Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/304887
F FIghteR RePLAceMent www.vanguardcanada.com APRIL/MAY 2014 37 In mid-March, as the Eurofighter Typhoon prepared to mark the 20th anniversary of its maiden flight, executives from the European consortium were in Ottawa to remind the government that although the F-35 Joint Strike Fight- er might look good on paper and in testing, they have an operations-proven option that can meet Canada's varied needs. The Eurofighter of today is vastly improved from the airplane that first took flight in 1994 and the three companies that serve as the prime contractors – BAE Systems, Airbus Group and Alenia Aermacchi – have unveiled a Typhoon 2020 con- cept that is intended to ensure future evolution. To date, the twin-engine, multi-mission Typhoon has accumu- lated more than 225,000 flying hours in exercises and opera- tions, including Libya. The consortium believes that capability makes it an ideal solution for Canada's fighter replacement program. Like Boeing and Dassualt, the two other likely bidders to re- place Canada's CF-18s, Eurofighter is becoming more vocal in its call for the government to hold an open competition. (It will have a presence at CANSEC 2014 in May.) Company officials said they believe the landscape has shifted in Canada since the government reset the fighter replace- ment program in 2012 and laid out a seven-point plan to ex- plore all options. Not only do they believe the Typhoon can compete with the F-35 in terms of capability for Canada's multi-mission needs, they said they have a "powerful argument to bring to the ta- ble" regarding opportunities for Canadian industry in a global supply chain that goes well beyond defence and could include export opportunities in commercial aerospace, cyber, securi- ty, border control and space. BAE, Airbus and Alenia already have a sizeable footprint in Canada, representing some 4,000 jobs and $1.5 billion in sales, they added. Moreover, Canada would become an equal partner in the Eu- rofighter program, deriving the benefits of a "proven track record, proven costs, and proven support costs." A 20th anni- versary might mean age to some, but for Eurofighter it means knowledge and invaluable experience they hope Canada can appreciate. Typhoon pitches proven capability and cost When combined with the F-35's equally accurate ranging and its ability to build a common ground picture from a "tactically significant range" (the resolution is classified) that enables auto target correlation and recognition, "[the F-35] has the ability to take the pictures, through the weather, classify the [targets], and give mensurated coordinates." It's a bit like being in a boxing match with an opponent who is blindfolded and with his ears covered, O'Bryan explains. "You've got great situational awareness, but you've also degraded his situ- ational awareness with stealth, electronic attack, other sensors and techniques." The rest of the electronic warfare (EW) systems, the distributed aperture system (DAS) and the electro-optical targeting system (EOTS) are equally impressive. The six cameras that make up the DAS provide 360-degree situ- ational awareness and missile detection and tracking that is able to identify which aircraft in a formation has been targeted and then triangulate the location from where the missile was fired. "DAS is turning out to be better than we thought," O' Bryan says. And the EOTS underneath the nose of the aircraft provides la- ser guided bomb targeting, including locking onto moving tar- gets, infrared search and track (IRST), blue-force interrogation, non-cooperative target recognition (CTR) and radar frequency counter measures (RFCM), which allow the F-35 to identify an adversary by the return of its engines and emissions. "It has the best combat ID suite of any fighter I have ever come across," he says. "And it has the most advanced suite of counter- measures of any fighter airplane." In addition, he points out that the F-35 carries 18,500 pounds of onboard fuel, meaning it can stay in the fight longer than its fourth generation counterparts. That range of capability – operating at distance, onboard elec- tronic warfare, target identification, common situational aware- ness, and the ability to engage for longer duration – suggests a change in tactics. O'Bryan says young pilots entering the F-35 program are al- ready starting to think of new ways of operating. "They are get- ting very innovative. I have seen them in the simulator do things that I have learned from, things to create deception and surprise." But that, too, will remain classified.