Scape Scape:
herbie herbie:
I don't understand the shift of discussion to heavy lift planes and long range drones. For what purpose would Canada use either? Pack in more refugees per flight?
For ASW a manned fuel efficient prop plane that can stay in the air for a long time is best. Pick up the phone and call AirBus.
For surface threats, well we're gonna know they're coming for days. That's what satellites do.
Heavy lift means you get more where you need it faster. It can also help out when Haiti gets another disaster and we need to bail them out again.
Drones would be able to monitor as well as strike 24-7 over vast distances for almost nothing compared to manned flight. Something we desperately need.
Would rather have contracts going to our own air industry for the simple fact that we need to produce and support our own equipment.
Bombardier would be ideal.
EMP would take out satellites and if we are being serious here that would be the 1st thing to go. You need to be able to work without that for a very long time.
As Scape noted, heavy airlift is a pretty important capability, and the C-17s Harper bought are excellent in that role, but are pretty expensive to operate. And drones like the Global Hawk have a massive range and long patrolling time, which make them an excellent option for patrolling our huge coastline.
There is only one propeller driven ASW plane (C-295 MPA Persuader), but it is smaller and has a shorter range than jet powered ASW planes, which means we accept lesser capabilities or we have to buy more airframes than we are currently planning. Odds are, we're going to get the P-8 Poseidon that the US and most NATO nations fly.
CKA Moderator 
