ProPatria031 said:
I wonder, would it be possible to do airborn Ops with it? if so we could load a whole jump coy in the back of that beast. ;D
Yes.
We will get there one day.
One step at a time.
Our long term goal/plan/doctrine is to perform airdrop with the C-17 aircraft as well as with the C-130J.
Currently we simply don't have the crews trained yet to even perform the shear volume of airland taskings that are being piled onto the plate of 429 Sqn. We are trying hard to meet operational requirements as well as force generate qualified aircrew and technicians as quickly and as safely as possible. Performing airdrop operations simply isn't feasible or safe right now given the current tempo of operations.
The one difference that the RAAF has over the Canadian Air Force is that the Australians have one year (from delivery of their first aircraft) to train their crews before being mandated for operations. The Commander 1 Cdn Air Div gave us 5 days, yes days, count them ...................... 5 days.
So the few instructors that we have ... we can barely count them on one hand ... are trying to train the new crewmembers and to also fulfill the lines of required taskings for CANOSCOM and CEFCOM and all the other COMs that are now banging on the Air Div's door demanding that they use the new aircraft. We're being pulled in way too many different directions right now, and we have barely taken delivery of the entire fleet, and we have barely declared IOC let alone FOC.
We'll get around to airdrop one day ... soon hopefully.
The C-17 is very good at dropping Heavy Equipment, CDS and also Personnel, low level static line, or personnel high altitude HAHO/HALO for standoff insertion.
It also does JPADS and PGADS very accurately as well from high altitudes.
Furthermore, the rest of the CF must also adjust to meet the infrastructure change associated with airdrop - it is not as simple as sticking a bunch of stuff in the back and then shoving it out the door in flight.
CFLAWC, the TAMS & MAMS folks and the riggers will have to shift gear as we transition away from the archaic method of rigging HE in the back of the legacy C-130s (nobody else in the world does it this way anymore so I don't know why we still do - a refusal to change I suppose). The C-17 and the C-130J now do HE airdorp using the EFTC HE pallets - something Canada does not possess. So now, we have to get rid of all those old pallets, buy the new ones and then train a whole host of folks in blue and green on how to rig this new stuff. The good news is - it'll now only take 30 minutes to rig the back of the aircraft for HE instead of 6 hours.
There's also a new training bill for the folks who wish to jump out of the aircraft - the drill is slightly different as there is now an amber light that comes on between the red and the lime light. Go figure - the static line is also longer as well. So now CFLAWC has to develop a way of keeping the C-130J static line chutes separate from the C-17 static line chutes. The Americans use the standard yellow for the 16' static lines for the C-130s and blue for the new 20' C-17 static lines.
There is a much bigger infrastructure cost to airdrop - and we have to get a whole lot of the CF "on-line" with airdrop before we start - it's not just a matter of telling a bunch of blue Air Force types in Trenton to "Get with it, come on lets go". A lot of purple and green will have to adapt and change as well. Its a whole new paradigm out there.
Right now the CF is having a tough time adjusting to simple use of the C-17 in the strategic airland role - it'll be a big change for airdrop.
One step at a time.
We need to walk first and then we will try running.
