Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/368881
"Every platform is a sensor and every sensor is a node on a network." it's a refrain the Royal Canadian Air Force has been repeating over the past several years in briefings to industry and government policymakers, a reminder of the complexity and interconnectivity of all air force platforms – to each other and to land and maritime systems – in an ever growing global network. A Air dEvEloPMEnT 16 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014 www.vanguardcanada.com It's also a view that, like so many other things, puts a premium on data. Last year, the RCAF formally stood up a new directorate to consolidate much of the thinking and development around an array of functions that facilitate the dissemination, defence and exploitation of data: cyber, space, C4ISR, electronic warfare and signals intelligence (EW/SIGINT), data fusion and analysis, and air traffic management. The Directorate of Air Domain Development, otherwise known as DADD, has adopted an appropriately fatherly approach to overseeing and steering air force conversations about what are complex, often intangible but crucial areas of the air domain. Of- ten referred to as enabling capabilities or force multipliers, they are in fact part of a new way of doing business. To better explain DADD's role, Colonel Ning Lew, its first di- rector, appropriated the motto of 1 Canadian Air Division, "Fly- ing In Formation," and gave it a twist: Flying Information. "A lot of the things we are looking at in DADD – space, C4ISR, cyber, data fusion – are information. This is really what we are all about when you add some value to it – we fly information." Because DADD's areas of responsibility cut across not only the RCAF, but also the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy and Specials Operations Forces, and are often also points of focus for the warfare centres and Chief of Force Development (CFD), Lew takes a philosophical view of his role, recognizing that much of his task is to coordinate efforts around these functions within the A DADD's ADvice: Finding solutions For Flying inFormation by Chris thatcher