Who's writing the rulebook?
"I can tell you the Canadian Forces would be very happy if there were numerous compliant aircraft for this requirement," Capt. Hutcheson said. "But the competition has to be amongst aircraft that meets the requirement. A competition that involves aircraft that do not meet the requirement is sort of pointless."
The good Captain is talking about the FWSAR project, which the Ottawa Citizen now reports may come to a "competition" - whatever that means.
This story, unfortunately, adds nothing new to the central issue here: are the requirements used to set the parameters of any competition actually what the CF needs, or have they been skewed to favour a particular aircraft for less-than-pure reasons?
Until we see the requirements themselves, none of us can really say for sure.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 5:48 p.m.
3 Comments:
Here is one example. The CF never wanted the Buffalo. It was imposed by the government. They first used in as a tactical aircraft and eventually found a niche for it as an SAR aircraft. Now, they use it as an example of what a great SAR aircraft should be, and what it should have. The Buffalo has a rear ramp, and now the CF thinks that a good SAR aircraft must have a rear ramp. The Beriev 200 is a jet Amphibious aircraft built according to western JAR-25 norms with full glass cockpit has not rear ramp. So it cannot compete. How narrow minded can we be ?
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1114772/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1048111/M/
Taxpayer, an excellent reason to have a rear ramp on a SAR aircraft is to deploy emergency supplies (medical aid, rafts, generators, food) off that ramp. SAR kits are usually pre-packaged in palletised form (that is, on a standard 463L air-droppable pallet).
A typical parachute-deployed palletised SAR kit contains tents, generators, medical supplies and some food. I'd be interested in hearing how parachute-deploying all of that in non-palletised form via a standard crew door is easier.
There are also palletised maritime SAR kits which would similarly be a little hard to deploy via a crew-sized side door.
If you want your SAR plane to merely fly around and drop first aid kits and small food packets, you can do that with something that doesn't have a rear ramp.
If you want your SAR plane to drop large amounts of supplies (for say, a commercial air carrier crash or maritime bulk carrier emergency), or drop bulky supplies (gas powered generators, rescue vehicles/boats, etc) then you need something with a ramp.
There are plenty of areas in this country where you can get into trouble, in very inhospitable conditions, and be several hundred (or even a thousand) miles from the nearest population center that can help. Look up the history of CC-130 Boxtop 22 for just such an instance.
Next time the army wants a new jeep maybe you can convince the CF to dust off the requirements for a quarter-ton truck c. 1945.
Take-off weight:
C-27J 31.8 tons
BE-200 42,0 tons
Payload:
C-27J 9 tons
BE-200 7 tons
Max Speed
C-27J 325 kts
BE-200 405 kts
Price
C-27J and BE-200 around 25 million.
Not exactly a truck and certainly not "1945". The French are considering replacing their CL-415s with it.
I'd be interested in hearing how parachute-deploying all of that in non-palletised form via a standard crew door is easier.
The same way they did it before the C-119, the first aircraft with a rear door, became operational in 1949, the same way it was done in World War II and most of the Korean war : through the side door, with tracks and rollers for the pallets. So unless we intend to drop 40 foot rescue boats to the survivors, a side door can handle the drop, and the SARtechs.
The C-27J may very well be the best SAR platform, I haven't really looked into it. All I am saying is that we should not let a fixation on an item such as a rear ramp make us pass up a great aircraft (BE-200 or other) I think however that an aircraft that could set down on the water when it is possible and para-drop sartechs and equipment when setting down is not possible, would be great to have. We had seaplanes from 1924 to 1970, when the unwanted Bufallo arrived. I am not inventing a concept. And many countries are looking at the BE-200, including
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