Afstan: Chasing Chinooks and UAVs
MND MacKay is hopeful about jumping the CH-47 queu:
Good luck with that timetable. We should have bought Predators last year. More on the Predator.
...A couple of posts that note problems with rapidly deploying Chinooks, even if we manage to get some quickly, are here and here (and here's an actual Chinook user's site). Meanwhile on the UAV front:
Mr. MacKay also said some countries suggested they might be able to help Canada obtain medium-lift helicopters that are another condition for extending the mission.
But he also hinted that a deal is in the works to allow Canada to move up on the backlogged international order list for Chinook helicopters, and suggested that is more likely to be a bigger part of the solution than borrowing copters from other countries.
"More importantly, though, we're pursuing our own means to procure helicopters, and I'll have something more to say about that in the very near future," Mr. MacKay said...
Military set to fast-track $120-million drone lease
...
Defence Department spokeswoman Krista Hannivan said particulars about the cost of the project aren't being released until the full details about what is needed are outlined in a request for proposals issued to the aerospace industry. But she noted the department is sticking with the plan to lease the surveillance drones for a three-year period instead of purchasing them outright.
The department intends on moving quickly on the lease and has set up an "aggressive timetable," she added...
Good luck with that timetable. We should have bought Predators last year. More on the Predator.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 1:52 p.m.
1 Comments:
Regarding armed Predators, an excerpt from that cnews article:
"...Watt said technology that would deliver a 226-kilogram bomb, or fire a missile at a target, without humans nearby makes him nervous.
"I think it would be a stretch for us," Watt said.
"The reason being is: we in Canada like to have a man in the loop dropping weapons and shooting weapons at people.
"We generally insist on a degree of oversight, legitimacy, adherence to the laws of war that require a man in the loop pretty definitively. So it would be a bit of a stretch for us."
On matters Air Force related, one shouldn't get "nervousness" (or Political Correctness) but dispassionate logic from the Chief of the Air Force.
General Watt knows very well there is a pilot and sensor operator in constant real-time control via satellite of that Predator from take off to landing.
Insofar as a Predator causing a friendly fire incident or striking civilians, it is no more or less likely to happen than with a traditional fighter/bomber with a two person crew aboard.
These facts pretty well also takes care of "the degree of oversight, legitimacy, adherence to the laws of war that require a man in the loop pretty definitively."
What is different is an incorrect public perception by uninformed (or deliberately deceptive) politicians and uninformed civilians. Helping correct these false perceptions is part of an Air Force Chief's job, not CYA.
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