During his testimony at the national defence committee last Thursday, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson was asked about the importance of stealth capability to Canada’s next fleet of fighter jets. Specifically, whether stealth was an option or a requirement for whatever plane will, in due course, replace the CF-18.
Liberal MP John McKay asked Lawson about the statement of operational requirements (SOR) – specifically, whether it has undergone any chances recently. McKay’s argument was that if, as the government has said, all options are one the table to replace the CF-18 then presumably the SOR would be as well. He also wondered whether stealth would “still be a priority in the statement of requirements?”
“That statement of requirements does raise stealth as a priority,” Lawson said.
“So, stealth is still a requirement. It’s not an option,” McKay replied.
“The statement of requirements has different weighting given to different portions,” Lawson explained. “When things are listed in there as requirements, they are graded. In other words, when a statement of requirement goes forward to meet what’s available to fill that requirement, there are only very few that require absolute to-the-letter meeting of that requirement. Stealth is one of those that’s preferable.”
That seems to contradict the government’s long-standing position on the technology.
Back in February, in an answer on an order paper question from New Democrat Matthew Kellway, then-associate minister of defence Julian Fantino said that “departmental officials inform me that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was the only aircraft available that could meet all of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s mandatory requirements.”
That departmental analysis, Fantino said then, “concluded that of the mandatory requirements, there were six mandatory requirements that could not be met by any aircraft options other than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.”
First on that list was: “The possession of stealth capabilities that make detection by enemy sensor systems exceedingly difficult.” The F-35, he said, was shown in an unclassified illustration of a stealth analysis to have “had an approximately 95 per cent improvement over first to fourth generation fighters.”
Kellway’s oder paper question also asked whether the F-35 can “meet all the requirements for Canada’s next generation fighter aircraft by 2020?”
Fantino replied: “Departmental officials advise that the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter is the only available option for the Royal Canadian Air Force that can meet all of the mandatory requirements within the [RCAF]’s statement of operational requirement for the next generation fighter capability.”
But in the same committee meeting last week, Lawson told MPs that there is not only one plane that can meet the standard of stealth set out in the SOR, and that “all aircraft, even fourth generation, provide a level of stealth.”
At the moment, the National Fighter Procurement Secretariat within Public Works is “evaluating options,” as the department wrote to me in November, which “means reviewing choices and thoroughly assessing the advantages and disadvantages of each option.”
On Thursday, McKay also asked Lawson whether the SOR is being rewritten as part of this options analysis.
“The process that’s underway does not require a restatement of the statement of requirements,” Lawson said. “The statement of requirements is done independent based on a close study by the air force on future battlefields they may have to work over, and the issue of sovereignty back here in Canada, defence of the continent. That’s what the statement of requirements is based on.”
The SOR, he said a moment later, “has not been asked to be reformatted.”
“If there’s not change in the statement of requirements, how therefore are all options on the table?” McKay asked.
“The statement of requirements, as you know, Mr. McKay, is based on the looking backwards at the equipment we have, looking forwards at how it may be used in the future, and looking at what threats that equipment will face,” Lawson replied. “That statement of requirements is written out in such a way that whatever is out there, it’s written out blind of whatever’s out there except in terms of technology that may be available.”
Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Colin Horgan
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