Plane firm says it can save Canada millions

If we give to the auto industry in the east (ontario)....might as well give to aerospace industries in the west ( BC and Alberta)...or the Aerospace industry in the east already get money (Bombardier in Quebec)?

Viking Air is not greasing the right Political Pokets with kick backs... there's the problem.

Give us a million, and we will give you $200,000 in donations towards your next election.

It's the same old problem that has existed with procurement. Paying too much for equipment simply because they are unwilling to think outside the box.

I think the Sea King and the Buffalo are the perfect examples. I think that they could still be a viable aircraft but the money was not put into maintaining them properly and upgrading when necessary. Now they are falling apart and need to be replaced. The RAF still uses the Sea Kings for SAR work and they are safe because they are maintained properly.

The same could happen with the Buffalos here it seems but they would rather pay billions for foreign aircraft.

The RAF and RN Sea Kings were made under licence by Westland in the UK. The most recent versions are between 11 and 8 years old (depending where they were on the production run). By comparison the CF Sea Kings were built in the 1960's.

Granted, but proper maintenance and upgrading would have kept ours from becoming as unreliable as they are. For example, they could have been upgraded to the newer standard 10 yrs ago and probably would have meant that they wouldnt need to be replaced now. A much cheaper solution.

Just a thought really that it seems that we could save money by properly funding equipment maintenance and mid life upgrades. Instead of flying them into the ground for 30-40 years then trying to quickly replace them because they have become unreliable and unable to fill missions because of maintenance issues.

I think there gets a stage in an aircrafts life when hours spent fixing them outweigh the resources available.
The RAF C130 mk 1 and mk 3's got there about 10 years ago, RAF Tristars are on their last legs,as are the VC10's.

These aircraft are going u/s on two thirds of the UK- Afghanistan runs, which makes the pongoes, who are going home after 6 months of fighting, well pissed off and rightly so.

When I was a crewman on the RAF transport fleet I could never rely on getting back to base on time, but I did stay at some very cool places waiting for AOG spare parts for our particular u/s kite.

I think the real issue is the CF is trying to maintain very old aircraft when it would make more sense to get new, more reliable aircraft. Procurement is mired in politics not operational requirements, so both the CF and RAF will continue to try patching up old kites.

PS u attatched to the Riley's?

The thing with choppers is that every part is replaced after so many hours wether it needs it or not.Rotor changes used to be fun.

No I'm not attached, but my unit works out of the same armouries as the Riley's.

This sounds like a good idea to me. Why send millions to a European company when we could get new planes built here in Canada?