Page 88 - North Atlantic and Nordic Defense

North European and North Atlantic Defense: The Challenges Return

Figure 29 A CH-148 Cyclone helicopter moves into position over the flight deck of Her Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS)
Montreal for refuelling on April 20, 2016 off the coast of Nova Scotia.

We had a chance to visit 12 Wing Shearwater located in Nova Scotia on September 18, 2017. We first
had an opportunity to tour the helicopter and get briefed as well as to sit down and discuss the Wing and the
way ahead with the Wing Commander, Colonel Sid Connor.

We started by discussing the challenges of building a new maritime helicopter, which met the requirements set
by the Canadian Air Force. The Canadians were seeking a maritime helicopter, which did not exist off the
shelf in any allied Navy air force, but opted to develop a unique helicopter, which met a specific set of
requirements.

Although one could note that having developed an aircraft which can combine advanced ASW within a larger
air frame for multi-tasking, the Canadian RCAF may have stimulated the development of a maritime
helicopter clearly of interest to other navies, notably those operating off of smaller ships.

Colonel Sid Connor: “Our requirements were tough because we operate under a different philosophy in our
maritime helicopter fleet than do our allies. We focus on our crews doing autonomous operations as we leave
the ship, which is not the norm for maritime helos.

“Normally, you're very dependent on getting tactical direction from the ship. Whereas in our case, though we
can operate that way and we do, we also have the ability to be autonomous and we prioritize our ability to
retask during operations. Rather than landing on our ships and then repurposing our helos, we want to be
able to do such repurposing built into the helicopter itself.

“This led to requiring a larger helicopter to do ASW and the multi-missions, which we want to do with the
helicopter.

“And all of this leads to the complexity of the requirements of the Cyclone flying ready to do any mission
because you don't have the option to go back to the ship. We want to reconfigure the aircraft as you
transition from an ASW mission to an anti-surface mission, for example.

“That's what led us to our requirements for the Cyclone being more robust than for the S-60-Romeo where
they are configured for a certain role when they take off.”

Second Line of Defense

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