Thank you very much for the question, sir.
Of course, bringing an aircraft into service is not just about the aircraft itself, and particularly in the Canadian context of the policies that we have and use effectively, such as our industrial technological benefits and other things, there are some security aspects.... There are a number of things that the governments and the suppliers need to contend with, and we're actually running a request for proposals that could result in a number of scenarios at the outcome.
Depending on the successful bidder, we could have a direct commercial sales contract, a foreign military sales application or an acquisition under a memorandum of understanding. In each case, we would expect the winning bidder, likely combined with their country, to be very forthcoming in a draft RFP. We've said 100% offsets against the industrial technological benefits.
There are security aspects to what they need to transfer to us. I would say that in the context of an assembly line on the plant floor, it may be three years from the time we award you a contract, but my experience has been that negotiating those contracts and getting agreements just on things like intellectual property is an area of complexity in this day and age where original equipment manufacturers guard this like the Crown jewels. We want to make sure that we have access to what we need for decades to come to upgrade and maintain these aircraft.
As we look at our allies, we may hear about rapid cycles, but we talk to them about the work that happens beforehand and happens after, and about how they may have a process that's not open to legal challenge quite as it is in Canada. That allows them to quickly select, but it could be multiple years before they sign a contract.
We are fairly aligned. We've talked about defence procurement, as a few people here have mentioned, whether it's schedule or budget, and we know and have learned that we have been historically overly optimistic about things, so we're very, very careful. There's a lot of risk at play here. We would rather be judicious about the schedule and timelines that we establish. If they can be accelerated, all the better, but to say that we're going to pull off a miracle is just dangerous in what we achieve and where we—