We could always buy them from China.........I understand we have good friends in high places there.........Moe Strong or maybe Jean Cretin could broker a great deal........LOL

I agree that it would be nice to have them designed and built in Canada, but just think of the Politicing over who and where they would be built.......Perhaps in the interest of National Security, we could all pull together and "get it done" this time.

Posted by: Capndan at October 24, 2007 03:23 PM

---

If they are to be a foreign purchase, then may I suggest that Israel has some of the best ones.

Posted by: Alain at October 24, 2007 04:01 PM

---

I would encourage Canada to have its own domestic military aircraft program, but to equate a Canadian built UAV with one of the worlds great supersonic interceptor aircraft is stretching it a bit.. as well as being a tad insulting..

Posted by: kursk at October 24, 2007 04:04 PM

---

A post at "The Torch":

"UAVs for Arctic surveillance?"

Mark
Ottawa

Posted by: Mark Collins at October 24, 2007 04:27 PM

---

kursk, I would respectfully disagree. Though the some of the challenges of a UAV pale to that of making a supersonic interceptor, the software/datalink component along with the remote control elements I think make up for it in new an interesting ways. Size (and speed) isn't everything.

Posted by: Steve Janke at October 24, 2007 04:57 PM

---

We have the technology in Canada, the airframes, the engines, the electronics/robotics, but nobody's integrated it because the players are all too small to carry the required blue-sky research. Clever hardware is expensive. No doubt, the Americans can produce an integrated and clever solution for less money, but they haven't succeeded in selling outside America. So we'll get back to the old Liberal idea of subsidizing winners, but the bureaucrats always prefer going with low-bidders and off-the-shelf, obsolete, junk (think Sperwer or VW Iltis or MLVW or the used submarines). A Tory dimwit like Flaherty will never be able to get his head around anything like a Canadian UAV.

Nope. I don't see any way of getting to a good, useful solution. Sorry!

Posted by: JJ Joseph at October 24, 2007 05:47 PM

---

Gentlemen, we can fix this.

We have the technology.

We can create, Canada's first unmanned arial drone.

Better, faster, more resistant to cold weather.

Posted by: southernontarioan at October 24, 2007 06:15 PM

---

Why does not Canada work at designing a manned aircraft to replace the aging buffalos and Auroras? For example, an aircraft with the same airframe but different equipment for different roles. If you combined the transport, surveillance and search and rescue needs of DND you could perhaps easily come up with an order of 40 or so planes. Bombardier already makes planes of a similar size to what would be required. Harper could maybe address Canada's needs and score points with Quebec's manufacturing sector at the smae time.

Posted by: stephen at October 24, 2007 06:29 PM

---

Of course we could buy a few UAV's as well!

Posted by: stephen at October 24, 2007 06:30 PM

---

JJ Joseph: The Australians definitely, and perhaps others in Asia, are interested in the Global Hawk:
http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest+News/World/STIStory_163972.html

Note also "Australia’s decision to provisionally join the US Navy’s BAMS [Broad Area Maritime Surveillance] program..."
http://www.yaffa.com.au/defence/current/5-1099.htm

Mark
Ottawa

Posted by: Mark Collins at October 24, 2007 06:33 PM

---

Stephen: As to Bombardier, see this post:

"Marine pollution surveillance aircraft"
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2006/12/marine-pollution-surveillance-aircraft.html

However the Q Series does not have the range or endurance to do what the Aurora does. Designing and building an all-new aircraft to do that is simply beyond the capabilities of Bombardier at any reasonable price. Even the plane the US and Australia are buying, the P-8 Poseidon, is based on the 737 airframe.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/p8-poseidon-mma-longrange-maritime-patrol-and-more-02980/

And will be used in tandem with BAMS UAVs. I would suggest for Canada a combination of the Q Series for east and west coast limited range surveillance, together with BAMS for the long range surveillance mission off all three coasts. Q Series could be sent up north when specifically required. It is unlikely we will need the weapons capabilities of the P-8 (though that would be nice to have could we afford them).

Mark
Ottawa

Posted by: Mark Collins at October 24, 2007 06:46 PM

---

Mark Collins noted that:"The Australians definitely, and perhaps others in Asia, are interested in the Global Hawk"

Yes, you're correct, but nobody else has actually purchased the system. The cost is staggering for a "little" plane about the size of a Twin Otter. The Global Hawk's total cost of $123,000,000 each dwarfs the P-8's puny $70,000,000 unit price. This is really exotic stuff!

Posted by: JJ Joseph at October 25, 2007 01:54 AM

---

Whatever the gov't decides to do, you can guarantee it'll be the wrong decision and cost the taxpayer a large fortune.

Posted by: Feldwebel Wolfenstool at October 25, 2007 08:03 AM

---

Long one - sorry, all. In My Humble Opinion we're pursuing UAV's for all the wrong reasons, and only two right ones.

The two right reasons are that a UAV is a whole lot cheaper to operate than a patrol aircraft, and we don't care nearly as much when it crashes. Indeed, only the second reason necessarily holds true in the Great White North.

The UAV is being controlled by a team perhaps thousands of miles away, but HOW??? How do we communicate with the UAV? A dedicated control link needs satellites - the north is a notorious communications black hole, and there are no cellphone towers up there - and satellites don't come cheap. Indeed, you need a lot of satellites in circumpolar orbit, because a single satellite in geostationary orbit can't "see" all of the Canadian north.

So we're talking a large number of dedicated circumpolar satellites - useful for a lot of other things at the same time, but enormously expensive nonetheless - or a UAV so capable that it only needs occasional access to its control team and can fly the whole mission by itself. I.E., it would also be enormously expensive.

Let's see all the things our UAV must do:

- Fly a LONG way, preferably fast. This means high-altitude; and we can't have our UAV's colliding with civil airliners up there, so it must operate in (or above) ICAO airspace - in other words, REALLY high. An advanced turbine engine, at $1+ million each, and MNPS-compliant navigation suite (needed anyways) that can be flight-planned by its team on the ground; another $1+ million each.

- Stay there a long time once it gets there. They can stay considerably longer if they can watch from high altitude, but that doesn't happen very often in the north due to clouds. They'll have to go low-level frequently, and turbines are notoriously inefficient at low altitudes - which is why the old Argus had piston engines, and the Aurora has turboprops. So you're talking a LOT of fuel, and a BIG airframe to carry it - and a bigger engine to push it through the sky, and more fuel for the bigger engine; you get the picture.

- Have full anti-icing capability, and know when to use it. No point flying over the North for most of the year without full de-icing capabilities. You have your EO (electro-optic) turret out and are watching something - fly through a small cloud and get icing on the lens - you're blind, and if your UAV can't clean the lens itself, it'll have to fly all the way home for it. And if the engine or control surfaces can't de-ice themselves, it'll crash and we'll need a new one.

- A very high-capability surveillance suite. Radar can look through clouds, and spot just about anything moving, and image small structures, and sweep vast swathes of terrain in a hurry - but such a radar is cutting-edge and extremely pricy, and needs a lot of very clean power (i.e. a bigger engine again), and requires a whole lot of data storage; and the EO turret needs a lot of storage too, and you CAN NOT send high-detail live video feeds home in real time via satellite, not via any satellite that Canada possesses. So it'll have to store everything for post-mission interpretation in our to-be-built ultramodern facility at our UAV's home Base.

- Is this UAV starting to sound real expensive to anybody else? And there's another big drawback to this UAV; it's mostly good for surveillance of the Great White North, and recent governments (notably Liberal ones) have cheerfully neglected that role. I suggest the money ain't there for that role under a Conservative government either, and particularly not a minority one - and particularly not the HUGE $$$$$ needed for uniform 24/7 coverage of the whole North, which to be honest about it, Canada has survived so far without.

Whereas, a proper fleet of manned aircraft can do anything a UAV can do, a lot smarter, and can interpret live video in the aircraft as they're receiving it, and report back on the juicy bits. They can do this all over the world, not just in the Arctic, and they can track submarines (which are still out there - oh yes they are!), and if you give them a weapons bay, they can even shoot at stuff.

However it is a national tragedy when one of them crashes.

Posted by: Jim at October 25, 2007 08:36 AM

---

So exactly how do UAVs help strengthen our claim to the arctic. If having automated unmanned surveillance helps sovereignty then we are far behind the US (and others) who have long surveilled by satellite. Sovereignty over the waterways depends on our claims to the islands, which is built by peoples lives, past and present. That the Northwest Passage is an internal waterway is obvious to those of us that live, work and hunt here, but it needs to be settled through international law before we try to "enforce" our claims.

Posted by: Clare at October 25, 2007 08:18 PM

---

Steve, I agree that if we're going to acquire UAVs that it should be all-Canadian technology. I'm not sure those American drones can withstand life above the Arctic Circle!

But really, why all the paranoia? Who do we need to spy on in the Arctic? It's not Santa invading, is it?

http://www.humblenarrator.com/2007/10/26/canadian-military-readies-for-imminent-north-pole-offensive-by-toy-militia/

Posted by: Michael Parkatti at October 26, 2007 06:28 PM

---

...i think sadly Canadians, me included, don't realize how BIG THE NORTH is.

I just looked at a map of Canada and realized Baffin Island is as long as Alberta!

Gadzooks!

One little UAV won't be able to do it, let alone a fleet of them.

Posted by: tomax7 at October 27, 2007 12:41 PM

---

Abstract paintings
Angel painting
animal paintings
ballet paintings
beach painting
Boat painting
building painting
Children painting
Christ painting
church painting
City painting
Cottage painting
Dancer painting
field painting
Floral paintings
Garden painting
Hunting paintings
impressionist painting
Knight painting
Lady painting
Landscape painting
Lighthouse paintings
Music painting
Nude painting
Oriental paintings
Piano painting
Seascapes paintings
Still Life paintings
street painting
sunset painting
Tropical paintings
Venice paintings
Village painting
wine paintingsalvador dali paintings
thomas kinkade paintings
pablo picasso paintings
vincent van gogh paintings
claude monet paintings
diego rivera paintings

Posted by: aswkin at July 17, 2008 09:23 AM

---