What's Canada Buying? November 20, 2012

• Big Honkin’ Ships  “The federal government can’t say how many small ships it plans to buy with the last $2 billion of its $35-billion national shipbuilding strategy.  That may be normal. After all, the national shipbuilding procurement strategy, or NSPS, is a 30-year program intended to overhaul the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard fleets.  But if it is not normal, that is significant. The reason is that if there are any cost overruns or problems in other parts of the NSPS, it wouldn’t be farfetched to believe the money could be taken from the pot set aside for smaller vessels.  The revelation the government doesn’t know how many smaller vessels it plans to buy is contained in an order paper question filed by NDP military procurement critic Matthew Kellway only a week after Postmedia News reported in June that the NSPS was sailing into stormy waters ….”
• Wanted:  Someone to tow the HMCS Athabaskan to St. Catherines for a refit – more here (MERX posting).
• Wanted:  2 x “Thermo Weapon Sights”
• Wanted:  Someone to clean up mould at “Building 175, 1 Field Ambulance, Canadian Forces Base Edmonton”
• Wanted:  Someone standing by (on a short-notice or urgent basis) to deal with and get rid of SOMETHING at CFB Petawawa for ~$500K/year
  
• “Héroux-Devtek Inc. (TSX: HRX) a leading Canadian manufacturer of aerospace products, today announced that its Landing Gear products operations have been awarded a multi-year contract from The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) to manufacture the landing gear for the H-47 Chinook medium-to-heavy-lift helicopter.  Under the terms of the agreement, Héroux-Devtek will fabricate the landing gear for all Chinook aircraft destined to the U.S. Army. Landing gear deliveries are scheduled to begin in the first half of calendar 2014 and will be spread out over a five-year period. Current program expectations call for the delivery of 155 aircraft to the U.S. Army over the contracted period. The contract also includes options, exercisable at Boeing’s discretion, to fabricate the landing gear for up to 150 additional aircraft over the same period.  This new long-term contract is the third agreement actively involving Héroux-Devtek on the H-47 program. The first announcement, in September 2009, was in regards to the fabrication, assembly, testing and delivery of the landing gear for H-47F aircraft delivered to customers outside the United States, including the CH-147, as it is known for the Canadian Forces. The second agreement, announced in September 2012, was for a license allowing the Corporation to offer its services to fabricate replacement parts and carry out repair and overhaul services for the landing gear of all Chinook variants ….”
• “A new General Dynamics Canada modular VME acoustic signal processor (MVASP) is now fully operational onboard Canada’s fleet of Lockheed Martin CP-140 Aurora maritime patrol aircraft with the delivery of the last system.  The MVASP is the main underwater detection system on the venerable four-engined turboprop and is used to locate and track underwater threats.  “As the primary sensor for underwater ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] on the Aurora, the MVASP leverages the latest innovations in parallel processing to provide enhanced detection and localization of underwater targets,” says Peter Giles, product manager for underwater ISR at General Dynamics Canada. “Its advanced capabilities have been engineered to allow operators on fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft to find a target quickly and hold it for as long as necessary. This improves mission effectiveness by enabling more accurate underwater target analysis and identification.”  The MVASP can process information from 32 sonobuoys. It is also designed to support any mix of analog, digital, passive or active acoustic data, General Dynamics says ….”
• New boss at Lockheed Martin Canada  “Lockheed Martin has named Rosemary J. Chapdelaine president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Canada.  Chapdelaine joins Lockheed Martin Canada after serving in several executive positions within the corporation at locations in both the United States and the United Kingdom.  Most recently, she served as a director of business development for Lockheed Martin’s Mission Systems & Sensors business in Owego, N.Y.  In this position, she will lead our more than 500 employees to deliver on our development, production and in-service support programs for all branches of the Canadian Forces, including the mid-life upgrade to the Royal Canadian Navy’s Halifax-class frigates ….”

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