By Ken Pole | June 20, 2016 Estimated reading time 5 minutes, 55 seconds.
Airbus Defence and Space has put forward its C295 twin-engine turboprop as a replacement for the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 50-year-old de Havilland CC-115 Buffalos, all based at 19 Wing Comox, B.C. ADS Photo
A senior Airbus Defence and Space (ADS) executive told Skies in Ottobrun, Germany, on June 20 that he remains optimistic about securing a Canadian government contract for up to 17 new fixed-wing search and rescue (FWSAR) aircraft.
ADS has put forward its C295 twin-engine turboprop as a replacement for the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF’s) 50-year-old de Havilland CC-115 Buffalos, all based at 19 Wing Comox, B.C. Its competition is another twin-turboprop, the Italian-built C-27J Spartan offered by Leonardo Aircraft.
Jean-Pierre Talamoni, ADS head of sales and marketing, had said earlier during a briefing that the record of the C295 and its progenitor C212 and smaller CN235—all capable of operating from the most austere airfields—is why they have captured more than 60 per cent of the global market in their class.
The 478 C212s in service have logged more than 3.3 million flight hours; the 236 CN235s more than 1.35 million hours; and the 148 C295s more than 250,000. Thirteen of the current operators have opted for full in-service support by ADS, which is part of the RCAF requirement.
Talamoni noted that ADS has had “tens of people” preparing its bid on what he said was an “extremely complex” request for proposals (RFP) by the Canadian government. He acknowledges that the Spartan has a greater range than the C295, but said the government’s idea of having more SAR bases across the country makes the ADS platform more competitive in terms of price and reliability.
The Canadian contract is one element of a positive growth outlook outlined earlier by Talamoni during a briefing with media from countries which have already purchased aircraft from ADS as well as others considered likely prospects in a market worth nearly $4.3 billion annually.
ADS is projecting 2.4 to 2.5 per cent average annual growth in its global market over the next few years despite stagnant orders in its key market, the United States. However, the outlook excludes potentially lucrative markets in China, Russia and Iran because, according to Talamoni, data in those areas is hard to come by.
In contrast to the U.S. situation, growth is forecast elsewhere: six per cent in the Asia-Pacific region; three per cent in the Middle East; two per cent in Latin America; and up to two per cent in Europe.
Talamoni pointed out that in an increasingly expanding marketplace, the competition for orders has become global as countries such as Russia return to the heavy transport and fighter markets, Japan pushes patrol aircraft, and Brazil offers its Embraer-built KC390 transport. Also, a growing paramilitary market was an added complexity for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their supply chains.
He also said that the A400M turboprop transport developed by ADS presents a strong challenge to the still popular Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules because of what he said are ADS’s shorter delivery times.
Moreover, the A400M’s maximum payload was twice that of the C-130 and, with the same load as the C-130, had nearly twice the range. As well, it was “perfectly suited” to operate in regions ravaged by natural disaster and from the two-thirds of the world’s runways, which remain unpaved. “The beauty of our aircraft is we can land everywhere,” said Talamoni.
Following his presentation, Miguel Ángel Morell, head of engineering at ADS, held out a couple of technological carrots, which could eventually appeal to the RCAF, even though they are not part of the company’s response to the RFP.
One is the ongoing development of automated cockpit procedures for the C295 as ADS moves toward single-pilot operation “in the near future,” a project which is expected to be finalized by 2021. Morell said the program would automate checklists and even reconfigure aircraft systems in the event of a failure. He added that the pilot would still be “in the loop,” able to manually override the automation.
While the current project involves system data on the head-up display, ADS is developing a system similar to the Google glasses, which would present data to the pilot regardless of line-of-sight, but Morell suggested that it would be at least 2020 before it was in the C295.
The other carrot is a roll-on roll-off midair refuelling kit, which could deliver seven tonnes of fuel from its centrally-mounted tank through a drogue-deployed basket arrangement. Early indications are that ADS is targetting inflight helicopter refuelling and, having run through simulator and dry flight tests, expects to test it with a fuel load later this year.
