National Defence Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2010

[Bob Carrese]

Sir, I do not know the specifics of the V-22, because the aircraft was designed to meet a flight-hour life as opposed to a calendar-year life specification. The specification is 10,000 flight hours. We've already tested it to 20,000 flight hours. It's a composite airframe. There is no scheduled depot-level maintenance on the aircraft. So I would not think there would be an issue with 30 years, but I don't have the information, to give you an honest answer on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

I will give the floor to Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you all for coming here today. It's an extremely interesting proposition, and of course we're looking at this statement of requirements and also the critique of it, which I'm sure you're aware of.

Can I ask one question, Mr. Tarantola, regarding your availability numbers? I think you made a distinction between your company providing the servicing and the military doing so, in this case the Canadian Forces, who would likely be doing their own servicing. What is the essential difference? You can still provide parts to allow availability at a higher rate, but the maintenance itself would obviously depend on the availability of maintenance crew.

[Massimo Tarantola]

I hope I haven't confused you, but I'll try to answer.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I want to give you an opportunity to explain it a little more.

[Massimo Tarantola]

Basically, if I have the whole contract, I can go for a certain availability rate. If instead there's a situation, like with the Italian air force, where they do most of the hands-on work, we are required to provide them with spares in order to allow them to get to that availability rate.

So it's just a technicality. I can't control availability, because that is the end of the process. They request of me a level of “demand satisfaction rate”, which is the term that we use, in order to support an 80% or 85% availability rate, or whatever it is. The end result is the availability rate that the air force requires.

It's the way the company is contracted that is different.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Yes, I understand that, but sometimes the availability issues are related to the number of times of maintenance or the level of maintenance that is required to keep the plane available. So it may be the availability of spares. Obviously that's a constraint, but if you have an aircraft that needs 10 or 20 hours of maintenance for every hour in the air, obviously the availability is constrained.

[Massimo Tarantola]

In that case, what I was saying is that we have an aircraft that is very reliable and maintainable. It doesn't break often. And therefore that is a standard across the situation. And we guarantee. Overall--and let's go to the American contract--we guarantee availability. We contract for 80% plus availability. We achieve more.

In Afghanistan our air force is using them more because in those conditions they tend to work. So that includes everything, the maintenance, the availability of the aircraft, and all the other aspects.

I don't know if I answered that.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

That's fine. That satisfies what I was asking.

Your aircraft has some difficulties in Afghanistan, and I won't ask you what they are. But I would ask you whether or not you see that as an issue for an operation within Canada in terms of availability...the same kind of question. Is that dependent on your providing the availability numbers, or the availability of parts to make it happen?

[Bob Carrese]

The performance-based logistics approach that we are currently under contract with for the U.S. government provides us with a number of metrics, similar to what he was describing. And we provide services to those metrics.

The aircraft was also designed to support a standard--what they call a three-level maintenance, or a two-level maintenance--which is organizational, intermediate, and depot-level, all done by the operators. So you can have a mix of contractor-provided, or if you choose to do it completely on your own, you can do that as well.

As you mentioned, right now we're operating out of talcum powder bowls. We're not running from runways, so the numbers are different from if we were operating here in Canada.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Can I ask you both a question, then? I know the C-27J is relatively new. How many C-27Js in your case, or the V-22s, are currently operating in dedicated search and rescue assignments? Can each of you tell us?

[Massimo Tarantola]

Yes, it was the same question I think you--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

How many aircraft? I don't think that was--

[Marcello Cianciaruso]

The Italian air force and the Greeks also use the aircraft for search and rescue. In fact, the Italian air force has two observer seats with large windows in the back of the airplanes, so they can look outside. And one of the features we have on our airplane is that you can choose your search pattern, so you can input the data of your search pattern and--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

That's not my question. My question is how many aircraft do you have in dedicated search and rescue--not multi-use, but how many--

[Marcello Cianciaruso]

That's basically the good of our airplanes, that it is a multi-role aircraft that is used also on search and rescue missions. Italy has 12 and Greece has another 12.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

But their primary function is something other than search and rescue.

[Marcello Cianciaruso]

It's multi-role. They're used as a multi-role, so it has a second role.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Okay, what about...?

[Bob Carrese]

And I have a similar answer. We don't have any aircraft that are solely doing search and rescue. That's not a mission the plane was designed to do--just that. And our customers don't think they can afford an aircraft that can only do one mission. All our customers do search and rescue with this aircraft, but it's just one of the many capabilities the aircraft brings.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

And in your case, since you're offering some sort of a paradigm shift, I suppose, would you anticipate, if your aircraft were a part of a Canadian search and rescue operation, that it would displace helicopters in some circumstances, or reduce the number of helicopter requirements?

[Bob Carrese]

Yes, sir. I do believe Tiltrotor is now a proven additional community within aerospace. And the entire search and rescue solution set for Canada takes in ships and small planes and helicopters and a lot of very dedicated people. What we're saying is that a Tiltrotor can complement that team a lot more effectively than just getting another airplane.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Assuming the complexities, a tilt rotor would imply a little bit more of an expensive piece of machinery than something that's configured for the normal configuration. Am I right about that?

[Bob Carrese]

I would say, probably, just off the top of my head, that's an accurate statement. But I think value, proposition-wise—

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I appreciate that.