Meanwhile, in Canada

[james_davis_nicoll]

Canada to replace helicopters unfit for service with helicopters unfit for service.

The important thing is the people making money from this transaction won't have to fly in the new helicopters.

Comments

[dewline.livejournal.com]

No kidding. :-(

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

When I applied to join the Armed Forces I was hoping to pilot the replacement for our Sea Kings. That was in 1993, give or take a year.

-- Steve was disappointed when he flunked the physical, but looks like even passing wouldn't have helped there.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

When I heard the news this morning, I was amazed. They seem to be preying upon the exhaustion falsehood, which implies that if an issue has gone on long enough any resolution is better than continuing to work on it because moving on is more important.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

The important thing is the people making money from this transaction won't have to fly in the new helicopters.

I was given to understand, via the program notes for a recent production of a Dario Fo play, that the US is shamefully disinterested in political theatre compared to Europe. I wonder how Candada fares on that measure?

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Some years ago, Halliburton approached my city with an offer to replace a somewhat too-small bridge with what would have been, upon examination, a substantially identical bridge. And for only several billion dollars! Their offer was declined.

Is there a reason Canada shouldn't keep using the Sea King until an actually better helicopter shows up?

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

We have, for fifty years now. The Sea Kings are flying on good intentions and prayer, held together with duct tape and fishing line. (Because baling wire's too heavy.)

-- Steve thinks they're past the 24 hrs of maintenance for every hour in the air now.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

Thirty hours plus was the last report, and even then emergency landings are a common occurrence.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

It sounds as if the "buy new Sea Kings to replace the old ones" plan is quite off the table, then. I can't criticize Canada; the same point comes up every time someone tries to replace the aging B-52 fleet...

Come to think of it, I heard something similar from old timers about replacing the DC-3.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

Maintenance requirements go up for multiple reasons. One of them is the steady accretion of advanced technologies retrofitted into the aircraft, which means suboptimal wiring paths, adding ballast to maintain CoG, etc. So if you ordered some new Sea Kings or B-52s from the factory, would you want them built to 1960 spec, or with all the improvements added? If you get them with the improvements, then congrats, you're still stuck with piles of maintenance.

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

Business as usual for just about anywhere and any industry in Canada right now. Whoever makes the money does not have to live with the filth/danger/ugliness/karma. Karma never gets these creepers in this life.

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

A few of those requirements should have been non-negotiable...

In Canada these should be no-brainers.
"Crew comfort systems during extreme temperature operations."
"The ability to self start in very cold weather."

And I would think this would be on par with airbags in cars. Simple.
"A system to automatically deploy personnel life rafts in emergency situations."




Sikorsky should have had its pants sued off, not given concessions. I also didn't notice a 'shipping date' for these inferior choppers. How many more years is it going to be?

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

I worked on helicopter safety systems in the (US) Marine Corps. I'm on board with all of those _except_ for the auto-deploying rafts. The CH-46 was built with such a system, and eventually they were all removed. The problem was inadvertent deployment in flight, and now the helicopter is dragging around a bunch of inflated balloons which is very bad for aerodynamics.

The obvious solution is "prevent inadvertent deployment!" but helicopter flight over water involves a lot of spray, and an automatic system sufficiently insensitive to reject false activations from being soaked with spray, is also likely to not activate sufficiently quickly when it is actually immersed in water due to an emergency.

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

Here's the Wikipedia entry for the history of the Sea King replacement program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Sea_King_replacement

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

There are comically exaggerated corrupt banana republics in comics that are better at military equipment acquisition than Canada is.

[asyouknow-bob.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm still given pause by "$7.6 billion for 28 helicopters."

~$270,000,000 EACH ?!?
Off the top of my head, this strikes me as an order-of-magnitude (or so) high.

I at least hope they come with a good warranty.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

I know conservatives are generally about changing things as little as possible, but come on.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

It's more generally about not doing what the preceding party did just because they might get credit for it.

[(Anonymous)]

Historically, a characteristic of both parties; remember Chretien's campaign promise wrt new helicopters, and how quickly he fulfilled it.
The GST comes to mind as well.