The Canadian government will in January seek bidders to supply at least 16 new tactical transport aircraft to replace the country’s ageing Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules fleet. Including a 20-year in-service support package, the order will be worth up to C$5 billion ($4.2 billion).
Canada is trying a new fast-track procurement process, starting with January’s solicitation of interest and qualification, inviting manufacturers to ask to see the requirements for the aircraft, says the Department of National Defence (DND). Manufacturers that meet the requirements will be able to bid for a contract to be awarded by the second quarter of 2007.
“We intend to buy military equipment faster and more efficiently than in the past by basing the competition on performance requirements such as range, speed and the ability to operate in remote and hostile environments,” says Canadian defence minister Bill Graham. The procurement is a first step in meeting military airlift needs laid out in Canada’s defence policy statement earlier this year, he adds.
The new procurement process had sparked protests from opposition politicians, who say the plan amounts to a decision to bypass competition – ruling out all potential bidders except Lockheed Martin with its C-130J.
One of the requirements will be for the aircraft to be certificated before the contract is awarded, eliminating the Airbus Military A400M from the competition, while the Boeing C-17 will lose out on price, say defence sources.
The DND insists the revised procurement process will be “fair, transparent and competitive”. Deliveries of the new aircraft will begin in the second quarter of 2010 at the latest, finishing two years later. The new aircraft will replace 13 Canadian Forces C-130s, the oldest of which were delivered in the 1960s.
“Because of the decades of prevarication, any decision actually to acquire these aircraft will have to circumvent the ‘traditional bidding process’ – which, in practice, is just a way to ensure Bombardier gets a piece of the offset action,” says Barry Cooper, a military analyst and managing director of the Fraser Institute’s Alberta Policy Research Centre.
Cooper says the order “is not a serious effort to address the problem of the diminished capacity in the Canadian Forces for strategic lift”. The Fraser Institute issued a report in August recommending Canada to acquire a mixed fleet of C-130Js and C-17s to meet its airlift needs.
The procurement is only part of a C$12.2 billion, 50-aircraft purchase for which Graham and chief of defence staff Rick Hillier failed to win cabinet backing in mid-November. That plan had included 15 transport helicopters, probably Boeing CH-47 Chinooks, and 15 fixed-wing search-and-rescue (SAR) aircraft.
The DND says the “additional components do remain a priority” and “they will be brought forward in the coming months”.
Competing for the SAR contract is Alenia’s C-27J Spartan, which press reports say the DND favours over the competing EADS Casa C-295 and Bombardier’s Dash 8.
ANDRZEJ JEZIORSKI/VANCOUVER
Source: Flight International
