Yes.
Evidence of meeting #35 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aircraft.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #35 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aircraft.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Executive Director, V-22 Business Development, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.
Yes.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
November 23rd, 2010 / 5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our Bell witnesses.
First of all, would you please describe a unique SAR situation where only a V-22 could be used, and where it has been used?
5:20 p.m.
Executive Director, V-22 Business Development, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.
First of all, we haven't been used a lot in search and rescue because that's not what we've been tasked with doing. The aircraft is being provided to special operators and marines. I would say that in rescue delivery medevac, probably the closest thing we've done recently was a sailor who had a ruptured spleen in the middle of the Indian Ocean. You may be able to draw a parallel to someone in the Arctic on a cruise ship or whatever. There was literally no other way to get him to a hospital in the time that we did--with an aircraft that can hover up over a ship or land on a ship and fly over 500 miles to a hospital and land at the hospital and deliver the patient in that same amount of time.
We understand the concept of response time and time on station. Our value proposition focuses on time to rescue. Are there other ways the sailor could have gotten to the hospital eventually? Yes, probably. Would he still have been alive? Maybe. So there's an intangible element to our value proposition. What is the value of getting a guy to a hospital in a third of the time it takes us to do it now?
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Speaking of value, what would be the approximate cost of the V-22?
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, V-22 Business Development, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.
That's a good question. We're a foreign military sales aircraft now, so that price comes from the U.S. government. Whatever I tell you is going to be a ballpark. We're in a multi-year. That multi-year was a five-year program, and it was $10.4 billion U.S. for 167 aircraft, so with rough math you could kind of figure out what the fly-away cost is of that aircraft. That would be something comparably equipped to what we would be offering Canada, because the aircraft pretty much does everything that you're looking for right now.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Did that include pilot training—or crew training, I should say, as well as the lifetime maintenance contract?
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, V-22 Business Development, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.
No. That is what they call a fly-away cost. That's basically an aircraft with gas sitting on the ramp.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay.
I'll just go over to the C-27J for a moment. Did I hear you correctly that the C-27J and the C-130J have shared parts?
5:25 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Alenia North America Inc.
The C-27J we developed with Lockheed Martin because we were going to propose a family of airplanes. What we did is we had the airframe of the well-proven G.222, which was an older aircraft--and we sold 120 of them around the world before that was militarized--and we put in the same engine, the same propeller, and the same avionics suite that the C-130J has. So we have experience in this. The Italian air force has C-130Js and C-27Js. They're called Js for that reason, by the way. What they do is they have a big percentage of shared logistics, but also it's very useful because the training is similar, so the pilot, who is a trained C-130 pilot, can the day after, if needed, operate on a C-27J. When you have the two airplanes it's an advantage, because you have a commonality in logistics and training.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
I'd like to ask a series of questions now to both of you. If we could, let's go quickly just so that we ensure that both people get to answer.
Does your plane have a rear ramp?
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, V-22 Business Development, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.
Yes.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Both do. Okay.
Is your plane equipped with a cabin floor roller and securing system or cargo handling system for loading, securing, transporting, and off-loading of NATO-standard 88 inches by 108 inches pallets?
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, V-22 Business Development, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.
Yes.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Hypothetically, if we purchase your plane off the shelf, what would be the timeframe for the time of the contract, when it's signed, to the delivery of the entire fleet?
5:25 p.m.
Chief Operating Officer, Alenia North America Inc.
I'll give you a range, because it really depends. Sometimes we have an acceleration, if you need it, of the first aircraft. But normally speaking, we're talking about between 12 months and 18 months. That's the answer I could give you now, given the configuration that I imagine is going to happen.
Bob, go ahead. I was finished.
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, V-22 Business Development, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.
Typically, the way we contract right now, we get advanced acquisition money one year prior to production money, and it takes a little less than 24 months to build an aircraft.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
That's when you're building it for the U.S. military. But we would have to wait in line, so how long would it take?
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, V-22 Business Development, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.
No, I don't think that's true, because the next multi-year, which would finish this program of record, actually has excess capacity in it right now.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Very good.
Are you confident that with a similar size of fleet your plane would cover the Canadian SAR sector with approximately the same level of service as our Hercules and Buffaloes currently do?
5:25 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Canadian Programs, Alenia North America Canada Co.
Actually, I think we will have better service, because basically, as I told you, in terms of speed, we have the same speed as the C-130, and we are faster than the Buffalo, but we have the same capability at low speed. So basically the overall fleet will have a faster response because we'll have faster airplanes.
In terms of range, we'll cover.... Sorry.
5:30 p.m.
Chris Schreiber Vice-President, Business Development, Alenia North America Canada Co.
May I?
In terms of the quantity, we could do the same job with either the same number or fewer aircraft and cover both fleets because of the versatility in the aircraft and its characteristics relative to the C-130H and the slow-flying characteristics similar to those of the Caribou. However, the maintainability of the aircraft is so much better that you don't need to have as many aircraft at each particular site to be able to cover the same on-station time.
