Made in Canada military aircraft?

[jzaidi1]

Folks,

Dumb question.  We have some excellent Aerospace Engineers coming out of Canada.  Has anyone (ie company/gov't) taken the plunge since the Avro Arrow to at least design and possibly build a "Made in Canada" solution for military aircraft?  Or are we destined to keep sending our best talent to LockMart, NASA, Boeing, etc and have our US cousins take credit.  Yes, I know we have Bombardier but they are mainly focused on civilian aircraft.

I'd love to see what our Canadian Aero Engineering talent can come up with for 5th generation fighter jets.  With all the 3d modelling software available we could easily visualize a design in relatively little time.

Look at SAAB based in Sweden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab) - a population of 9 Million people and they design and build fighter jets.  We, 33 Million people and no company that does that (of course we have US Subsidiaries here in Canada but it's not the same thing).

J

p.s As you can tell, I'm pro-military and pro-Canadian like all of us here

 

[acen]

I happen to know many Aerospace Eng's, including some working on projects for DND, and I think the problem here is that if we took your suggestion and acted upon it, by the time we had a working prototype the service life of the CF-18 would have long expired. Quite simply, we have invested too much money in the Joint Strike Fighter F-35 program to give up on it now, and quite frankly while we do have the engineers, we might not have the capital required for such an investment, as creating a fighter platform is usually a project that takes decade (s) let alone years, and quite frankly I do not think that the canadian forces would be getting value for money, especially since they would most certainly have difficulty exporting considering the amount of countries that have commited to the JSF program or the F-22, eurofighter or other programs. While Saab is a great example of a smaller country being able to produce high quality fighters, keep in mind that this is what Saab was developped to do a very long time ago and has investment flowing in for decades in order to continue this, and as a result of their success have been able to delve into other areas (armaments read the Carl Gustav being one of their products which we currently use, among many others which are available). We do have a vibrant aero engineering workforce in canada working on projects, but you will see most of these people doing consulting work, designing various forms of missiles or other rocketry, or contributing Canada's contribution to the Joint Strike Fighter. Simple economics dictates

 

[hauger]

I don't see it happening in exactly the same way I don't see a Canadian car company.  Funny when you think that Ontario builds so many vehicles and do it so well, but not one is a Canadian owned company (ignoring all the joint ventures/parts manufacturers/etc...).

Having said that, isn't the Griffon a Canadian built Bell 412, the gonzo is a Dash 8, and I thought Bombardier was hawking a mod'd Dash 8 as a FWSAR replacement.

 

[jzaidi1]

Cool,

My point wasn't to focus on fighter aircraft exclusively, although that being an obvious example.  I know we have sunk hundreds of Millions into JSF already.  It's just a shame that we have al this talent more than capable of at least 'designing' something, that in theory, would function in a military capacity.  I'd love to see a centre of excellence for aircraft/aerospace/space engineering funded by several countries and/or companies dedicated to next gen aircraft (transports, helos, fighters, UAVs, etc..) that could be used by Canadians AND sold to other countries.

Wishful thinking...I guess we'll just have to 'get by' on having the world's best drivers/engineers of foreign/joint-made technology.

J

 

[Loachman]

isn't the Griffon a Canadian built Bell 412

Parts are made all over the planet. Assembly was done in Mirabel. Painting was done in Dallas-Fort Worth.

This is probably the pattern for most, if not all, Bell helicopters.

We had some issues with the all-over-the-planet aspect early on - not everything went together properly. Left-hand collectives were rubbing on the door on several machines for one

 

[hauger]

Painting was done in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Seems like a far way to travel to get a decent paint job!

 

[Loachman]

Seems like a far way to travel to get a decent paint job!

They flew them there, too. I saw several refuelling in Kingston while doing the same.

Bell Test Pilot is not a job that I would take, given the anomalies that our techs found on acceptance checks: nuts/bolts undertorqued/overtorqued/not torqued at all, a couple of tools, wrong rivets, metal shavings - like the curly lathe type. It was two months before our first one was deemed airworthy and aircrew were "allowed" to touch it (prior to that it was restricted to techs and air cadets only - we might have broken it, or something).

"Another quality Bell product" does not mean the same thing to us as it does to the company.

 

[Spencer100]

Any interested in the building of domestic aircraft I would direct you to this piece.

http://www.aiaa.org/aerospace/images/articleimages/pdf/AA_Feb2008_Industry%20Insights.pdf

The point being that there has only been one "new" prime manufacturer of aircraft in the last 4 decades that has made it.  Embrarer of Brazil. 

Bombardier is Canada's prime but it has stayed out of miltary aircraft for the most part. 
This is agreeement between the gov and the company. 

 

[Spencer100]

Also as a side note.  Canada does not have a "national automanufacturer"  because of agreement with the US and the Big 3.  We signed the Autopact with the US making the big 3 our domestic auto companies.  The auto is now gone as it is superseded by the FTA and NAFTA.  But Canada has been on the winning side of this deal with the US by a HUGE margin.  Just look and the last 15 years of sales and production of autos in Canada.  We produces more cars than we buy in total in Canada. 

On more little point we do have one national company Magna.....they build whole cars and can make almost any part on a car.  Also as a stock they are valued higher then some of the car compnies themselves.

 

[TCBF]

- DHC still had a market for the Turbo Beaver when they stopped producing it.  They could probably start production again tomorrow and sell every one.

 

[Loachman]

De Haviland was swallowed up by Borgbardier years ago, and they don't appear interested in expanding their repertoire.

 

[Spencer100]

Also DHC (Bombardier) can not build the beaver.  They sold the Type Certificate to Viking Aircraft.  Viking ownes the DHC 1 to 7 aircraft type certificates.  Viking is starting new production of the Twin Otter.  US army has ordered a few. 

 

[STONEY]

Viking are reported to have an orderbook  for 40  Twin otters including 3 for the US Army parachute demo team.

 

[almost there]

DHC also made the Buffalo. I saw on the news the other day a company in Victoria wants the CF to give them the contract to give them a 'mid-life' upgrade rather than purchasing new A/C. I've never flown in one, but they are getting pretty old now (in service late 60's I think).. The other week 4 of the 6 in the fleet were out of service for one thing or another.. I'm no tech head, heard this from AVN's in 442.

 

[Zoomie]

The other week 4 of the 6 in the fleet were out of service for one thing or another.. I'm no tech head, heard this from AVN's in 442.

That's a pretty good day at 442 when we have two of the old girls serviceable.

Viking is all talk - they have no interest or capability of supporting the Buffalo.  They are just struggling to produce new Twotters.

 

[Flip]

It seems to me that in many respects, canadian industry is an active part of the "military industrial complex".  That is, as far a military technology is concerned, there is a very dim border.

Not a problem really.  the EU has a number of multinational efforts in aerospace and military technology.

The thing is ......

The bigger the technology, the smaller the world is. ;D

 

[inferno]

2 of 6 is a really good day at 442... that said..

You could have 9 of any other fixed wing aircraft serviceable, and its still not going to help you if they can't stop before the other end of the runway.

 

[Rifleman62]

From Sep 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7kVizC3ZGM

Someone did some interesting work here.

Sep 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjuL9IM-1T0

Jan 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl8boF3FEGQ

Apr 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBAY28QqTDY

 

[PuckChaser]

Hopefully that's the only place a "reborn" Avro Arrow will stay: Youtube videos and video game fantasies.

 

[Ashkan08]

Hopefully that's the only place a "reborn" Avro Arrow will stay: Youtube videos and video game fantasies.

Doesn't seem like it. Seems like these guys have and are continuing to design and test prototypes for a super Arrow.
http://www.superarrow.ca/
Seems like they are also asking for some help to fund the project which seems to have reached a 3D virtual reality stage.
https://ca.gofundme.com/we-need-the-hololens
Of course designing/testing/prototyping and actually starting production are two very different things but one has to start from somewhere.