The greying guys and girls in Air Force blue

Lots of other things are pretty old too--but note what the Chief of Air Staff says about the C-130Js:

Canada's air force is trying to replace aging members, aging infrastructure and aging vehicles, its commander says.

"The main challenge I have is age, but not my age," Lt.-Gen. Angus Watt, the chief of air staff with the Canadian Forces, said in an interview Wednesday.

"We have a relatively old workforce in the air force," he said.

The average age of the force is 36, with non-commissioned officers at 37 and officers at 38 years old.

"We are a young person's business, so it is a challenge for me to recruit enough young people to keep rejuvenating the ranks to keep that average age coming down," he said...

The air force, which currently has about 350 members in Afghanistan providing mostly transport duties, is also struggling to maintain its aging facilities such as hangars, control towers and runways.

"I have 13 wings, 10 of which have infrastructure and the replacement cost of that infrastructure is $6.5 billion," he said. "Fifty per cent of that infrastructure is 50 years old or older."

Canada's military aircraft are also feeling the strain of the years.

"The average age of the aircraft that I operate is 26 years," he said. "They are extremely well maintained, they are always safe but old technology comes with a price and the price gets higher because every year that passes it gets another year older."

But Watt did point to some progress.

The air force is planning to replace its fleet of aging C-130 Hercules transport planes purchased four decades ago.

"We are very close to signing a contract with Lockheed Martin for a new fleet of C-130Js [emphasis added], which will replace the C-130s that we have," he said. "It looks the same but is about four generations of technology newer which will serve us for the next 30 years very well."..

More on the Jerc delays here. It's interesting that the CAS did not mention the Chinook helicopter contract, still dragging on.

Meanwhile the Norwegians have just ordered four stretched C-130Js and will get their first one next year--at a fly-away price of some US $75 million each--well ahead of us. The purchase is being made under Foreign Military Sales and the final contract hasn't even been negotiated yet. The Norwegians are being allowed to jump the queue and get two planes previously ordered by the USAF. By the time we sign a contract I wonder if we will be able to do any queue jumping (as Lockheed Martin has suggested could be possible) to get some planes sooner than three years after signing as is the formal requirement.