Vanguard Magazine

www.vanguardcanada.com APRIL/MAY 2020 17 interView Q By combining the Air Combat Sys- tems Officers (ACSO), Airborne Electronic Sensor Operators (AES Ops), and pilot training programs under one program known as FAcT, Canada is setting about to undertake one of the most extensive in- dustry-managed programs globally. This, of course, will come with challenges. How do you plan to handle these challenges to meet the needs and goals of FAcT? Certainly, FAcT is a complicated endeavor and it is indeed foundational to the future of the RCAF. It will also, as you note, be fraught with challenges; no different than any other large and complex acquired ser- vice program. To mitigate this, we have put together a truly remarkable team of pro- fessionals working for both my Program Manager and my Program Director along with equally experienced procurement and contracting professionals from ADM Mat and PSPC who are working diligently in conjunction with our qualified suppliers to ensure we foresee and mitigate as many of these as possible. We, in DAST, also benefit from being the Directorate responsible for the legacy pro- grams. This provides us with a keen insight in terms of programmatic observations and eventually lessons learned as we look to continue that which is working so well for us and amend that which in retrospect we would not like to see repeated. Lastly, I have to speak to our relationship with our Qualified Suppliers who have been fully engaged in working with us to collab- oratively develop our RFP and whose vast experience is paying huge dividends in terms of avoiding issues experienced in programs elsewhere around the world. Q Output is one of the main goals of this program, how do you plan on tran- sitioning from the current contractors to the contractor that will be awarded the FAcT contract without losing production output? I have often said that the center of gravity for the RCAF in this program is continuity of training. I won't, in this instance offer any platitudes. Transition will be challeng- ing regardless the eventual winner of this competition. We have already met with each qualified supplier, have delved in detail into their transition plans and have made more than a few plans of our own. Key to any transition, however, is the establish- ment of an Operational Implementation Working Group consisting of all the key stakeholders in the FAcT enterprise includ- ing, eventually, both the incumbent and the FAcT contractors whose sole mission is the development and implementation of a Master Implementation Plan. Though it is early days yet, the FAcT transition team has already started this work with much more to come over the next few years. Q Is the current NFTC contract going to be extended to allow for a likely delay in the Contract Award (late 22/early 23)? If extended, will the current Hawk and Harvard fleets be able to continue to sustain production/flying rates to the end of the extended contract, or will they need investments? Within the context of FAcT, I will only discuss the Harvard fleet as the Hawk fleet is used exclusively for Fighter Lead in Training (FLIT) and will eventually be re- placed by a new program (Future FLIT). As you are aware, the FAcT Integrated Program Team (IPT) has been occupied with industry engagement as we collec-

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