Canada asks for Chinook design changes; military expert worry about delay

[beenthere]

I've found the SOR and have read it. Not understanding the process I'm left in the dark as to what happens to verify that the aircraft that is selected meets the criteria of the SOR.

 

[beenthere]

Obviously we're all in the dark.-- Sort of like mushrooms.

 

[Spencer100]

And mushrooms grow in what? 


Sorry I had too

 

[STONEY]

FYI - On Feb. 1  US Army ordered 10 new CH-47F's  will be delivered by 2012.  The Brits are to deploy modified Seakings  to the sandbox  they are being fitted with new Carson blades to both main & tail rotor which in hot & high conditions give them 2000 lbs more lift & 49 km more speed.

Cheers

 

[beenthere]

Canada asks for Chinook design changes; military expert worry about delay
Article Link

OTTAWA - Canada's air force wants to upgrade the design of its planned CH-47 Chinook battlefield helicopters and is offering Boeing a limited contract to construct a couple of prototype aircraft, defence sources have told The Canadian Press.

The chief of air staff, Lt.-Gen. Angus Watt, confirmed project staff have asked for changes, but would not discuss the specifics of the negotiations underway with the Chicago-based aircraft giant.

He said he's confident the ongoing talks and the redesign will not affect the delivery date of the 16 medium-lift helicopters, which the army has identified as essential in getting Canadian troops off the bomb-strewn roads of southern Afghanistan.

But air force observers are worried the request, made earlier this year, will knock the project off schedule, pushing the arrival of the aircraft out past 2011.

Much like vehicles coming off the assembly line, helicopters can come with a variety of different features and Watt compared the impending $4.7 billion purchase to buying a pickup truck or SUV.

"We don't want a basic truck," he said in an interview. "Because we have a relatively small fleet without all of the additional bells and whistles and extra capabilities, we want that fleet to be more than a basic truck so it can do those missions in a little more demanding circumstances."

One of the most important upgrades the air force wants to see is better armour and weapons so the choppers can perform casualty evacuation.

Canadian troops wounded in battle in Afghanistan are currently airlifted to hospital in specially outfitted U.S. Blackhawks. The modifications being requested would not upgrade the Chinooks to a full medevac role, which would require the installation of a suite of life-saving equipment, but would allow for the timely airlift of most wounded soldiers.

Watt said there are other design changes meant to allow the Chinooks to operate in bad weather and fly over vast distances - necessary features if the aircraft are to be useful to the army in the Arctic during the summer. The air force also wants the CH-47 to act as a backup search and rescue helicopter for the sometimes troubled Cormorant.

When the medium-lift helicopter program was announced, former defence minister Gordon O'Connor said he expected delivery of the first aircraft in 2010 or 36 months after a contract was signed.

Yet over a year after the Conservative government invoked an advanced contract award notice, citing national security and Boeing as the only company capable of delivering the required aircraft, it has yet to strike a formal contract.
More on link

I must admit that I got somewhat away from the subject that got this whole thing going. I would consider the proposal to issue a contract for a couple of prototypes to be the ideal way to introduce the helicopter. Historically, we have bought production models- the CH-113A and previous Chinook only to discover that they had many shortcomings which limited our ability to use them. The CH-113A Voyageur (Army model) was severely handicapped in that it didn't have sufficient fuel capacity to get it from where it was based to where it was expected to go. If the people who bought it had insisted on a system to give it longer range there would never been a problem. It took 10 years to develop an extended range fuel system. By the same token the CH-113 (RCAF) Labrador was bought without an optional Auxiliary Power Unit which was a must have item. The fix for that little oversight was to buy complete tail sections and APUs from damaged U.S. Marine helicopters and fit them onto the Labradors. For those who aren't familiar with them the tail section constitutes about 1/3 of the aircraft.
Our old Chinooks came with the same fuel capacity problems as the CH-113A Voyageurs that they replaced. They also had lots of problems that we had never heard of because no one bothered to properly check into them in the big rush to get them. While one of them was undergoing acceptance flights in Pennsylvania the whole *** end blew out of an engine. We discovered that it really wasn't an uncommon event but they were working on a fix for it and in the meantime we'd just have to expect that it would happen from time to time. We also discovered that the compressor turbine blades on the engines were very delicate little things that were prone to damage when pebbles got sucked into the engines. It created so much rotor wash that it blew rocks around but no one had yet developed a particle separator to filter out all of the debris that was going into the engines. The cabin windows that regularly blew out in flight weren't one of the features in the brochures that Boeing handed out either. There were lots of other unadvertised features as well but I'm not writing a book. >
We should buy a couple of trial models so we can work the bugs out before we commit them to general use. The manufacturer gives about the same response to their customers as a used car dealer when problems crop up so if we want something that's going to provide good service we should get a head start.

 

[GAP]

I was under the impression the Chinooks we are purchasing are already in use by the US, and most of the bugs had been worked out. Canadianize......don't these operate in Alaska?

If they work there what more do we need other than a Maple Leaf?

 

[daftandbarmy]

Aren't our left wings larger than theirs?

 

[Good2Golf]

Aren't our left wings larger than theirs?

:rofl:

 

[beenthere]

___Quote: "If they work there what more do we need other than a Maple Leaf? "  Lets not get into this.   We don't want to get into a conflict of interest scandal. Try a google search using Ti Domi and the name of a certain cabinet minister.  ;D

 

[newfin]

Here's a positive development:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/02/10/pf-4838866.html

Canada's Defence Department has approached the Pentagon about obtaining as many as six refurbished U.S. army battlefield helicopters for use in Afghanistan, defence sources tell The Canadian Press.

The request for information was made as part of a worldwide search for medium-lift transport to get Canadian soldiers off the dangerous highways and biways of Kandahar.

Almost two years ago, Canada's air force was offered, but turned down access to used Chinooks under a program called Cargo Helicopter Alternate Procurement Strategy, or CHAPS.

With the Manley commission laying down helicopters as a requirement for extending Canada's mission, defence officials are scrambling to fill the order.

The helicopters said to be under consideration are 'D' model CH-47 Chinooks, a slightly older variety of the 'F' model Canada's air force hopes to buy, said a NATO source.

The aircraft would be refurbished by Boeing and would be available for delivery well within the one-year time frame set out by the independent commission.

"There's not a lot of time, but its doable," said a defence source.

The aircraft come with few frills, but would contain at a minimum a defence suite of machine-guns, flares and chafe to protect against ground-based attack.

The cost is said to be $15 million per aircraft - or less than half of the pricetag of a new one. A brand new Chinook can go for up to $40 million in some cases.

Canadian pilots have already been training on CH-47s in the U.S. and Australia in anticipation of the Tory government's long-promised $4.7 billion purchase of 16 brand new Chinooks.

That could help speed the introduction of the refurbished ones, said the NATO source, who asked not to be named.

The potential purchase was apparently discussed among Canadian and American officials at last week's informal meeting of NATO defence ministers in Vilinius, Lithuania.

At the same time Defence Minister Peter MacKay kept up pressure on the Americans to allow Canada to slip ahead of the U.S. military in Boeing production line orders for the few 'F' model Chinook.

Officials were expected to plead their case with U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates. Canada has been asking since late 2006 such consideration, but has repeatedly been turned down.

A spokesman for MacKay confirmed this weekend that Canada has asked to skip ahead in the production line, but Dan Dugas could not provide any details about the refurbished helicopter proposal. He conceded other options were being studied.

Poland had offered to make available two of its Mi-17 transport helicopters for NATO allies in Kandahar, including Canada.

MacKay had follow-up discussions with Poland's defence minister about timing and availability of those aircraft.

"More importantly though, we're pursuing our own means to procure helicopters and I'll have something more to say about that in the very near future," he said leaving Vilnius on Friday.

In June 2006, the Conservative government announced it was going to buy 16 heavy-lift helicopters and within weeks said Boeing was the company best-suited to meet the requirements.

The program has since stalled, a formal contract has yet to be signed and delivery of the first aircraft isn't expected until 2011. Part of the reason is that Canada's air force has asked for design changes to make the helicopter more versatile in order to carry out other types missions beyond the desert battlefields of Kandahar.

The demand for Chinooks from the American military and other allied countries is high. The Boeing assembly line is running at full tilt thanks mostly to an order of 450 aircraft from the U.S. army.

One of the attractive aspects to the refurbished Chinook proposal is that the deal could be done through a direct commercial sale rather a foreign military sale through the U.S. army, which would be fraught with complications and restrictions.

The U.S. is pleased with the CHAPS program because whatever money it makes selling rebuilt helicopters to allies can be plowed back into its program to buy new ones


I can't see that the government has any other credible options to persue.  If they are asking allies to put their aircraft in harms way they they need to make sure that they are doing everything possible to secure aircraft of our own.  Hope it happens and they add these six to the other sixteen so we end up 24 altogether.

 

[beenthere]

They wouldn't talk about it unless they knew that there was something in the works. However getting a viable operation up and running within the timeframe demanded by the commission would still have the the same problems that I noted regarding our previous Chinook  fleet. Hopefully someone will realize that there's a lot more involved with this issue than getting possession of the helicopters.

 

[Bearpaw]

Acquiring 6 refurbished CH-47D for about $90 million seems to be a very good deal if there is a reasonable amount
of lifetime remaining for them after refurbishment.  It may even be worthwhile getting more if all checks out.

Wondering about the cost of the 16 new F-models--the cited article implies that a deluxe new F-model
costs about $40 million/airframe(I assume for the airframe only).  Our proposed contract for 16 new F-models with support,...
is for $4.7 billion----> about $290+ million/airframe. 

$250 million "supporting" costs for EACH airframe seems more than a bit excessive. 
With limited funds available, we should be trying to get the most advantageous deal possible.

Perhaps so many pigs are being slaughtered for the Boeing pork-barrel that our cost of bacon should soon
jump more than a little bit!

Perhaps someone more familiar with the cost per flying hour of these two models of helicopter could
contrast the two proposed purchases.

 

[aesop081]

Wondering about the cost of the 16 new F-models--the cited article implies that a deluxe new F-model
costs about $40 million/airframe(I assume for the airframe only).  Our proposed contract for 16 new F-models with support,...
is for $4.7 billion----> about $290+ million/airframe. 

$250 million "supporting" costs for EACH airframe seems more than a bit excessive. 
With limited funds available, we should be trying to get the most advantageous deal possible.

You are not taking into account everything else that usualy comes with the purchase of a new aircraft. In most cases, the OEM provides all the required technical and operating publications, training, ground support equipment and other various things.As with anything aviation, its adds up faster than most people can grasp. The ISS contract will likely be for 20 years and likely has a large value attached to it.

 

[beenthere]

Here's something that may help with understanding how the CH-47 Chinook program works. Rather than building complete new Chinooks the old ones are recycled through the Boeing facility where they are reworked and modified to different models. Some new built from scratch models are also added to the fleet to replace aircraft which have been lost or to expand overall numbers. Aircraft that come off the Boeing line may have originally been built many years ago and reworked several times into B, C, D or whatever models but are considered to be new and indeed they are as nothing is overlooked in the process. The upgrades are limited only by budget constraints and technology available at the time. Budget constraints prevail over technology and what comes off the line isn't the best Chinook that can be built but the best compromise. This works out to be the perfect situation for Boeing because every time that they wave good by to a departing Chinook they know that they will be seeing it again in a few years when it comes back for another rebuild.
There are no Chinook junkyards and no surplus Chinooks and virtually the only way to buy them is to order new ones. Scooping six aircraft from the U.S. Army inventory is a rather major event even if they do stand to profit in the long term. Hopefully they don't come with long term political commitments.

 

[OldSolduer]

So why did we sell our Chinooks in the first place?

OHHHHH...yes I'm sorry, the Air Force bought into the "peace dividend". Now us "grunts" are paying the price for that folly.
I said it was a mistake when they were sold, and people looked at me like I had tree heads.
"we'll never need them again" was what I heard.

Then why did the CF-18's not go at the same time????

 

[daftandbarmy]

Easy. Jet jocks get promoted to become CDS. 'Garbage Truck Drivers' (at least that's what they used to call it) don't.

 

[aesop081]

So why did we sell our Chinooks in the first place?

OHHHHH...yes I'm sorry, the Air Force bought into the "peace dividend". Now us "grunts" are paying the price for that folly.
I said it was a mistake when they were sold, and people looked at me like I had tree heads.
"we'll never need them again" was what I heard.

Then why did the CF-18's not go at the same time????

You need a history lesson obviously..........it was not the AF that decided to get rid of the Chinooks

:

 

[Nfld Sapper]

It was us ground pounders that decided to get rid of the Chinooks

 

[danchapps]

Now, I may be out of my lane, heck, maybe even on the wrong highway, but isn't the Lab fairly similar to fly compared to the Chinook? And the Lab wasn't retired all that long ago. Would we not have pilots capable of flying the Chinook with a little less time required to come up to speed so to speak? Please correct me if I'm wrong, again, I may be out of my league on this one, but it almost makes sense.

 

[Good2Golf]

Chapeski, a lot of the ex-Lab guys stayed in the Primary SAR world and are flying the Cormorant now.  One might consider that the tactical aviator skills, which take years and years to develop to a tactical mission commander capable of going into combat, would be the longer pole in the tent than the basic skills required to convert from one helicopter to another.  It probably stands to reason, that unless the Government is willing to significantly reduce the National SAR capability, the SAR pilots will stay SAR, and the tactical aviators will just learn to fly another aircraft when they do what it is they do.

Cheers,
G2G