Peter MacKay, the Minister for National Defence, has announced today that the Government of Canada has signed the long-awaited contract with Boeing for the acquisition of new CH-47F (Canadian Forces designation: CH-147F) Chinook medium-to-heavy lift helicopters for the Canadian Forces. The contract, which consists of a $1.2 billion capital acquisition and a $2.2 billion 20-year [...]

According to David Pugliese, the CH-148 Cyclone has made its maiden flight at Sikorsky’s West Palm Beach Facility in Florida. The thirty minute long test flight was reported to be successful, but there is little expectation that the flight can be treated as a major indicator that the programme is proceeding toward meeting its 2010 [...]

The Minister of National Defence, Peter Mackay, who is currently in Singapore for a security conference, has stated that six to ten medium-lift helicopters and additional unmanned aerial vehicles will be deployed to the Afghanistan theatre by February 2009. The Minister noted, “… [hopefully] some of the equipment [will] arrive late summer, early fall (2008).” [...]

With its December 18, 2007, announcement that only a portion of the CP-140 Aurora fleet (10 of 18 aircraft will receive core structural work and upgrades) under the AIMP, the Department of National Defence laid the seeds for the future replacement for the long-range maritime patrol aircraft. According to national media sources, the favoured replacement [...]

A CU-161 Sperwer is prepared for launch by Canadian Forces Personnel (credit: DND/CF). Sperwer Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle The Canadian Forces acquired its first unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in August 2003, when then-Minister of National Defence John McCallum announced a $33.8 million contract to Oerlikon-Contraves Inc. to build the SAGEM-designed Sperwer tactical unmanned aerial vehicle [...]

The following is a summary of the total number of aircraft available in Air Command’s inventory.

The Maritime Helicopter Project (MHP) was commissioned by the Chrétien government in the year 2000 to provide twenty-eight replacements for the CH124 Sea King maritime helicopters used by the Canadian Navy. The project came seven years after the same government had cancelled a similar project of the Mulroney government, and paid a hefty cancellation fee [...]

March 2005 Search and Rescue (SAR) in Canada The sheer size of Canada’s territory, both land and maritime, has been a major hurdle to developing an effective search and rescue system for the nation. Despite these hurdles, Canada is considered a world leader in the field of search and rescue, boasting its status as a [...]