I think the air force would be a better witness to this, but I did have an opportunity to fly the new Chinook very recently.
Having started flying helicopters more than 25 years ago, this new aircraft is night and day in terms of what it will afford in terms of a capability for Canadians, the Canadian Forces, and all those—certainly in the disaster response sense—that we would aid.
Interestingly, the aircraft can self-deploy to anywhere in our country, with an incredible range of more than 1,000 kilometres. Using fuel that already exists at major centres, it can reach up north very, very quickly. Unfortunately, the aircraft is not at full operational capability yet. We've not employed it yet in a disaster response operation, although it was on standby for one of the ones I mentioned earlier, the flooding in northern Ontario last year. We did have them on standby just in case, but they weren't even at what we would call initial operational capability at that time.
I think the promise that they offer to us will be transformational. It will allow commanders to function by compressing time and distance in ways that we've not been able to do before.
I don't know if that's too generic for you, sir.