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Challenger/"VIP" Jet/CF Chopper Use (CDS, others) [merged]

DND and the CF, indeed any government department always have difficulty defending things of this nature.

You can tell the general public all you want about hours, costs, flying hours etc and they will dismiss it as "BS".... :2c:
 
E.R. Campbell said:
.... but T6 is, probably, expressing the general public's reaction ... the "message," the one that got through to the public, is "trip to a tropical island for his vacation" and "trip to the Grey Cup," at taxpayers' expense. It doesn't matter if it is a distorted, even false message, it's the one most people got and understood ....
Good point.
 
Part of the issue is lexicon. 

The CDS described what these aircraft are when they fly him officially...C&L (command and liaison).  He can continue to effect C2 (command and control) of the CF at any point throughout his travels and duties.  Not quite a flying command post capability like Air Force One down south, but significant C2 functionality on board (and as others noted, the ability to discuss classified issues without risk of compromise).

When a (C&L, not VIP) helicopter carries the Briagade Commander around the field, it's not because he's lazy and doesn't want to walk, it's because he needs to remain connected to his C2 network.  The Commander's ability to attend to a number of critical activities within his area of responsibility is optimized through the provision of transport capability that keeps him connected to that network (by network, we mean over connectivity to C2 means, not just a computer-based LAN, etc...)

In summary, Gen Natynczyk travelled in Canada to various duty locations on a C&L aircraft, and was transported to rejoin his family on an aircraft conducting aircrew currency training that allowed him to remain connected to his C2 network until that point he commenced his vacation and acting-CF command was assigned to the delegated-Commander (VCDS, Comd Canada COM, etc...)

Regards
G2G
 
Quote from: E.R. Campbell on Today at 07:56:26

    .... but T6 is, probably, expressing the general public's reaction ... the "message," the one that got through to the public, is "trip to a tropical island for his vacation" and "trip to the Grey Cup," at taxpayers' expense. It doesn't matter if it is a distorted, even false message, it's the one most people got and understood ....

The "message" as crafted is dishonest, but sells to the great stupid unwashed who don't even bother to listen. Ask a young Joe/Jane on the street, and I bet they know nothing and care less.

It is the political junkies and those associated with the CF who pay some attention. A very small minority. The stupid, includes the NDP/Lieliberals who don't give a crap, but just want attention, any attention.

When I used the word "crafted" I did not mean crafty, smart or anything like that. Fife, his editors and ilk are just assholes, plain and simple. Truth, who wants the truth?
 
Meanwhile, what's the PMO have to say about the Minister's plane travels?
“I don't pay any attention to anonymous sources on Sunday morning chat shows. Especially ones who are wrong on every count,” Harper spokesman Andrew MacDougall told The Globe. “The Canadian government and the Canadian Armed Forces have a hard-working and dedicated minister – and his name is Peter MacKay.”
Globe & Mail, 26 Sept 11

edited to add....
In comparison, here's the PM's words in Question Period re:  the CDS (from Hansard):
I have spoken to the Chief of the Defence Staff. He understands what those expectations are and is certainly prepared to live according to those rules. As members know, the Chief of the Defence Staff does fly very frequently on government business, but obviously where there are alternatives we will look into that usage.“
 
Skilled politician.

Keep any possible contender for your position under your thumb, and owing their continued survival to your good words of support.

There is a reason that Peter MacKay has held the positions he has, and for as long as he has, in spite of some of the faux pas's he's made.
 
And people like to call the military "brainwashed".

Who's more brainwashed? The military because they follow a set of rules in order to do their job and defend their country? Or the general populace because they believe anything the media tells them?
 
ouyin2000 said:
And people like to call the military "brainwashed".

Who's more brainwashed? The military because they follow a set of rules in order to do their job and defend their country? Or the general populace because they believe anything the media tells them?
cupper said:
Skilled politician.

Keep any possible contender for your position under your thumb, and owing their continued survival to your good words of support.

There is a reason that Peter MacKay has held the positions he has, and for as long as he has, in spite of some of the faux pas's he's made.

Hey. I've been living near DC too long.  :Tin-Foil-Hat:
 
The media "ink spot" spreads....

Peter MacKay has racked up nearly $3 million worth of flights on the government's Challenger jets since assuming the role of defence minister in 2007, documents obtained by CTV News reveal.

A probe into MacKay's use of the jets shows that he is the government minister with the most frequent flyer miles aboard the exclusive Challenger fleet.

The total cost of MacKay's 35 flights amount to $2,927,738.70. Challenger flight logs were obtained through an Access to Information request.

The flight logs show that MacKay has flown a total of 247 hours aboard the aircraft, far more than his ministerial counterparts at Foreign Affairs and Finance ....
CTV.ca, 28 Sept 11

Defence Minister Peter MacKay outranks almost all his cabinet colleagues when it comes to using federal government executive jets, racking up more than $2.9-million in flights on the Challenger planes in the past four years.

No other Tory politician aside from Stephen Harper has accumulated as much time on the VIP jets since Mr. MacKay took over the defence portfolio in the late summer of 2007. Not former foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon or Ottawa’s jet-setting Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who frequently travels abroad for economic meetings ....
Globe & Mail, 28 Sept 11

In the four years after being named RCMP commissioner, Bill Elliott flew mostly the way few Canadians can — in private RCMP aircraft.

According to travel claims examined by the Star, Elliott took 97 flights on RCMP planes from July 2007 to June 2011, including short hops to Toronto or Montreal. On only two occasions did he indicate he travelled by police car to Montreal, a two-hour drive from Ottawa.

Most of Elliott’s RCMP flights were to domestic destinations, although he also flew to a few international locations — Haiti, California and Florida — via RCMP aircraft.

He flew 11 times to Toronto on RCMP aircraft, in two cases adding in travel to Barrie and Windsor. He flew five times to Montreal, including flying there and back on Aug. 22, only to return again on Aug. 24 for four days of meetings.

Elliott, who always travelled with his executive assistant, lists another 55 flights to domestic and international destinations for which he flew on commercial airlines and sought reimbursement for nearly $163,000 in airfare ....
Toronto Star, 28 Sept 11

.... As Canadians mull over how and where government officials should travel, Global News takes a look at the practices of some of the world’s most frequent flyers.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper: The Royal Canadian Airforce Airbus CC-150 ferries the Canadian prime minister to and from his engagements abroad. Claiming he can’t fly commercial for security reasons, Harper is also a frequent flyer on the military Challenger jets for short-haul trips for business of personal travel. The Governor General and cabinet ministers also use the Challenger jets for official business.

The Government of Alberta: Alberta has a government fleet made up of five planes for use by the Premier, cabinet ministers and public servants travelling the province on official business.

The Government of British Columbia: Politicians and public servants in British Columbia charter jets when a commercial flight is not available or is more expensive.

U.S. President Barack Obama: Obama travels on the iconic Air Force One, which is actually a set of two customized Boeing 747-200B jetliners. Obama’s vice-president, Joe Biden, flies on aptly-named Air Force Two, a customized Boeing 757.

British Prime Minister David Cameron: Cameron and other high-ranking British officials have committed to taking commercial flights whenever possible to keep costs to taxpayers at a minimum.

The Pope: When his bullet-proof golf cart won’t go the distance, Pope Benedict XVI typically flies on a chartered Alitalia jet referred to as Shepherd One – a nickname given following a trip to the United States in 2008.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia: Abdullah currently travels on a customized Boeing 747-3001 aircraft, though the Saudi Royal Family is reportedly outfitting an exclusive super-sized luxury Airbus 380 worth over $300 million.

Elizabeth II, the Queen of England: The Queen, ever conscious of the scrutiny of her subjects, tries to take a cost-effective approach to air travel. The Queen, along with members of the Royal Family and senior ministers of the British government travels on one of eight 30-seat VIP Royal Air Force jets, or opts for chartered civilian aircrafts or commercial flights on British Airways ....
Global News, 23 Sept 11
 
The thing has become the famous self licking ice cream cone:

1. The media feels obliged to tell us what the opposition is saying in the HoC - which is fair enough;

2. The opposition is talking about the controversy that the media manufactured - because it's easier than thinking for themselves or dealing with matters of real substance; and

3. The media feels obliged to tell us what the opposition is saying ...

4. ... and so in goes, almost ad infinitum or, at least, until a new, better manufactured controversy comes along to fill the 24 hour news machine's hopper.


 
E.R. Campbell said:
The thing has become the famous self licking ice cream cone ....
Indeed.  I had to laugh at one of the Globe & Mail columns on this one:
The Conservative Party of Canada knows that the politics of government plane usage is the low-hanging fruit of oppositional politics....
Not to mention the low-hanging fruit of herd journalism, right?
 
Peter MacKay flies more than the other ministers ?

What a shocker  :o

How many government departments have things going on globally ?


Our media outlets have been reduced to nothing more than the "weekly world news".
 
I like this comment from the same article Tony quoted.....

[quote]It just doesn’t matter that Peter MacKay’s use of the Challenger is far less than the yearly average of any Liberal defence minister in the past 10 years. Or that the Conservative government has apparently reduced ministerial travel on Challenger aircraft by 80 per cent since the last years of the previous Liberal government. Or, as CBC reported last week, the jets are in the hangar 70 per cent of the time. Because it is better to hitch-hike than be on a government jet when plane politics is at play. MacKay might be better advised to thumb his way to Kabul in this environment.[/quote]

 
And for a different take on things:
Shooting down high achievers
Shaun Francis
National Post
27 Sept 2011


Who knew that amortization could be so dangerous? If we've learned any lasting lessons over the past week, it's that accounting hyperbole can do as much damage to our military's reputation as a weapon wielded by an Afghan insurgent. The media keeps telling us that a Challenger jet - the type used by General Walter Natynczyk to attend a 2010 gala in Toronto for the True Patriot Love Foundation, the organization I lead as chair of the board - costs $10,000 per hour to operate. The actual figure, once you strip off the fixed capital costs, is $2,630.

And that's just the first of many media misrepresentations. The 2010 event was portrayed as an opportunity for Gen. Natynczyk to hobnob with the elites. But the truth was that Gen. Natynczyk was there to raise money for his rank-and-file soldiers. He gave a stirring, captivating speech, then worked the room tirelessly, pausing for a photo with anyone who asked, and always stopping to thank a soldier or the soldier's family.

Thanks in part to Gen. Natynczyk's personal appearances at this fundraiser and others, we were able to raise more than $6-million to send the children of deployed soldiers to summer camp, fund military community centres, renovate homes and cars for our amputees and provide funding to train them for the Paralympics.

Canadians tend to want their leaders to be just like them. We are a nation that flies economy, drinks Tim Hortons and wears khaki and plaid. We want leaders to follow our leads - to wait in the same queues as the rest of us. Think of how hard the Prime Minister's Office works to make Stephen Harper seem like a regular guy. He's someone who drops his kids off at school, and whose home at 24 Sussex Drive still doesn't have central air conditioning.

But Gen. Natynczyk's situation is, and should be, different. Since he became the military's top soldier in 2008, he has had what must be one of the planet's toughest jobs. He needs to be a walking paradox - a warrior and a diplomat, a genius with a common touch, a workaholic who never seems tired. If there's anyone who should be allowed to use a government jet, it's him. That's why even Liberal leader Bob Rae wondered whether the whole thing was overblown - chalking it up to "politics within politics."

In the three-and-a-half years that he's led our military, Gen. Natynczyk has distinguished himself in Ottawa. The problem isn't whether he was right to use a Challenger jet to join his family for Christmas holidays for the first time in three years. The problem is that Gen. Natynczyk's remarkable job performance has made him stand out in a country where we like to tear down high achievers.

Our antipathy toward excellence is a vestige of our colonial past, and it would behoove us to shake it. We don't celebrate the best among us. Instead, we criticize them as queue-jumpers or "high-flyers" (to quote CTV's Lisa LaFlamme, who decried Gen. Natynczyk's "highflying travel arrangements").

Perhaps this national trait once made sense. When Canada was a sleepy resource-rich quadrant of Her Majesty's empire, we kept our heads down, in quiet deference to Britain, our colonial master, and America, our confident and powerful neighbour. But those days are long past. Amid global economic chaos, we have emerged as one of the most stable and respected of Western nations. We can compete with anyone. When are we going to stop acting like the nervous colony? When are we going to let the Prime Minister get his central air?

Tradition suggests Gen. Natynczyk is heading into the final months of his term as Chief of the Defence Staff. He led our Canadian Forces through the successful completion of our combat mission in Afghanistan - one that elevated Canada's military reputation around the world. We should allow him to bask in the afterglow that follows a job well done.


Shaun Francis is the founder of the True Patriot Love Foundation, which is dedicated to improving the well-being of Canadian military families.
 
GAP said:
I like this comment from the same article Tony quoted.....

It just doesn’t matter that Peter MacKay’s use of the Challenger is far less than the yearly average of any Liberal defence minister in the past 10 years. Or that the Conservative government has apparently reduced ministerial travel on Challenger aircraft by 80 per cent since the last years of the previous Liberal government. Or, as CBC reported last week, the jets are in the hangar 70 per cent of the time. Because it is better to hitch-hike than be on a government jet when plane politics is at play. MacKay might be better advised to thumb his way to Kabul in this environment.

Speaking of "liberal"  ;) use of DND jets...perhaps the Challenger fleet wouldn't have been as "under-used" as it is currently if Prime Minister Chretien had not directed the untendered procurement of two (surplus?) CL-604 Challenger jets from Bombardier in March of 2002. 

Amazing how one tenth of a billion dollars can be spent in 14 days for aircraft the RCAF didn't even ask for, when there's direction from the top?  :nod:


Regards
G2G
 
I don't want to derail this, but which government told the CF  that you WILL buy the Airbuses from whatever airline it was......CF didn't want them, but got them anyways.

Am I confused on this issue?

Thanks!!
 
Jim Seggie said:
I don't want to derail this, but which government told the CF  that you WILL buy the Airbuses from whatever airline it was......CF didn't want them, but got them anyways.

Am I confused on this issue?

Thanks!!

WARDAIR IIRC Jim
 
Jim Seggie said:
I don't want to derail this, but which government told the CF  that you WILL buy the Airbuses from whatever airline it was......CF didn't want them, but got them anyways.

Am I confused on this issue?

Thanks!!

CC-150 Polaris (A310 Airbus) replaced the CC-137 Boeing in 1992. (i.e. PCs)  The A310s were owned by Canadian Airlines at the time (1992), but the aircraft were originally procured by Wardair in the early 1980's ('82 I think).

There is some confusion in dates about when the CC150 replaced the CC137, since a couple of CC137 Boeings were retained as air-to-air refuelers after the CC150 were procured.  The last AAR-variant CC137 was retired in 1997, if memory serves correctly.  Between 1992 and 1997, the Boeings only conducted AAR and not any passenger transport.

Regards
G2G
 
As I recall at least one reason the RCAF had to replace the 707's was the engine exhaust didn't meet the new environmental standards of those days.
 
Baden  Guy said:
As I recall at least one reason the RCAF had to replace the 707's was the engine exhaust didn't meet the new environmental standards of those days.

IIRC, and I'm reaching here, I think they used the same Pratt & Whitney J57 engines we used in the VooDoo, but without the afterburner cans. Very smokey and very noisy. Again, IIRC, they were so noisy, they were limited to which airports they were allowed to land at. That's all I can drag out of my foggy old memory right now.
 
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