a number of occasions since the mid 1990's.

I have to call Bullsh!t on that one. First of all the Antonov is a Ukraine buit aircraft with its headquarters and manufacturing in Kiev. All parts come from Kiev. Only half of the world fleet fly under an RA registration (Volga Dnepr and Polet) the other half is operated by Antonov Design Bureaus aviation arm Antonov Airlines. Since the early 1990's the marketing and sales office of Antonov Airlines joint Venture, Air Foyle operated out of an office at Stansted which supplied Heavy Lift to the British MOD. They have never been denied a charter, sometimes with the limited fleet the availability is quite tight but not being able to accomplish a charter because of lack of availability does not mean it was denied.

Ilyushin is a Russian design and built aircraft.

Not all parts; the An-124 was primarily produced at the Russian Ulyanovsk Aviation Industrial Complex (now Aviastar-SP), with a smaller parallel production in Ukraine.

Yes, military versionsof the aircraft were built in the Soviet Union (Russia), however all but 2 of the commercial versions were built in the Ukraine, most parts are produced in the Ukraine, in fact with the problems between Russia and the Ukraine, Volga Dnepr had had problems sourcing parts. Within the last year Antonov Airlines and Volga Dnepr have joined forces on the sales and marketing side, now all the aircraft are controlled by a company registered in the UK, Ruslan International and that has alleviated the problems that Volga was having.

I have toured the Kiev facility on many occasions, this is where the second AN 225 is sitting and being slowly worked on.

[CYOX]

We dont need this capability. We keep saying the Russians could block our airlift. The Il-76 is built in Uzbekistan, the An-124s in Ukraine and in Russia. Silk Way whoses airlines that the CF has been chartering for years is based in Azerbaidjan. Antonov Airlines is based in Kiev, Ukraine. There are 250 civilian IL-76s in the world in about 35 countries, including a couple European Union countries (Latvia, Hungary). How can Russian bar access to all of them and why would they?

How many of those IL76 operators have a Canadian Foreign Air Operators Certificate? 10

How many of them actually have there own aircraft? 7

How many of those carriers are banned or limited from European Airspace? 5

How many IL76's are Stage 2? 248 (Silkway is still working on there Stage 4 certification)

So by my calculations, realistacally there is only 12 aircraft that can operate into Canada and only 2 of those can operate without a a Stage 2 exemption.

How many of those carriers able to operate in Canada are controlled by your employer? All of them.

Canada does require the C-17.

[yultoto]

Senator Kenny is a whole lot more smarter and better qualified than you to be making such statements. The youngest An-124's airframe was built in the mid 1980's. It was only until 2004 were the airframes finished. So they are old.

False.

The first An-124 MILITARY prototype flew in 1982. In 1985 there were still only two prototypes. As late as 1991, only six had been built, all in Kiev. From 1991 to 1995, two factories were building them, one in Ukraine, one in Russia. This is because of the break up of the Soviet Union, Russia wanted to bring production back in their own country. Then production in Ukraine ceased and Russia built 3 more and work ended on those in 1999, unfinished.

The last 5 ones were not completed and delivered until 2003 and 2004. Three of those airframes were no more than 4 to 5 years old at the time.

A total of 19 were built in Kiev and 39 in Ulyanovsk. These figures may include the two An-225 airframes, which has the same basic fuselage as the An-124, I am not certain.

The first civilan model was only granted civil certification on the 30th of December 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[yultoto]

How many of those IL76 operators have a Canadian Foreign Air Operators Certificate? 10

How many of them actually have there own aircraft? 7

How many of those carriers are banned or limited from European Airspace? 5

How many IL76's are Stage 2? 248 (Silkway is still working on there Stage 4 certification)

So by my calculations, realistacally there is only 12 aircraft that can operate into Canada and only 2 of those can operate without a a Stage 2 exemption.

How many of those carriers able to operate in Canada are controlled by your employer? All of them.

Canada does require the C-17.

By my calculations, any company who needs to can obtain a Canadian Foreign Air Operators Certificate. They just request one when they need it, like when they get a contract in Canada. Used IL-76s are a dime a dozen and it wont be long (3 to 4 years) before there are dozens of Chapter IV approved IL-76s flying around (either new or retrofits). I wouldn't be suprised is they are added to the SALIS contract soon.

My employer? You think I work for Skylink? Nice try. (come to think of it, they should send me a check . I deserve one)

[WJflyer]

Senator Kenny is a whole lot more smarter and better qualified than you to be making such statements. The youngest An-124's airframe was built in the mid 1980's. It was only until 2004 were the airframes finished. So they are old.

False.

The first An-124 MILITARY prototype flew in 1982. In 1985 there were still only two prototypes. As late as 1991, only six had been built, all in Kiev. From 1991 to 1995, two factories were building them, one in Ukraine, one in Russia. This is because of the break up of the Soviet Union, Russia wanted to bring production back in their own country. Then production in Ukraine ceased and Russia built 3 more and work ended on those in 1999, unfinished.

The last 5 ones were not completed and delivered until 2003 and 2004. Three of those airframes were no more than 4 to 5 years old at the time.

A total of 19 were built in Kiev and 39 in Ulyanovsk. These figures may include the two An-225 airframes, which has the same basic fuselage as the An-124, I am not certain.

However, what is certain is that the seven airframes that were built in the mid to late eighties were Soviet Air Force Military An-124s. The first civilan model was only granted civil certification on the 30th of December 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Production of the An-124 airframes halted before the collapse of the Soviet Union. From then on, production of An-124's was limited to the supply of parts that were made from the Soviet period that was in a warehouse. Now that the supply of parts is exhausted, production had ceased. All recent production An-124's that are flying today are in fact airframes that were last made in 1988.

How many of those IL76 operators have a Canadian Foreign Air Operators Certificate? 10

How many of them actually have there own aircraft? 7

How many of those carriers are banned or limited from European Airspace? 5

How many IL76's are Stage 2? 248 (Silkway is still working on there Stage 4 certification)

So by my calculations, realistacally there is only 12 aircraft that can operate into Canada and only 2 of those can operate without a a Stage 2 exemption.

How many of those carriers able to operate in Canada are controlled by your employer? All of them.

Canada does require the C-17.

By my calculations, any company who needs to can obtain a Canadian Foreign Air Operators Certificate. They just request one when they need it, like when they get a contract in Canada. Used IL-76s are a dime a dozen and it wont be long (3 to 4 years) before there are dozens of Chapter IV approved IL-76s flying around (either new or retrofits). I wouldn't be suprised is they are added to the SALIS contract soon.

My employer? You think I work for Skylink? Nice try. (come to think of it, they should send me a check . I deserve one)

When you certify an aircraft, a lot has to be done to ensure compliance with regulations. There is a massive trail of paperwork that needs to be done, inspectors may require that modifications need to be made, all a very costly business. Most companies don't have that sort of resources to pull this off. And we are not in the business of handing out corporate welfare.

We do need the C-17. The state of our military is that bad, that we can't even meet the 1994 Defence White Paper, which calls for the ability to deploy an indefinitely sustainable land force of 4,000 personnel, or a unsustained contingency force of 10,000. We can't even deploy 3,000 men and their equipment to Afghanistan without massive external support. From a sovereignty point of view, and as a wealthy G-7 country, Canada should not be totally reliant on its Allies or commercial companies for strategic lift.

As the 1994 Defence White Paper states:

Strengthening the United Nations.

Canada - which has unfailingly lent its political and financial support to the United Nations - remains committed to UN reform. In the security sphere, Canada brings superbly qualified personnel, significant military capabilities, and a great deal of experience to UN operations. Other countries look to Canada for leadership. In addition to its solid record in the financial support of UN operations, Canada has already taken the lead in providing UN headquarters with military expertise to improve its planning and operational capabilities. Canada will continue to advocate that funding arrangements for UN operations be improved. We will also work toward the further enhancement of the UN's command and control system, as well as the development of its administrative and logistics capabilities.

Where the participation of the Canadian Forces in UN peacekeeping operations was once subject to a numerical `ceiling' or planning figure of 2000 personnel, our recent experiences suggest that we would be better served by a more flexible approach. As a matter of general principle, the Canadian Forces will remain prepared to deploy on UN operations contingency forces of up to a maritime task group, a brigade group plus an infantry battalion group, a wing of fighter aircraft, and a squadron of tactical transport aircraft. Were these forces to be deployed simultaneously, this could conceivably involve in the order of 10,000 military personnel.

Within this upper limit, Canada will increase its commitment of stand-by forces to the UN from a battalion, an air transport element, and a communications element to the vanguard component of its contingency forces - that is, two ships (one on each coast), one battle group, one infantry battalion group, one squadron of fighter aircraft, a flight of tactical transport aircraft, a communications element, and a headquarters element. If deployed simultaneously, this would represent a commitment of 4,000 personnel, which could then be sustained indefinitely.

The Forces will also remain prepared to deploy, for limited periods, selected specialized elements of the Canadian Forces - medical personnel, transport and signals units, and engineers - in humanitarian relief roles. Other Canadian contributions, such as the provision of observers and technical specialists will be undertaken as feasible.

It's 2007, and we have trouble sending and supplying ~3000 soldiers to Afghanistan! C-17 will help us deploy and support 4000 personnel overseas anywhere in the world. We wanted this capability since 1994. Our political masters wanted us to be able to go overseas in such strength to contribute to the international world. We can't even do that ourselves even though we promised ourselves that we can.

[CYOX]

By my calculations, any company who needs to can obtain a Canadian Foreign Air Operators Certificate. They just request one when they need it.

Not quite that easy, you should really do some homework before you open that mouth of yours! It really makes you look stupid.

My employer? You think I work for Skylink? Nice try. (come to think of it, they should send me a check . I deserve one)

You are right there, even Walter wouldn't hire someone as stupid as you.

[CYOX]

By my calculations, any company who needs to can obtain a Canadian Foreign Air Operators Certificate. They just request one when they need it, like when they get a contract in Canada. Used IL-76s are a dime a dozen and it wont be long (3 to 4 years) before there are dozens of Chapter IV approved IL-76s flying around (either new or retrofits). I wouldn't be suprised is they are added to the SALIS contract soon.

Oh yeah, Silkway has had there CFAOC pulled and are no longer flying any DND charters.

[WJflyer]

By my calculations, any company who needs to can obtain a Canadian Foreign Air Operators Certificate. They just request one when they need it, like when they get a contract in Canada. Used IL-76s are a dime a dozen and it wont be long (3 to 4 years) before there are dozens of Chapter IV approved IL-76s flying around (either new or retrofits). I wouldn't be suprised is they are added to the SALIS contract soon.

Oh yeah, Silkway has had there CFAOC pulled and are no longer flying any DND charters.

Why am I not surprised after that last little stunt they pulled in Trenton a while back?

[yultoto]

Not quite that easy, you should really do some homework before you open that mouth of yours! It really makes you look stupid.
You are right there, even Walter wouldn't hire someone as stupid as you.

There go the insults again. What wrong with all of you pro-military guys with all the insults? Is that what your mothers taught you?

I didn't see you calling WJ stupid for not knowing that Foreign carriers are not subject to Canadian certification rules, as he obviously does not know according to his last post, but I am the stupid one because I dont agree with you and he does?

Foreign airlines can come here with a Foreign Carrier Certificate issued by TC with aircraft that are not Canadian Certified. Thats how the An-124s and Il-76s come here. Neither is certified in Canada.

I maintain, as stupid as I may be, that getting a Foreign Air Carrier Certificate under CAR 701 is no big deal.

Its all here: http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/Regse ... htm#701_01

Of course for someone who has never done this and gives it a go alone, it will be a bureacratic nightmare. The smart airlines hire well paid professionals (ex TC types) who do all the paperwork for them and its a breeze, as long as the Foreign Air Carrier is in order in his own country and does not come from a Banana Republic where regulations only exist on paper.

[WJflyer]

Not quite that easy, you should really do some homework before you open that mouth of yours! It really makes you look stupid.
You are right there, even Walter wouldn't hire someone as stupid as you.

There go the insults again. What wrong with all of you pro-military guys with all the insults? Is that what your mothers taught you?

I didn't see you calling WJ stupid for not knowing that Foreign carriers are not subject to Canadian certification rules, as he obviously does not know according to his last post, but I am the stupid one because I dont agree with you and he does?

Foreign airlines can come here with a Foreign Carrier Certificate issued by TC with aircraft that are not Canadian Certified. Thats how the An-124s and Il-76s come here. Neither is certified in Canada.

I maintain, as stupid as I may be, that getting a Foreign Air Carrier Certificate under is no big deal.

Its all here: http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/Regse ... htm#701_01

Of course for someone who has never done this and gives it a go alone, it will be a bureacratic nightmare. The smart airlines hire well paid professionals (ex TC types) who do all the paperwork for them and its a breeze, as long as the Foreign Air Carrier is in order in his own country and does not come from a Banana Republic where regulations only exist on paper.

And you think everything is hunky dory, can be done easily, etc, etc, etc.

REALITY CHECK: THINGS ARE NOT AS EASY AS THEY APPEAR TO BE!

There is a lot of paperwork that needs to be done in order to charter the Il-76's. I can point out that civil air regulations in some of the Eastern bloc nations are a complete joke. Bribes and other illegal activities are normal in such nations in order to conduct business. We have to conduct frequent inspections to ensure compliance with TC regulations when we charter these birds. Most of the reports coming back from these inspections are extremely grim, with some stating that some airplanes are accidents waiting to happen. If someone is not in compliance with our rules, they get their asses kicked out until they can prove to us without a doubt that they are now following our rules and will continue to do so.

[CYOX]

Not quite that easy, you should really do some homework before you open that mouth of yours! It really makes you look stupid.
You are right there, even Walter wouldn't hire someone as stupid as you.

There go the insults again. What wrong with all of you pro-military guys with all the insults? Is that what your mothers taught you?

I didn't see you calling WJ stupid for not knowing that Foreign carriers are not subject to Canadian certification rules, as he obviously does not know according to his last post, but I am the stupid one because I dont agree with you and he does?

Foreign airlines can come here with a Foreign Carrier Certificate issued by TC with aircraft that are not Canadian Certified. Thats how the An-124s and Il-76s come here. Neither is certified in Canada.

I maintain, as stupid as I may be, that getting a Foreign Air Carrier Certificate under CAR 701 is no big deal.

Its all here: http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/Regse ... htm#701_01

Of course for someone who has never done this and gives it a go alone, it will be a bureacratic nightmare. The smart airlines hire well paid professionals (ex TC types) who do all the paperwork for them and its a breeze, as long as the Foreign Air Carrier is in order in his own country and does not come from a Banana Republic where regulations only exist on paper.

I am certainly not a pro-military type nor have I ever said I was, actually my living comes from chartering aircraft, mostly eastern bloc. I have looked at the MD-17/C-17/BC17X since its inception. I spent many months at the Long Beach facility of McDonnel Douglas looking at the commercial version of the type. Commercially it will never work, however it is a great Strategic/Tactical Airlifter as it is truly a multi role platform. Your analysis on take-off distance is not as relevant as landing distance. The C-17 can take a full load into a 5,000 foot gravel runway, the IL76 requires 7,000 feet of pavement. This comes in handy when faced with Tactical missions as aircraft leave a the Theater of Operations relatively empty (get in, get out).

The IL76 is a good aircraft and I maintain that it is good for certain projects, the AN-124 is a great machine as well as it has great legs and can carry a great volume. Both of these aircraft are great commercial aircraft. Just as the BC-17X will never be a great commercial aircraft, it does not have the legs or the capacity to compete in a commercial market.

Now your comment on obtaining a CFAOC, you have obviously not been involved in the process, you are certainly quick to google someting and paste a link. The link is not the process. The process is something like this.

1. The carrier writes Transport Canada and formally applies for a CFAOC
Providing the country of origin meet all ICAO standards and meet the security requirements..

2. Transport Canada forwards the request to Foreign Affairs, if bi-lateral agreements have been signed, they will give there blessing.

3. Transport Canada will request copies of: (in English)
AOC
AOM
COM
FOM
AMO Certification

4. Transport Canada will dispatch a team of auditors for a base inspection looking at Flight Operations records, Maintenance records, Maintenance programs and such.

5. Transport Canada returns to Canada and mulls it over for awhile.

Not quite as easy as just asking for it and getting it. More like a 3 month process (minimum) and cover all of TC's costs during there audit (All travel in Business and 4-5Star hotels).

[yultoto]

Now your comment on obtaining a CFAOC, you have obviously not been involved in the process, you are certainly quick to google someting and paste a link. The link is not the process.

Then there is the Canadian Transportation Agency licence, which has to be applied for once the CFAOC is approved.....

All that is Standard TC bureaucracy and there are people who make a good living taking care of them, in the US too as a matter of fact.

A few years ago (1999 or 2000), there was a money making commuter in Montreal called Air Montreal who had been in operation for years. They operated Metroliners on scheduled passenger routes in Quebec. The company belonged to Dicom, a Quebec courier company which also put its freight on the Metroliners. Things were going great. Then Air Montreal decided to grow into larger 30 passenger aircraft and settled for used Embraer 120s imported from a bankrupt US commuter. They bought several of them real cheap. They though they were just going to repaint them, do a little interior work, and put them to work. They were coming from a Part 121 carriers in the US. TC made them do tons of work on the aircraft before they would give them a Canadian Airworthines certificate, work which ended up costing for each aircraft more than the purchase price. During that time, TC grounded the Metroliners who had undone Airworthines Directives (ADs) on their main wing spars, and for which Air Montreal had been asking and getting extentions while waiting for the Emb-120s to be ready. At a certain point, TC said there would be no more extentions. The Emb-120 were not ready save for one, the Metroliners were grounded, Air Montreal went bankrupt despite the fact that their aircraft were always full of cargo and passengers.

They went under because they did not have qualified management to deal with TC and did not hire qualified outside help for the pre-purchase inspection, import and certification of the Emb-120s.

I know of another company, who before even buying an aircraft they want to import, sends the TC inspectors overseas to look at it so to give them a clear picture of what is in the works for Canadian approval and certification.

A company I worked for needed to have a simulator certified overseas. They had to send several TC technicians and inspectors overseas in First Class and 5 star hotels and high Perdiem to go spend a fews days to approve the simulator. It cost a fortune (five figures).

Once I had to send a logbook to TC in Toronto (I was in Ottawa at the time) Knowing how they lose things, I flew there in poerson to bring the logbook to them and waited for them to look at it. When I came back to Ottawa, they called me the next day: they had forgotten to check some things and wanted to see it again. I had to fly back.......

Everything with TC is a nighmare and always expensive......

Any foreign Air Carrier wanting a Foreign Carrier licence can get it if they apply for it as long as they are up to standards in their country, was what I wrote. It no harder than doing anything else with TC.

I'm sorry you had trouble of your own with TC but do not think one minute that what you did was any harder or more unusual than what we all have to deal with. Its not a reason to call other people stupid.

And now I undertsand why you are agressive with me. You think I am some sort of competitor. Rest assured, I have nothing to do with Skylink, I have never seen the inside of an IL-76 or and an An-124 in my life (but I'm dying to)

[CYOX]

Everything with TC is a nighmare and always expensive......

Any foreign Air Carrier wanting a Foreign Carrier licence can get it if they apply for it as long as they are up to standards in their country, was what I wrote. It no harder than doing anything else with TC.

What you said was...

"By my calculations, any company who needs to can obtain a Canadian Foreign Air Operators Certificate. They just request one when they need it."

[CYOX]

I'm sorry you had trouble of your own with TC but do not think one minute that what you did was any harder than what we all have to deal with. Its not a reason to call other people stupid.

And now I undertsand why you are agressive with me. You think I am some sort of competitor. Rest assured, I have nothing to do with Skylink, I have never seen the inside of an IL-76 or and an An-124 in my life (but I'm dying to)

I have never had any problems with TC, I have successfully applied for 6 CFAOC's. I am not saying that it hasn't been an adventure at times, but mostly from the forign operators side.

I have not accused you of working for Skylink, I believe you made that assumption.

[CYOX]

Then there is the Canadian Transportation Agency licence, which has to be applied for once the CFAOC is approved.....

Now that is the easy part, can be done with a phone call.

[yultoto]

finger problem......

[Expat]

The question is not to own or not. 4 billions is still a lot of money.
DND and the US military lease all kinds of buildings and equipment. This is the new fad.
Even here in Af, special forces are using commercial Toyota Land Cruisers.
As far as money is concerned, we could have bought a few cargo A380s. They are far cheaper, and maintenance can be outsourced.
For tank tranport, which is very rare, ANs could be used.
As a tax payer, I certainly do not agree with this contract.

[yultoto]

If France decided to hand out citizenships to Quebecers and openly supported Quebec independence, that would be interference of our internal affairs. If France sent troops to Quebec as 'peacekeepers' and gave Quebec direct aid in getting independence from Canada, that would be interfering with another country's affairs. Both are true in the Georgian case.

Bad example. Here is what happened in the case of Russia.

Quebec became independent from Canada through of referendum and then began persecuting all the anglophones and chasing them away from their homes, their jobs, their schools. In a matter of months, hundreds of thousands of Anglos refugees whose families had been living in Quebec for generations came across the Ontario, New Brunswick and US borders because living in Quebec had become unbearable or dangerous. Now a group of Anglos in predominently english speaking parts of Quebec decided they would not be part of Quebec and decided to join the US, Ontario or New Brunswick. And Quebec sent in the army so squash these resistence movements.

Thats what happened in those three breakaway regions in Georgia and Moldova.
In other Republics, for the most part they were not physically attacked but the local dialects that the ethnic Russians did not speak became mandatory to get jobs. Ethnic Russians were fired from their government jobs in droves (in a communist economy, just about everyone worked for the government), the schools stopped teaching Russian and began to teach the local language instead, Azerbaidjan switched from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Roman alphabet. All this to promote the local majority ethnics groups over the ethnic Russian minority that had dominated them for so long (looks a lot like Quebec in the sixties, dont you think so?) All was done to send the Russians packing in droves, which they did, and all these people came knocking on the doorstep of a bankrupt Russia, which took them all in. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians born in the Republics whose familes had sometimes been living in these Republics for several generations came to Russia.

In these three separists regions, the ethnic Russians decided to stay put and put up a fight. Russia protected them from physical harm. All had been Soviet citizens until 1991 and when the Soviet Union broke off, any citizen of ex Soviet Republics could become a Russian Citizen and millions did. Only those that chose to stay and live in the Ex Republics became citizens of those Republics (up to a certain point in time)

Its like if a Canadian English Speaking Quebecois, finding himself suddenly living in an independent Quebec. Would Canada not come to his help if his rights were suddenly grossly violated by an indendent Quebec and that anglo had a passport that said "born in Canada" and still wanted to be a Canadian and not a Quebecois but also keep his house, his job and his life?

(Not that this would ever happen in Quebec I must stress, but this was a more realistic comparison than France delivering French passports to Quebecers and sending the French army to Quebec )

Its easy to critisize how other countries react to a very difficult situation until you put yourself in that situation.

[shitdisturber]

The question is not to own or not. 4 billions is still a lot of money.
DND and the US military lease all kinds of buildings and equipment. This is the new fad.
Even here in Af, special forces are using commercial Toyota Land Cruisers.
As far as money is concerned, we could have bought a few cargo A380s. They are far cheaper, and maintenance can be outsourced.
For tank tranport, which is very rare, ANs could be used.
As a tax payer, I certainly do not agree with this contract.

There's been so many problems getting the A380 online that we'd probably still be waiting for the first one ten years from now; whereas we've already got one C-17 working and another to follow shortly. Not to mention the fact you can't take an A380 into a short gravel strip.

Granted tank transport is rare, but that's just one of the things that we'll be using them for. Transporting the DART team and their equipment around for disaster relief, transporting helicopters for peacekeeping missions, the list is quite extensive.

[WJflyer]

As far as money is concerned, we could have bought a few cargo A380s. They are far cheaper, and maintenance can be outsourced.

That would make sense; let's buy an airplane from a program that is already two years behind schedule and from which a cargo example has yet to be produced. Then it would have none of the military (and NATO compliant) avionics or specs, and we could once again be an oddball nation with goofy equipment.

And on top of that, fails to met ACP-S specifications in that the largest wheeled CF vehicle can be driven off without disassembly...