National Post Article on Fixed-Wing SAR

[YYZSaabGuy]

Interesting article in today's National Post about fixed-wing SAR. A Viking or Bombardier solution may or may not be the best option - perhaps the C-27J Spartan preferred by DND procurement really is the best alternative. The issue that drives me crazy is why military procurement in this country inevitably turns into a total clusterf**k - we have made no progress since the procurement effort started in 2004, and just recently deferred (yet again) tender submission to 2013. What will it take for the decision-makers to grow a set and get on with it?

Michael Byers: We need a big yellow plane that can hang from the sky
National Post Mar 13, 2012 – 7:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Mar 12, 2012 2:56 PM ET

It’s raining sideways this morning, as a stiff wind pushes low clouds between the headlands, hills and mountains of Canada’s West Coast. The valleys here are narrow, winding and covered by tall, dense forests. It’s easy to get lost in this terrain. And each year, thousands of people do just that.

A big yellow plane wafts into view, almost hanging from the sky. The half-century-old CC-115 Buffalo belongs in a museum, but instead it forms the backbone of the Canadian Forces’ search-and-rescue fleet in British Columbia and the Yukon.

Highly manoeuvrable and able to fly as slow as 125 km/hr, the Buffalo is the perfect platform for spotting prospectors, forestry workers, boaters and hikers in distress. Elsewhere in Canada, where ultra-slow flying is rarely required, three-decade old C-130 Hercules transports are relied on instead.

Unfortunately, the Buffalos will reach the end of their service life in just three years. Several planes have been cannibalized for parts, to keep the others flying. Yet the Department of National Defence has failed to secure replacements for these low-tech, but utterly essential planes.

The procurement process for new fixed-wing search-and-rescue aircraft began in 2004 when Paul Martin was prime minister. The plan was to replace the Buffalos and Hercules concurrently. Last week, the Canadian Press reported that a formal call for tenders has been postponed to 2013.

One cause for delay was that defence officials wanted just one model of search-and-rescue plane for the entire country, a model that could do much more than just search and rescue. Specifically, they wanted the Italian-made C-27J Spartan, which uses the same engines and systems as the new Hercules planes they had already bought to support combat operations.

The Spartan is large enough to carry NATO standard cargo pallets, yet small enough to operate on extremely short runways — such as at forward operating bases in Afghanistan where even the mighty Hercules cannot land. Defence officials were also attracted by the fact that the Spartans had already been chosen by the U.S. military as its “joint cargo aircraft.” The planes thus offered the gold standard of Canadian defence procurement, namely interoperability with the United States.

And so defence officials drew the procurement specifications very narrowly, so as to exclude all other aircraft. They did so despite the fact that the Spartan has a minimum speed of 194 km/hr, which is too fast to fulfill the essential spotting function on Canada’s West Coast.

Fortunately, the narrow and exclusionary character of the specifications prompted the Treasury Board to deny permission for an untendered process. An arms-length review by the National Research Council (NRC) was ordered. Among its many recommendations, the NRC called for a mixed fleet of slower and cheaper planes, augmented by a few smaller, faster, longer-range aircraft to provide search-and-rescue in remote regions, such as the Arctic.

In the meantime, the Obama administration has terminated the C-27J Spartan procurement in the United States, and with it the interoperability argument in favour of Canada acquiring those planes.

The good news is that the Canadian government now has one last chance to solve the immediate problem: By quickly replacing the Buffalos with low-cost, Canadian-made planes that can fly ultra slow. The obvious option is to replace old Buffalos with new Buffalos. Victoria-based Viking Air has purchased the designs for the early line of “de Havilland” aircraft and is already building and selling new Twin Otters.

Viking would equip the new Buffalos with the same state-of-the-art Pratt & Whitney Canada engines that power the Dash-8 Q400s that Air Canada and Porter Airlines fly. Alternatively, Montreal-based Bombardier could produce Dash-8 Q400s modified for search-and-rescue with a hydraulic ramp at the back of the plane.

Unfortunately, Canada’s recent procurement record suggests that defence officials will miss this last chance for a quick and easy fix; that they’ll continue to press for overly complex and expensive planes. And somewhere on Canada’s rugged West Coast, people will be put at risk — for the lack of a big yellow plane that can hang from the sky.

National Post

Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia.

[North Shore]

Grimly ironic that some poor bugger is going to have the single engine on his F35 quit in the middle of nowhere, and then have poor SAR response because we've spent all of our money on the fighter program, and have none left for the just as important SAR planes...

Oh, Canada

[old_man]

What will it take for the decision-makers to grow a set and get on with it?

That's what they did with the F35 and look at all the fall out from that.

[ch135146]

http://www.buffalo461.ca/Photos/Cafbuff ... ysar-2.jpg

[teacher]

Lack of spares eh? I fondly remember the line up of Bufs at CFS Mountainview being readied for sale to some African country if I remember correctly back in 1995.

[JMACK]

Viking would equip the new Buffalos with the same state-of-the-art Pratt & Whitney Canada engines that power the Dash-8 Q400s


I can't see how this would be a bad thing for Canada it is still a great machine! Yes I am bias I flew the 5D for just shy of 800hrs all off strip.....amazing machine!

Stap on the PW's and I can only imagine how awesome, reliable, capable this machine would be and built in Canada!

Not a Spartan.............but a great airplane!

[WileyCoyote]

Updated and re-engined, would there be a market outside Canada? If so, I think it would be a great idea. The government has probably pissed away enough money to buy one on all their "studies" since 2004.