Cringing at the F35 rumours. We don't have time to order a different fighter. We're going to have 0 fighters (or the first 16 F35s) if we start the procurement process all over again. The CF18s are out of time.
It's great we want to invest in domestic aerospace, ask industry to design and build some new platforms in the UAS space! There is plenty of room in the market and the (relative to a fighter) low-complexity makes them a lot more feasible for domestic, from scratch, solutions.
I don't understand where the idea that UAS is easy comes from. Anything easy will get shot down. As UAS moves into the CCA space, the complexity goes way up. Possibly even more than manned aircraft.6
The CCAs woukd be highly complex, no doubt. But platforms like the Navy's logistics drone, ISR platforms, maybe even up to a Reaper B equivilant are within the capabilities of Canada's industry. I get they're not low complexity in absolute terms, so I mentioned relative to a fighter. Asking domestic industry to build a high endurance arctic ISR drone is more in their wheelhouse than asking them to build a gen 4.5 or 5 fighter.
Might replacement of the Orca-class PCT be the NISV project, grown larger? From Maritime Engineering Journal, Summer 2021 (https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/dnd-mdn/documents/mej/41-025-maritime-engineering-journal-97.pdf): "The Naval Inshore Support Vessel (NISV) project, now at the options analysis phase, aims to procure six new auxiliaries – two dive-support vessels to replace the tenders at the Fleet Diving Units, two vessels to replace the Torpedo and Ship Ranging Vessels at CFMETR, and two vessels to expand training capabilities and support domestic operations." A 'tier three' multi-role vessel (somewhere between 200-1000t) could well serve (commissioned or not) the RCN for patrols, Reserve training (24 of them?), diving support, seabed operations, drone operations, mine warfare.
Possible, although it was described to me as a seperate thing from anything else. Thats always a potential. Still to early for I think anyone to say, so never say never. NISV is another project running behind, but certainly fits in the same kinda category. I think we also need to see what exactly NISV produces in the end before we can safely say.
Cringing at the F35 rumours. We don't have time to order a different fighter. We're going to have 0 fighters (or the first 16 F35s) if we start the procurement process all over again. The CF18s are out of time.
It's great we want to invest in domestic aerospace, ask industry to design and build some new platforms in the UAS space! There is plenty of room in the market and the (relative to a fighter) low-complexity makes them a lot more feasible for domestic, from scratch, solutions.
I don't understand where the idea that UAS is easy comes from. Anything easy will get shot down. As UAS moves into the CCA space, the complexity goes way up. Possibly even more than manned aircraft.6
The CCAs woukd be highly complex, no doubt. But platforms like the Navy's logistics drone, ISR platforms, maybe even up to a Reaper B equivilant are within the capabilities of Canada's industry. I get they're not low complexity in absolute terms, so I mentioned relative to a fighter. Asking domestic industry to build a high endurance arctic ISR drone is more in their wheelhouse than asking them to build a gen 4.5 or 5 fighter.
Might replacement of the Orca-class PCT be the NISV project, grown larger? From Maritime Engineering Journal, Summer 2021 (https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/dnd-mdn/documents/mej/41-025-maritime-engineering-journal-97.pdf): "The Naval Inshore Support Vessel (NISV) project, now at the options analysis phase, aims to procure six new auxiliaries – two dive-support vessels to replace the tenders at the Fleet Diving Units, two vessels to replace the Torpedo and Ship Ranging Vessels at CFMETR, and two vessels to expand training capabilities and support domestic operations." A 'tier three' multi-role vessel (somewhere between 200-1000t) could well serve (commissioned or not) the RCN for patrols, Reserve training (24 of them?), diving support, seabed operations, drone operations, mine warfare.
Possible, although it was described to me as a seperate thing from anything else. Thats always a potential. Still to early for I think anyone to say, so never say never. NISV is another project running behind, but certainly fits in the same kinda category. I think we also need to see what exactly NISV produces in the end before we can safely say.