National Defence Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2010

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Here is something extremely important, as I see it, given Canada's geography and climate. NRC is recommending acquiring the “ability to: operate from short gravel runways and austere airfields.”

In the case of operations carried out in the Far North, among other places, it is extremely important for your aircraft to “perform“ under these conditions. According to the report, it is important for the aircraft to have the capability to “fly in icy conditions”, something which we often experience in Canada, and “to operate in ground icing conditions where facilities exist.”

Your aircraft might have to land on short gravel icy runways. We need to know if you feel your aircraft can perform under these conditions.

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

Yes, if you look at the countries who are operating our planes and the usage these planes are providing, you will see that our planes are landing on a daily basis on unpaved and extremely short runways from the jungles, to Finland, to the middle of Asia. By design, our planes have to operate like this.

But not only that, it is also extremely important, I would underline for a plane like ours, to recognize that not only can it land and take off from that runway but also that it can operate from that runway. Allow me to use as a reference my own air force. The Spanish air force has detachments in countries in Africa, like Somali, where they have to operate the aircraft in areas where maintenance is almost non-existent. So our aircraft today is ready to be deployed to a place where there is no base, where there is no airport, and to operate for 800 flight hours without any specific maintenance. So it is self-reliable in those remote areas. Not only can it land there, but it can also operate there on a regular basis.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

How many C-295 aircraft have you delivered throughout the world? As we speak, how many such aircraft have been delivered?

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

We are delivering one aircraft every two weeks. Maybe I made a mistake, but of the combined fleet of C-235 and C-295 last week I think it was 67, if I'm not wrong.

But we keep delivering planes, and we got a contract last week from the Egyptian air force for three planes for cargo, not for SAR.

But if I'm not wrong, it is 67 that we have delivered.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

My time is just about up. Isn't that right?

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

And there are 83 orders.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

I will now yield the floor to Mr. Harris for seven minutes.

Mr. Harris, you have the floor for seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much for joining us.

I missed your initial presentation, but please be assured that I will read the minutes of today's meeting to hear what you had to say, because I'm very interested in this project.

Of course, as you know, we're not making any decisions at this committee about what product is best, but I certainly am glad for your interest in this project and your presentation on your aircraft.

I need to ask a couple of questions in terms of some of the other programs that we've had, which the member for Gander alluded to.

In terms of your particular aircraft, you talked about its maintenance being easy, etc. But do you have a number or percentage for its availability? If you had a fleet of aircraft available for search and rescue, what percentage of the time would they be available for use, as I think the term is used by the industry?

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

I don't mean to escape your question, but it's a difficult question, because it depends on the level of investment you are ready to make in spare parts. This is a discussion that takes place technician to technician. Allow me to underline that—

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

What's the range, then?

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

We have contracted availabilities in the range of 85% to 90%, and even higher for some of our customers, to whom we are responsible for providing such availability. So that level is absolutely possible.

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

Perhaps you have read the National Research Council report. I'm very interested in it, because our committee is doing another study on search and rescue response times. I'm sure you'll see throughout this particular report a lot of references made to differences in terms of requirements, if the response time were 30 minutes around-the-clock, or only for the 17% of usages during the three-year study period mentioned here.

Is there a difference, from your point of view, in terms of what the aircraft would be if you had to have a 30-minute response time, 24/7, year-round? Would that, in your view, affect the choice of airplane? In terms of the choice the government might make, would they get a different type of airplane or would they have different needs as a result of that?

Also, availability is an issue.

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

I understand the difference. It's difficult to answer. When you speak about response time, you need to know the evidence in the details. It takes a technician to really understand what you mean by a certain figure in response time.

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

In the air by 30 minutes is—

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

The engines that our planes are using are Canadian; they are the same you are using in a Dash 8. And the avionics are also commercial. This allows you to have availability and readiness rates equivalent to those of a commercial plane, which are extremely high.

If you allow me to act a little as a salesman, I will tell you that the stronger the demand on those parameters, the better for us.

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

The technical report mentions air speed as a factor, depending on the location of your fixed-wing aircraft. The demands seem to be rather strenuous for a certain small number of rescue missions that would extend out to the middle of the North Atlantic or to the North Pole. Would it make a difference in a choice of aircraft, in the kind of bid you would make, if the air speed were lowered?

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

This document is not public; it is our response to your LOI as being ostensibly distributive. We have made a detailed analysis on the SAR requirements of the Canadian nation. We discovered that there are three different requirements. We are speaking about fixed-wing SAR as a monolithic requirement, but that is not the situation. You have three different requirements: search over water, search over mountains, and long-distance missions.

For search over mountains, you need to have low-speed capability. You design the wings to be lower-speed or higher-speed. You design for the capability of being able to fly under 150 knots, which is extremely good when you are flying the missions you are doing today with the Buffalo aircraft.

For searching over the seas, the key factor is the mission system, the electronics you have on board. When you are searching over waters, you need strong radar and strong electricals.

When you are traveling long distance, speed could be very important, to have higher-speed instead of lower-speed capabilities. But by being 20 knots faster you gain only minutes. So really, if you want to drastically improve your capabilities in rescue time, you should be thinking of proximity more than speed.

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

As I understand it, the U.S. Coast Guard has a standard of 90 minutes from call-out to arrival on the scene within their search and rescue area. Do you contract airplanes from your system to engage in that activity within that timeframe?

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

I cannot recall the U.S. Coast Guard requirement, but we have not contracted anything like what you mentioned. I can tell you that one of our recent awards was because of our readiness to fly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Now I will give the floor to Mr. Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our company representatives for being here this afternoon.

Mr. Garnier and Mr. Rodriguez, you've indicated that you sold 83 units of the C-295 internationally. Over what period of time have those 83 units been sold, approximately?

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

If you will allow me, the CN-235 and the C-295 are the same family of planes. It's like the Dash 8, if you have seen the commercial. We started to produce the 235, if I am not wrong, in the late 1980s--I think it was 1987 or 1989. Basically, we are producing close to 20 planes per year. We have sold 350. The first 295 was delivered, if I am not wrong, in 2003, so we are talking about 83 planes since 2003.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you.

I'm looking at your country client list here. As we've touched on, from a weather or a climate perspective, the two similar countries to Canada would be Finland and Chile, to some extent. In both of those cases, each country has three planes each. In the case of those two countries, is this plane their only search and rescue vehicle, or does it complement other planes or aircraft?

[Antonio Rodriguez Barberan]

In the case of Chile, it is basically maritime patrol. It's a very specific maritime patrol. You could read it in the press, but I wouldn't like to disclose the type of activity they have. There you see some other planes--by the way, manufactured by us--which are the C-212, a very small plane that we also have in our inventory.

In the case of the Finns, it is basically transport planes, but they are using one they have acquired this year, 2010, for a very specific mission. Our plane is a multi-role plane.

If you will allow me to recall, you also have Portugal. Of course Portugal is not a place where you have cold weather. However, this is a plane they are using very much to deploy to the middle of the Atlantic with search and rescue. They have to go through the same types of storms that you have in the Atlantic.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

How would you describe the capabilities of your plane as compared to either the Buffalo or the Hercules we're using in Canada today?