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- Canadian Defence Policy, Foreign Policy, & Canada-US Relations -

In Detail —— the Maritime Helicopter Project ——

by ST Priestley

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Canadian Defence Procurement  —  updated and revised January 2004 Politics, Procurement Practices, and Procrastination: the Quarter-Century Sea King Helicopter Replacement Saga Part 16  —  “... We had joy,  we had fun;  we had Sea Kings in the Sun ...” Scandal knocked out Art Eggleton after five years with little or no forward movement on the MHP.  John McCallum became the new Minister of National Defence in May of 2002. In December of that year,  McCallum reversed that ill-considered ‘two-part’ approach, deciding “to proceed with a single contract rather than two”.  But McCallum was villified  —  very often by the same industry types and defence pundits who had attacked the earlier decision to split the MHP contest into separate airframe and integrated mission systems parts. Meanwhile, Sea Kings chewed up maintenance time – 30 hours in the hangar for each flying hour according to some sources – and had become a menace to their crews. The Liberal government continued to move at a leisurely pace despite several high-profile Sea King crashes.  It had become clear, the policy-makers were waiting for Jean Chrétien to retire. Until December of 2003, the only question was: who would last longer. One-Hour ‘Martinizing’  —  Spending Freezes and the Sea King Replacement Within a week of Prime Minister Paul Martin naming his cabinet, replacing the Sea Kings had become a DND top priority. A spending freeze was applied to all other major DND projects.  The Maritime Helicopter project was the sole exception. And a surprise followed the 17 December 2003 call for tenders issued by the new Minister of National Defence, David Pratt. DND suddenly decided that the NH-90 was “non compliant” with their MHP requirement and this helicopter was eliminated from the contest. There were rumours mere months earlier that the NH-90 had all but won the MHP. Speculation at the time suggested that this was a political decision aimed at enhancing industrial relations with France.  The NH-90’s apparent reversal of favour might also be seen as being politically motivated  –  a poke at the Chrétien legacy by Paul Martin, perhaps. Others might suggest that DND had reasons of its own to reject the NH-90 – size having influenced the MHP from the outset. [1] [1]  The NH-90 NFH cabin is much smaller than is its competitors. Most critical to DND is height – the NFH is 1.58m high compared to the 1.83m height of the H-92 and EH-101. A new NH-90 variant with an enlarged cabin was proposed for MHP. This ‘tall’ NH-90 (originally proposed for Denmark which chose EH-101s instead) would better suit the MHP requirement but currently exists only in mock-up form. <  Part 15  —  “... Once more unto the breach ...”  —  the MHP Candidates >  Part 17  —  “... Go hence,  to have more talk  of these sad things ...”