Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/533940
18 JUNE/JULY 2015 www.vanguardcanada.com a aIr FORCE Army Doctrine and Training Centre and well connected with the quickly deploy- able 1st Canadian Division headquarters. He also sits on the Army Council, the lone colonel among one- and two-star generals who comprise the various divisional com- manders. "It gives me insight into exactly where the army is heading," he said. "We're not only well informed on their managed read- iness plan, we're also in tune with where their future capabilities and future concepts are heading. We don't work in isolation in any way, shape or form. Every single one of my staff officers is on their boards, whether it is the capability development board, doc- trine development board, or their managed readiness plan. 1 Wing is considered the aviation brigade of the army." As such, the Wing has a strong voice in the wording of the documents that make up the weigh points to Adaptive Dispersed Operations. "I often talk with Chief of Staff Strategy (BGen Stephen Cadden) on exactly how we want to word those things to enable the integration of tactical avia- tion within the concepts of ADO," he said. "One of the fundamental principles that the army will continue to struggle with is the size and movement of their battalions across a dispersed battle space of huge dis- tance, to be able to aggregate and disag- gregate forces over time and space. Tactical aviation plays a key role in being able to bring together those forces and then move them backwards either from a logistics or operational perspective, thereby increas- ing the tempo of operations that you can maintain." Consequently, the Wing's managed readiness plan is synched closely with the army's, and the operational experiences of Afghanistan have been institutionalized within the force employment concept. As with the army, some of those lessons were learned at great cost. In July 2009, a Griffon lifting off from a forward operating base in Zabul province was enveloped by a dust ball and drifted into a barrier, rolling over and catching fire. The crash killed Master Corporal Pat Audet and Corporal Martin Joannette, as well as a British soldier. A subsequent investigation found, among other things, problems with training and mitigation strategies for such missions. Operating in degraded visual environ- ments has since become a priority of both simulated and live training – 430 Squad- ron completed what Clancy calls "high, hot and heavy" training in Arizona earlier this year to ensure crews experienced dust balls under extreme conditions. Though the fine powder-like sand may be specific to certain theatres, the degraded visual con- ditions are not dissimilar to takeoffs and landings in snow. "In Afghanistan and Iraq, 50 percent of all coalition helicopter losses in theatre at the time of the accident in 2009, and even afterwards, were due to the environment and not due to enemy fire," Clancy said. "The force employment concept makes sure that those lessons are not just resident in one squadron because it was the squad- ron that lived through that tumultuous time, but that they are shared across the entire Wing. Regardless of where we are deploying, we know we are going to need those skill sets."