The air drive is nervous about maintaining the ageing weapons methods aboard its CH-148 Cyclones operational into the longer term, in keeping with leaked paperwork obtained by CBC Information.
It is an understatement to say that the $5.8 billion maritime helicopters challenge is a work-in-progress for the Division of Nationwide Defence (DND) and the plane’s U.S. producer, Sikorsky.
It would quickly be 20 years since a earlier Liberal authorities ordered the plane to exchange its fleet of CH-128 Sea Kings, Nineteen Sixties-era workhorses which noticed many years of service flying off the decks of Canadian warships.
However even after twenty years and billions of {dollars} spent, not the entire 28 Cyclone helicopters the federal authorities initially ordered have been delivered.
And DND would not take into account the Cyclones delivered up to now to have reached their closing “working functionality” — an necessary designation that signifies the navy is glad it obtained what it paid for.
Late Tuesday, the defence division acknowledged in a media assertion that it is looking for an outdoor guide to “outline potential choices” for the fleet.
Retired colonel Larry McWha — an aviation knowledgeable who commanded 423 Squadron when it flew CH-124 Sea Kings — mentioned sustaining and upgrading the Cyclone’s weapons system will likely be an enormous, pricey problem as a result of Canada is the one nation flying the CH-148, a militarized model of the Sikorsky S-92.
Parts will develop into more durable to seek out and should even should be specifically manufactured, mentioned McWha, who has adopted the Cyclone program from the start.
The leaked paperwork — a Sept. 23, 2023 PowerPoint presentation and a spreadsheet that particulars technical considerations cited by air bases and air drive wings throughout the nation — present that 12 Wing in Shearwater, N.S., the place lots of the Cyclones are based mostly, questioned the “sustainability of the CH-148 Weapon System” within the medium and long-term.
A leaked inside report warns the Canadian Armed Forces Cyclone helicopters have weapons methods which might be turning into out of date because the Forces proceed to attend for the ultimate two helicopters’ supply — nearly 20 years after they had been initially procured.
The paperwork, which had been verified by CBC Information, had been introduced to senior navy leaders final fall.
“Operational Relevance is in query as crucial methods reminiscent of safe SECURE COMMUNICATION / TACTICAL DATA LINK / PRIMARY WEAPON are set to run out with out alternative pathways,” says the spreadsheet.
In a written assertion, DND mentioned the air drive is conscious of the considerations.
An optimistic timeline
“The alternative of safe comms, tactical datalink and weapons (an upgraded torpedo) are all being actively pursued and funding is being sought to finish all of the upgrades,” mentioned the assertion.
Air drive planners nonetheless do not anticipate getting the alternative methods put in and run by way of the preliminary testing part till 2031. The division mentioned stopgap measures are being thought of.
“Nonetheless, investigations are ongoing to establish and implement restricted interim capabilities for each the torpedo and safe comms by 2025 so as to scale back the operational affect,” the DND assertion mentioned. “Investigation of a restricted interim tactical information system can be ongoing.”
When the Cyclones had been first ordered in 2004, the Liberal authorities of then-prime minister Paul Martin predicted that the helicopter could be in service by 2010-2011 on the newest.
That proved to be a wildly optimistic timeline, as neither DND nor the producer anticipated the technical problems that got here with changing a civilian chopper to navy use.
Sunk prices
By 2013, the Conservative authorities of then-prime minister Stephen Harper (which additionally employed an outdoor guide) was taking a look at scrapping the Cyclone challenge altogether as prices and delays mounted.
However the authorities — which had already spent $1.7 billion on the challenge by that time and had obtained simply 4 check helicopters — opted to stay with this system.
Underneath the phrases of a revised contract with Sikorsky, signed nearly a decade in the past, the air drive would begin to obtain 28 “absolutely succesful” CH-148 Cyclone helicopters in 2018.
In its assertion, DND acknowledged that the helicopters haven’t reached their full functionality and certain will not be absolutely operational by the acknowledged 2025 deadline.
“Given present personnel and useful resource constraints, it’s unlikely 12 Wing and the RCAF will obtain FOC [Full Operating Capability] by 2025,” the assertion learn.
A shortage of personnel, elements
The air drive blames shortages of expert personnel — an issue that plagues the navy throughout the board. It says it could possibly’t assign sufficient expert individuals to the airbase in Shearwater to convey the fleet as much as normal.
“An extra cause for the delay includes disruptions within the international provide chain which might be creating delays throughout most industries,” mentioned the DND assertion.
“As such, there was a delay within the supply of the twenty seventh and twenty eighth plane as Sikorsky waits for elements. The supply of the twenty seventh plane is predicted within the first a part of 2024 and in [second quarter] 2025 for the twenty eighth and closing plane.”
McWha mentioned it is important that the division is acknowledging the affect of the elements scarcity.
“Sustainability of the Cyclone fleet has been an issue and can solely worsen,” he mentioned.
“If the producer can’t get supply of the elements essential to ship a contracted product to the client, one can solely think about the problem that the client should have in getting alternative elements to assist merchandise which have already been delivered.”
An ‘orphan’ system
The issue, mentioned McWha, pertains to the truth that the Cyclone is what the navy calls an “orphan weapon system” — no different international locations are flying it and it attracts on a small pool of alternative elements.
The communications and fight system the air drive is now struggling to exchange might have been state-of-the-art in 2004, he mentioned, but it surely was additionally distinctive to the helicopter.
“Even whether it is doable to discover a provider prepared to supply alternative elements or restore failed elements for such a small fleet, the price of doing so will inevitably be very excessive,” mentioned McWha.
“This was totally foreseeable again in 2004.”
Except the federal government throws a lot of cash at them, he added, the “producers haven’t any incentive to retain the technicians and engineering to service or assist a tiny obsolescent fleet that’s now not on their manufacturing line.”
Dave Perry, a defence analyst and president of the Canadian World Affairs Institute, mentioned it is attention-grabbing the defence division has chosen to get outdoors recommendation.
He added that, given all the issues with the Cyclone challenge so far, he is questioning whether or not federal officers are contemplating changing the Cyclone with one thing much less troublesome.
“There’s been some Canadian allies lately which have accomplished primarily precisely that, moved to chop their losses on some helicopters which had been underperforming and take a look at alternate options. I do not know whether or not or not we’re fairly at that state of affairs,” mentioned Perry, whose group has hosted conferences that often have been sponsored by defence contractors.
