Canada asks for Chinook design changes; military expert worry about delay
- Thread starter GAP
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beenthere said:
This would have been the approach any normal country might have taken, but I do not think Canada would have. There is no way the Libs would have replaced/upgraded them (you know the Sea King story) they would not even replace or upgrade the SAR Labs.
I am sure you were around in the '90s. The Gov't & AF had no fore site for operations. Aircraft were not bought based on their value in combat operations. We de-fanged our AF in the '90s, that is why the AF is irrelevant in todays combat Ops!!
The military recently announced they are putting mini-guns on the Grifs. The US had mini-guns in Vietnam, we should have had they on our Chinooks & Heuys 20 years ago (Kiowas had them, I know). We are supposed to be the AIR COMBAT arm of the military, yet we only now, after 5+ years of combat decide to seriously arm the Grifs. Should have rocket pods too.... Look at the new F18 upgrade, no major weapons upgrade beyond the AMRAAM. Aurora upgrade, no weapons at all???
Had we the fore site to put the proper arms for our F18's, Grifs & CP140's we'd be in good shape today. Every other country has armed planes, why not us?? We go out of our way in Canada not to have a combat Airforce!!
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That being the case, think back on some of the grandiose plans there were such big news a few months back. Bagotville was to get the Quick Reaction Bn. Trenton/Mountainview was getting the JTF and perhaps CSOR too. Could that be the reason that Bagotville would get the complete fleet - a Quick Reaction Bn is moving in?
karl28 said:
It come down to infrastructure!! The hangers at the army bases are for Griffons. Chinook will not fit in the hanger, too big. That means $$ for hanger upgrades. Mountainview's hangers are WW2 vintage, will not work, you'd have to spend millions to upgrade them and the airfield. I have heard that Borden was discussed, but that the top of the list is Bagotville. There is a huge hanger in Bagtown built for USAF AWACS deployments. It is being looked at, again, we are in Canada, think politics!!!! Canada is not going to do what makes sense, we will do what makes "political" sense!!
Myself, I would like to see an Air Assault Brigade formed. Me, I would do this; take the light bats out of each BG, consolidate them together with the helos. I would put all the helos together on one base (with the AAB).
George Wallace said:
I heard that CSOR & Dwyer Hill folks were relocating to Trenton. MV would make sense, but you'd need millions in upgrades. Would be nice to see another base opened. I would love to see some bases opened in areas we are not in, such as SW Ontario....
A
aesop081
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geo said:
and we should have replaced those with something new years ago.
They were rebuilt regularly. New wings twice, lots of upgrades and they are still going strong with the exception of some that won't get any more structural work done. New aircraft were added to the fleet up until production ceased and only J models were being built.geo said:
Most U.S. Army Chinooks are rebuilt and some date back to the 60s.
All CH-113s went through rebuilds several times and the ones that we spared from becoming museum displays have moved on to civilian careers.
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geo said:
The rebuilds I was thinking of would be a few PMQs, not much more than that, maybe get the Fire Dept. back up the hill. The rest is still standing, mind you there are tenants in the hangars (Bombardier CL-415 assembly, Voyageur Airways) I believe I remember hearing about a clause where if DND needed the space back it was theirs, but I could be way off on that one. I guess I just like rooting for my hometown, I'd love to see the place boom again.
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Chapeski said:
Are you confusing Mirabel, North of the city, with St Hubert, South of the city? As far as I know Mirabel was never DND. It was farmland expropriated solely for the construction of a newer, larger International Airport.
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Sorry Mr Wallace, I was talking about North Bay. Due to NORAD being there most of the buildings were left up, but they off-loaded most of the services (snowplowing and such) onto the city. There would be relatively few upgrades needed I would think. But again, this is out of my league.
Rebuilding has lots of merits. Providing that enough money is made available a rebuild allows for modifications to bring the aircraft up to date by incorporating new equipment during the process. This way one aircraft at a time can be scheduled to be out of the fleet and can be stripped down to the state where structural components are easily accessable for mods or replacement and all of the wiring and plumbing associated with new equipment can be installed. It's also the only time that a lot of nooks and crannies get well enough exposed to reveal them for proper inspection and invariably corrosion and cracks are discovered and repaired.
When a new system is installed on rebuild it can be evaluated in use on the rebuilt aircraft and necessary changes made to the system before incorporating it into successive aircraft as they are rebuilt.
The close association of our CH-113 program with the Boeing facility in Arnprior was a perfect example of what can be done to provide updates and rebuilds for a military fleet. Unfortunately, the cast of wizards in headquarters was as usual the weakest link in the chain and managed to keep the program at a predictably marginal level of success.
When a new system is installed on rebuild it can be evaluated in use on the rebuilt aircraft and necessary changes made to the system before incorporating it into successive aircraft as they are rebuilt.
The close association of our CH-113 program with the Boeing facility in Arnprior was a perfect example of what can be done to provide updates and rebuilds for a military fleet. Unfortunately, the cast of wizards in headquarters was as usual the weakest link in the chain and managed to keep the program at a predictably marginal level of success.
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SF2 said:
I guess Shilo, Wainwright, Suffield, and Edmonton don't exist in your world.
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