National Defence Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2010

[Tom Burbage]

Yes. The U.S. is buying most of the airplanes, so the U.S. was the leader of the competition and did parse out all of the proposals, 25,000-page proposals, in six months of evaluation and all the rest of that. So yes, it was done by the U.S., but there were representatives from the nations that were interested in observing the process, but probably not at the decision-making level.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Payne.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Mr. Burbage. I'm pleased to have you here.

My questions, through the chair to you, are on a couple of interesting things. Maybe you can just explain to us what the difference is between fourth-generation and fifth-generation aircraft.

[Tom Burbage]

We refer to a fourth-gen airplane as a multi-role fighter that the services have used in a fairly service-specific role. It did not include the technologies of stealth, it did not include the technology of integrated avionics, and it wasn't designed with the intent of being an interoperable fighter. We've taken those fighters and had to use them in coalition operations, but they don't interoperate very well.

So one of the fundamental differences with a fifth-gen airplane is that the airplanes will all operate with each other. In many ways, it's like your laptop when you plug into the Internet. These airplanes will be nodes on the battle space internet in terms of information flow in the future.

We've also integrated in that the dimension of stealth, which gives a tactical advantage of surprise, and we've integrated into that advanced sustainment techniques to try to drop the cost of owning these airplanes.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Are you aware of any other fifth-generation aircraft?

[Tom Burbage]

The F-22.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

The F-22? All right.

You talked about stealth, which I think is a really important aspect of the F-35. Could you help us out and tell us how that would enhance our military abilities?

[Tom Burbage]

In this airplane, stealth is almost a byproduct. We've developed the technology now to where it is not maintenance intensive.

While you could argue about whether or not you need it in the homeland of Canada, if you ever get into a situation where you're operating jointly with NORTHCOM or NORAD and side by side with the U.S., and there is a threat, you're going to be glad you have it. But it's when you get into coalitions--the interoperability features of the airplane and the ability to do the kinds of missions we may be called on to do during hostilities, or in parts of the world where there are sophisticated air defences--that this particular benefit really helps.

But it's the combination that matters. Stealth is only piece of it. Stealth gives you the capability when you need it, but it's the combination of that with the integrated avionics and the interoperability and sustainment that's the whole package. Having stealth on an airplane used to come at a pretty high premium. We think we've driven that cost down now, through our manufacturing techniques and investments in sustainment, to where it's not at a high premium.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I think it's an important aspect to the aircraft. In your view, what would it mean for the survivability of our pilots?

[Tom Burbage]

That's really the reason it's there. When you size your force, depending on what kind of a threat you size it against, there are additional aircraft required for attrition losses. This particular survivability feature—and it's only one of many on the airplane—is there to ensure that you have survivability, along with the other factors that go into calculating your force level. Without it, if you're looking at the threat environments that generate the requirement for F-35, you're going to have to buy a lot more airplanes than 65, just because of the losses that occur and that we don't expect to see with the F-35.

So I think that safety, the ability to return home, and the ability to effectively use the airplane in a high threat environment are all reasons why we do this.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

In your comments, Mr. Burbage, you did talk about some additional benefits to Canada in terms of royalties. Could you expand on those a little? What do they really mean for Canada?

[Tom Burbage]

The agreement the partnership has in the second MOU I referred to is that other countries who come into the program will be required to pay a recoupment fee for all of the money the partners invested in designing and developing the airplane. That recoupment fee will be shared across the partnership on a pro rata basis, based on the number of airplanes each partner is buying.

So Canada will get an annuity with every airplane any other country buys. The U.S. reserves the right to waive the U.S. portion of that, but the U.S. has no influence over waiving the partner portion of it. The first time this has come into being is with the Israeli program that is going on right now. There is a recoupment fee there that will include some payment back to Canada in the long term.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Do we have any kind of estimate of what that might look like?

[Tom Burbage]

It's all done government to government. I don't know what the total value of it is, but it depends on the number of airplanes a country buys. There's a certain increment attached to each airplane, which comes back to repay the development costs.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Mr. Boughen, you have the floor.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me add my voice to welcoming to you this afternoon, sir.

I have just one question. I'm thinking of the 3,000 to 5,000 aircraft that may well be built in this program and I'm wondering what you foresee as the in-service support for these aircraft, not only in Canada but elsewhere.

[Tom Burbage]

The government office is going through what they call a sustainment baseline review right now, with participation from all the countries. They're looking first of all at what's required to support the global fleet: how many warehouses we need, how many maintenance repair facilities we need, and how many training centres we need.

Then they look at what each country wants to do. Not every country wants to have a training centre. One of Canada's aspirations is to have a training centre. So will Canada eventually be able to train the pilots of other nations in your training centre? That's an example.

All of those decisions are part of what's going on right now to determine what that baseline is. Another one is maintenance repair and overhaul. Is there a chance that the facilities put in place in Canada could be used for other nations' equipment, not necessarily the whole airplane, but for example, maybe the landing gear?

As I say, all of that is being put in place now. What they want to do first of all is identify the minimum-cost infrastructure that could be put in place, tempered by each nation's sovereign requirement of what it wants to do or have for its own aircraft, tempered further by what else comes outside of that and which you would want to pay for, and do, because you don't necessarily want to take part in somebody else's facility.

We're going through those steps right now, which will determine the facility laydown, so to speak, for the global solution. Anything Canada wants to do above and beyond that relative to maintenance repair, depot work, and trainers is all still at the disposition of Canada, as a sovereign nation, to determine.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Do we have time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Yes. You can take two minutes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I just want to follow up on that a little bit. We're talking about the next generation of technology for Canadian industry. You alluded to it, to the other opportunities that will fall out of this. This is the stepping stone to what comes after this. Could you expand on that a little bit from your knowledge of the aerospace industry in general?

You mentioned composites and that sort of thing. Down the road, are there other opportunities that might follow in the electronics area or composites or anything else?

[Tom Burbage]

The two areas that are really emerging in our industry right now are high-speed machining, both hard and soft metals—titanium or aluminum—and advanced composites, which are not done the way we used to do composites; they're done with robotic machines and things like that.

As we build those parts for this airplane, we've had to change the standards of the industry, and Canadian industry has stepped up, a lot of it due to the partnership with Technology Canada and SADI, and the kinds of programs that you put in place to lead that. One of the reasons you have the horizontal tail for the air force airplane and outer wing for the navy airplane is that you do that well. That capability is required in the emerging commercial market for the A380 and the 787, and whatever comes beyond that.

If you look at the electronic systems that we're putting in the airplane, one of the most amazing mechanical systems is what we call the integrated power pack, a large portion of that made by Honeywell Canada. That will now define the next generation of integrated systems that manage large airplanes.

I think all of these things that are being put in place to support the F-35 will be able to expand into adjacent markets beyond the F-35. We take no credit for that. It's just another advantage for being part of this revolution that's going on.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

But it would be pretty easy to conclude that this step we're taking with the F-35 is critical to what comes after that. If we're not part of that step, it's going to be hard to be with the next step.