Leonardo’s FWSAR Court Battle
(This post is dedicated to the memory of SHOTGUN 36. Scores of RCAF pilots benefited from his tireless dedication. He will be missed!)
Happy 93rd Birthday to the RCAF!
Lieutenant General (Ret’d) Steve Lucas[1], a spokesman for Leonardo S.p.A., laid out the company’s position for disputing the recent FWSAR contract. As a former Chief of the Air Staff and then special advisor to the consortium that put together the bid for the FWSAR, LGen Lucas had a unique insight to the twists and turns of the process. He has substantial experience from an Air Force Air Navigator and staff officer point of view. He put in numerous hours with the Spartan Team to ensure a strong technical bid that would provide the Air Force with a superior aircraft, on time and on budget. He was confused as to why the C295W was chosen when it appeared to be clearly non-compliant in a few key areas.
LGen Lucas already had several reservations about the capability of the Airbus product. He agreed that the C295W was slow compared to the C27J which puts victims in jeopardy due to higher wait times especially when a search area is at a significant distance. He doesn’t like the fact that because the C295W was based on a passenger aircraft thus limiting the usable height in the cargo area where the SAR Technicians will be working. He did concede that Airbus was planning on producing their aircraft with more powerful engines in order to marginally increase its two engine speed and mitigate issues with one engine operations.
But the main basis for the lawsuit rests on two points where the Airbus aircraft literally did not meet the Request For Proposal (RFP) criteria.
- Point One – It was specified that the winning aircraft must be able to complete all SAR missions in a single crew day. In the case of a high Arctic rescue mission, the C295W does not have the speed to accomplish this scenario. The ‘out’ for Airbus was to add a fifth Main Operating Base which was allowed for in the RFP but this would add significant cost to the bid. It would make more sense just to have an aircraft that can accomplish these extreme missions without the extra resources.
- Point Two – The current C295W unlike most other aircraft of its type is not built with an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). An APU is handy for self-starting the aircraft, especially in out of the way airports where start carts and qualified personnel might be an issue. An APU becomes more critical during emergencies where an engine is down and it can be used to power extra systems instead of relying on your good engine to do all the work. This would be of great concern to an aircrew on a search over the Atlantic with an engine out and a significant distance from a suitable airfield. The lack of APU and lower airspeed hurts the C295W’s unofficial Extended Operations (ETOPS) performance which is approximately 140 minutes. If this aircraft flew to the extreme Atlantic edge of Canada’s SAR zone of 30˚W, it would require an ETOPS rating of 330. The C27J has an unofficial ETOPS 240 rating, which with its speed would allow it to safely accomplish missions to the far ocean edges of the SAR zones. SAR crews flying the 295W would be unnecessarily placed into harm’s way whereas they wouldn’t have those concerns flying the Spartan.
During my research, LGen Lucas and others shared their thoughts on possible ways in which doors were opened for competition against the C27J which eventually led to the awarding of the bid to Airbus. Originally, it was alleged that the Air Force tilted the SORs so much in favour of the Spartan that it ended up being the only aircraft qualified. The government wanted to show they could hold an open and fair procurement process, so they appear to have re-jigged the competition so other companies could engage in bidding. Even with this re-jigging, it appeared that the Spartan was still going to win. The public probably wouldn’t have been happy with an expensive 10 year wheel-spinning process that just returned the government back to the original choice of the C27J. But if you fiddle with the points awarded for items like lifetime in-service support and decrease points awarded for capability, then you can skew the numbers in a pre-determined direction. For example, the lack of APU in the C295W and associated inherent weaknesses did not seem to factor against the aircraft in the bidding scoring matrix. Viola! SOR manipulation that appears open, fair and just. Ironically, this was exactly what Airbus had accused the RCAF of doing back in 2005.
The Federal government and Airbus have until April 10, 2017 to respond to the points brought up in the Leonardo lawsuit. It is expected that the courts will start looking at the claims and responses in June.
Fifth Estate did an interview with the retired LGen in 2012 about his thoughts on the proposed Air Force purchase of the F-35[2]. At the end of the interview, he makes a statement, ‘Nobody wants to put their friends, their colleagues into a situation where they are going to come out second best’. This would seem to hold true for the FWSAR purchase. The RCAF SAR aircrews and ex-Air Force personnel supporting and putting in the Spartan bid all want what is best for the men and women out on those austere SAR missions. To borrow a few more of the LGen’s words, you don’t get any prizes for finishing second.
[1] Annoucement of appointment of LGen Lucas as Commander of Air Command and Chief of the Air Staff, May 16,2005 – http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/news/article.page?doc=new-commander-for-canada-s-air-force/hnocfoav
[2] Fifth Estate interview with LGen Lucas on F-35 purchase for RCAF, September 28, 2012 – http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/blog/extended-interview-steve-lucas
Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.