National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  No. That is what they call a fly-away cost. That's basically an aircraft with gas sitting on the ramp.

National Defence committee  That's a good question. We're a foreign military sales aircraft now, so that price comes from the U.S. government. Whatever I tell you is going to be a ballpark. We're in a multi-year. That multi-year was a five-year program, and it was $10.4 billion U.S. for 167 aircraft, so with rough math you could kind of figure out what the fly-away cost is of that aircraft.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  Typically, the way we contract right now, we get advanced acquisition money one year prior to production money, and it takes a little less than 24 months to build an aircraft.

National Defence committee  No, I don't think that's true, because the next multi-year, which would finish this program of record, actually has excess capacity in it right now.

National Defence committee  And I have a similar answer. We don't have any aircraft that are solely doing search and rescue. That's not a mission the plane was designed to do--just that. And our customers don't think they can afford an aircraft that can only do one mission. All our customers do search and rescue with this aircraft, but it's just one of the many capabilities the aircraft brings.

National Defence committee  Yes, sir. I do believe Tiltrotor is now a proven additional community within aerospace. And the entire search and rescue solution set for Canada takes in ships and small planes and helicopters and a lot of very dedicated people. What we're saying is that a Tiltrotor can complement that team a lot more effectively than just getting another airplane.

National Defence committee  I would say, probably, just off the top of my head, that's an accurate statement. But I think value, proposition-wise—

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  First of all, we haven't been used a lot in search and rescue because that's not what we've been tasked with doing. The aircraft is being provided to special operators and marines. I would say that in rescue delivery medevac, probably the closest thing we've done recently was a sailor who had a ruptured spleen in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

National Defence committee  Sir, I do not know the specifics of the V-22, because the aircraft was designed to meet a flight-hour life as opposed to a calendar-year life specification. The specification is 10,000 flight hours. We've already tested it to 20,000 flight hours. It's a composite airframe. There is no scheduled depot-level maintenance on the aircraft.

National Defence committee  The performance-based logistics approach that we are currently under contract with for the U.S. government provides us with a number of metrics, similar to what he was describing. And we provide services to those metrics. The aircraft was also designed to support a standard--what they call a three-level maintenance, or a two-level maintenance--which is organizational, intermediate, and depot-level, all done by the operators.

National Defence committee  I would say that for the Bell-Boeing team, it's not very difficult. I say this because we're already challenged every time we propose our solution, because all of the requirements writers write what they know. So they ask for a plane that goes 10% faster. They ask for a helicopter that goes 20 more miles.