National Defence Committee on Dec. 13th, 2011

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Let's talk about the fact that the Super Hornet has two jet engines whereas the F-35 has only one. That's something my colleague and I informally discussed with pilots at CFB Trenton last September. In fact, I would like to congratulate you on the excellent parliamentary program that you have developed. We had informal discussions about it with a number of pilots.

How can an aircraft with two jet engines, like the Super Hornet, provide greater safety?

[LGen André Deschamps]

Thank you for your question.

The debate on the single-engine versus the two-engine plane is nothing new. There has already been a debate about the CF-18. It is a debate that resurfaces all the time.

There are usually two reasons why planes have more than one engine. To start with, in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, engines didn't have the power they have today. Planes needed two engines to get off the ground. That was one of the reasons.

The other thing is that engines were less reliable. Having two engines enabled pilots to handle mechanical problems successfully. So people wanted two engines because one engine was not powerful enough to get the plane off the ground and it was also not as reliable.

We have come a long way since the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The same goes for today's generation of engines, like the ones in commercial planes—there used to be four, now there are two. The technology is so reliable now that, statistically, there is no significant difference between engine failure in a two-engine plane and engine failure in a single-engine plane. The fail-safe systems of F-35 engines are impressive. We have estimated that thousands of hours went into that.

We have to remember that operators around the world, who are also facing stringent conditions like ours, have opted for the single engine with confidence. Just think of Norwegian and U.S. navy operators.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I have Mr. Opitz.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

General, thank you for being here today. It's a delight to have you.

I have a couple of questions. First of all, how has the RCAF contributed to the development of the joint strike fighter? How much of Canada, and other nations, is in this aircraft? For example, I have personal friends, like Colonel Zans, who worked on this project. Can you describe to us what contribution Canada and its pilots have made to the development of this fighter overall?

[LGen André Deschamps]

Thank you for the question.

We've had a next-generation fighter capability team that's been together since probably 2005 or early 2006. It's not a big team, but there have been folks on this issue for, say, nearly half a decade, so they form a core nucleus of knowledge that we've certainly leveraged with our allies. We also have folks in the U.S., embedded inside the joint procurement office, who are our eyes and ears inside the U.S. system and provide Canada's inputs to any deliberation that occurs within the production office of the U.S. Air Force.

So I think we certainly have great connections with our allies, but mainly with the U.S. Air Force, in terms of production of the F-35. We get as good a situational awareness as you could probably expect. We have good knowledge resident in the air force right now, in the ADM Materiel. A lot of that team has gone over to the project office now for procurement.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I'm going to get into industry benefits, but I'm first going to read a quote from your article in a military journal from 2010:

Canadian companies will have an opportunity to provide products and services for the entire global JSF supply chain. Considering that this will apply to as many as 5000 aircraft, herein rest huge opportunities for the aerospace industry in Canada over the operational lifetime of the F-35. It is estimated that more than $12 billion in potential industrial opportunities exist for Canadian companies to deliver the F-35 to our partners. Furthermore, acquisition by other nations will result in further benefits for Canadian companies.

Can you elaborate on that, sir?

[LGen André Deschamps]

Thank you for the question.

Again, that's probably something that Industry Canada and the ADM Materiel would be in a better position to give you any certainty on. My understanding is that's still valid; the assessment that was done still rings true, to our understanding of the future production of the aircraft. But beyond that, I can't really speak to the detailed numbers of contracts.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Do I still have a little time? Great.

On the aircraft itself, the pilot's operation of it, we talked about situational awareness within the cockpit and the different situations to be faced, i.e., total darkness and the data processing capabilities of this aircraft, which then is a force multiplier for what the pilot can do with the aircraft versus a fourth-generation fighter.

Can you talk about some of those efficiencies that pilots will realize in terms of the technology this aircraft provides?

[LGen André Deschamps]

Thank you for the question.

The best way to contextualize the difference between the F-35 fifth-generation and all the other platforms that are out there--which are great platforms--is that the F-35 brings a whole different set of skills to any conflict. The big difference is the way the airplane integrates information. The platform itself--the air frame or the airplane itself--doesn't have any extra magical powers. It can turn as well as other airplanes, but as far as manoeuvring and dogfighting are concerned in the traditional sense, other airplanes are also very good.

Where it really earns its paycheque is in that sensor suite that it brings to any fight or any conflict. The awareness bubble that this aircraft can project out is significantly different from anything else that's out there. Also, the big advantage of this aircraft is that it networks. I'm not sure if people are familiar with a version of Star Trek that had an entity called the Borg, a being that had a semi-human, mechanical sort of minds. The point was that whatever the lowest soldier saw, the collective saw, and vice versa.

The F-35 is very much in that network-centric world, where any airplane that sees anything out there can instantly share that information with all other airplanes on that network, and that works laterally. That's the big shift from what we do right now with our F-18s, which are great airplanes. We have a data link system that allows us to share some information, but it's still labour intensive. The pilot still has to manipulate sensors, collect information, make sense of it, and then post it on those links. The links are also detectable.

With the F-35 the big game changer is the way it reaches out for information, gathers it, makes sense of it, and presents it to the pilot without the pilot having to worry about it. It is transparent. All the sensors inter-operate—they talk to each other. If they don't have enough information, they'll reach out and go find it through the other network sensors. This is where this airplane operates on a different level from what we see currently on the market, and therefore projects a net of information that's massively larger than what we can do right now.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

[Inaudible--Editor]...our allies.

[LGen André Deschamps]

That's the other issue. Any F-35 that joins the network—and it doesn't matter from what country, as we don't even have to know who they are, as far as where they are in the formation—as they come into the network, they automatically share the information they have and instantly get what the formation has gathered in terms of information.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, General.

I just hope we don't have to have questions about Star Trek.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, General, for being here today and for the information you're providing us.

I have to pick up on the Star Trek thing. It's the last day, possibly the last few days of the sitting. When you mentioned Star Trek, all I could think of instead of a minister being in a basket, it'll be “Beam me up, Scotty,” but I'll leave it at that.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Order.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It's a morning meeting, come on.

Having said that, I really was going to go there anyway—no more Star Trek stuff—except that I was going to ask the following question because I'm very interested in this. What exactly is the current and anticipated role of the Royal Canadian Air Force in space?

[LGen André Deschamps]

Thank you for that question.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

The final frontier.

[LGen André Deschamps]

Yes. But no, I was going to go there.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Notice, that was government. That wasn't us.

[LGen André Deschamps]

Space of course is a joint domain. Clearly, we use space as an entity, because we travel through near space and we need space as far as enablers are concerned—communications, navigation, intelligence—so space is a very important part of our future, “our” being the Canadian Forces.

We certainly are getting better at space. Projects are coming forth in this decade that will augment Canada's capacity to operationalize space through radar, satellite, architecture for the high Arctic, and communications. So, yes, we are very interested in space.

I don't own it as an environment, but I certainly make great use of it, and it is absolutely essential to our success. The F-35, for instance, needs that precision in navigation, so space is part of that domain that we need to be able to reach into to draw the information, and also for the connectivity that we need to operate anywhere in the world. So it's an important domain.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I assume when you said it's not your environment, you meant not your responsibility. Whose responsibility is it?

[LGen André Deschamps]

In the Canadian Forces right now, space resides under the Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff in development and policy. The implementation of space is done through different agencies.

The air force, through NORAD, has some operational space activities, such as tracking space objects, and so on. We share information with NORAD, in that we're part of that network. Other folks do communications through other commands. So right now space is driven policy-wise from the centre, and the operational parts of space are shared across the three services. Transformation is under way, and one of the discussions is where does space go in the future transformational agenda to make it even more effective.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have another question in this same area. Does the Royal Canadian Air Force have any involvement right now with the international space station?