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Canada converts Sea Kings for battlefield role with SCTF

Got a good deal on some steel umbrellas since it may seem Pat Bay will have less cluttering up the air over Victoria. Okay fun aside my hat goes off to SeaKing and the others who keep this piece of kit in the air and have the 'cojouns' to fly in them, there's are bigger than mine. To certain recent posters on this site "No matter what piece of kit you have there are going to be maintenance hours with it", end of story

What makes you think we have bigger balls than anyone else in the military?  I have a little over 1100 hours on Sea Kings.  I assess the risks everytime I go flying (just like every other aviator flying every other type aircraft in the world).  If I'm not comfortable, I don't go.  it's not like I'm driving in a LAV III in Afghanistan- that takes balls!

We fly in a demanding and unforgiving environment (low level, at sea, often at night).  The aircraft is old and most of the sensors are obsolete.  Usually, our accidents or incidents can be traced back to some sort of crew or maintenance error.  That said, seldom does the aircraft just spontaneously quit working and crash.

If there is one thing that I would like every Army.ca member to take away from my post it is:

SEA KING HELICOPTERS ARE NOT INHERENTLY UNSAFE!!

Some of you may be flying off of a ship with us in the very near future on exercise or on operations.  I want you to feel comfortable and confident doing so.

Cheers.
 
Ex-Dragoon said:
40 mm Bofors actually and none were from the CPFs.

You're both right.  Protecteur was armed with both 40mm Bofors and 20mm CIWS in 1990.  I believe the 20mm were taken from CPFs, or diverted from ones that were to be fitted to CPFs.  A point to note, the Navy website on the Protecteur has got an error.  It states that she was rearmed with 20mm Bofors vice 40mm.

Here's the site- http://www.navy.dnd.ca/PROTECTEUR/about/ship_about_e.asp?category=92 if anyone knows who updates it, maybe they could correct it.
 
2 quickie type questions.
1) Where are these "amphibious assault" ships coming from?
and 2) When will these ships actually come into service?
Maybe its not so much the seakings we should be worrying about.
Just my 2 cents.

Daniel
 
Interesting use of re-roling choppers. I bet in their "aged state" sea kings will be more usefull than griffons in the battlefield mobility role.
 
Whiskey_Dan said:
2 quickie type questions.
1) Where are these "amphibious assault" ships coming from?
and 2) When will these ships actually come into service?
Maybe its not so much the seakings we should be worrying about.
Just my 2 cents.

Daniel

1. Don't know. The Navy (plus Army and AF) are still doing the proof of concept. There is a plan to do some war-gaming this fall with USN or RN providing the platform. The plan is to initially lease one and then build one in the future.

2. NLT 2014.

What will we get?
Well as for AirCraft, Sikorsky is building an updated version of the Super Stallion (a "K" model) which would be nice to have

Link
http://www.sikorsky.com/details/0,3036,CLI1_DIV69_ETI265,00.html

As for ships:
This one has been my favorite:

http://www.scheldeshipbuilding.com/enforcer/


 
Thanks Ammo tech, for getting my back there. I believe those 40 mm Bofors (I'd forgotten those) were also recycled- for the Lahr Air Defense det. Currently our Cormorant Fleet is servicable for only 2 hours/ flight- unless we are tasked SAR. I don't know what our man hours are, butthey are significant.Even if our fleet were healthy, I think it would be a  nightmare to bring civilian contracted maintenance to Afghanistan.
 
Not sure about the Halifax museum story - if memory serves me right, the Bofors 40mm were sitting in war stock inventory till the call came in to up arm the Supply ships.

And the CIWS were systems purchased for the CPFs and sitting on the shelf somewhere pending completion of construction.

Not surprised that the 40mm were stripped off at a later refit though
 
Not sure about the Halifax museum story - if memory serves me right, the Bofors 40mm were sitting in war stock inventory till the call came in to up arm the Supply ships.

The museum thing never happened.  And I should know because the Weapons Tech (L) that helped with installations of the 40mm Bofors on the 3 ships came from Chatham and worked for me on HMCS PROTECTEUR when I was a young AD Troop Commander.  This is how the story got going:

My Cpl was helping install one of the guns (which came from the airfields in Germany and were waiting for the MCDVs to be built) and noticed a piece of hydraulic fitting was u/s.  As time was of the essence (or so it seemed..), he zipped up to the Maritime Command Museum to examine their display 40mm gun to see if he could rob a part.  It turned out to be a different model of gun, so FMF Cape Breton built him a new part instead.  Somehow, this all got recounted to the press as an example of good old Canadian ingenuity and got spun into how the "guns came from a museum".  Once again, never happened.  You guys can spike this urban legend- I was there.

Sorry for the hijack.
 
My mistake I thought KJ was referring to the single barrel 20 mm Oerlikon type you see on British ships. WHen I see CIWS means a who different thing to me vice 20 mm AA gun
 
Didn't they put Air defence guys on the ship with shoulder launched missiles??  I met a guy in BC when I was on QL3 and he showed me picks of the Protector or Preserver going thought the Suez.  They had pics with them practicing closing up for action stations with (I think shoulder launched Javelins???).  Is this right?? 

Too the original post.  Its sad that now that the media has slagged the Sea Kings for so long the public will just laugh at the military some more.  The Army will probably be cringing too with all the bad press.  I hope this all works out.  Always looked twice when I saw pics of the kippers landing SAS and Royal Marines from the Sea Kings.  They look sharp in green.

:cdn:
 
Either Javelins or Blowpipes.

Javelin GL.  I was the Air Defence Troop Commander on PROTECTEUR from Aug 90-Jan 91.  PRESERVER never went to Gulf War 1- just her crew.  We did a crew swap, intheatre, in Jan 91.
 
Still lots of Sea Kings, Brits and Aussies appear to be still happy with their performance

Sea Kings became whipping boys - same as the Iltis
Nothing wrong with a piece of kit that is used as intended.
Once you decide to use it for something outside of what it was intended for in 1st place,  all bets are off.
 
From today's Herald

By JOHN WARD The Canadian Press
ADVERTISEMENT
 

OTTAWA — The military will cannibalize five Sea King helicopters and turn them from sub-hunters into troop carriers as part of a new quick-reaction force.

They will lose their anti-submarine gear and get seating to carry 12 soldiers.

The helicopters will be part of a fledgling, Halifax-based, standing contingency task force, a mix of planes, ships and soldiers designed to respond quickly to crises. Creation of the force was announced last year in the defence policy statement.
These Sea Kings are B models, equipped to drop sonobuoys, floating sensors designed to listen for submarines underwater. Most navy ships that carry Sea Kings use the A model, which includes active sonar gear that sends out the pings familiar from many war movies, to find subs.

The contingency task force needed helicopters to be able to ferry soldiers from ship to shore. With nothing else in the inventory to fill the bill, it was decided to convert the Sea Kings.

"We need . . . to have the proper air connectors to be able to take a force from ship to shore and that requires the kind of lift capability that a modified Sea King could provide," said Lt.-Col. Danny Houde, of the directorate of air strategic planning.

The conversion project is straightforward, said Maj. Max Shaw, weapons system manager for the Sea Kings.

"The first part is take the passive acoustics systems out," he said. "Then the other two main elements are adding additional troop seats and adding radios that are compatible with talking to the soldiers."

The $5.5-million project will also eventually install engine filters to improve the chopper’s performance in dusty conditions.

The Sea Kings, most of which are more than 40 years old, have been used as cargo carriers and makeshift people movers in the past. In Somalia in 1992-93, Sea Kings moved 430 tonnes of cargo ashore to support the Canadian Airborne Regiment.

The newly modified troop carriers will keep their navigation and radar systems, as well as the protective gear installed when the navy began deployments to the perilous Persian Gulf area four years ago. These include infrared jamming systems, a missile warning system and chaff dispensers.

Shaw said the Sea King is used as a troop carrier by other countries, so the modifications aren’t radical.

"There’s lots of precedents," he said. "The Royal Navy has provided support for the Royal Marines in many operational sectors over the years and they are quite happy with it in this role."

The changes should be done by November, when the newborn contingency force will stage its first exercise.
Houde said the idea of the force is to provide a permanent force of ships, aircraft and soldiers who work, train and deploy together. It would replace the kind of one-off arrangements in which ships, planes and troops are thrown together for a single mission, "then when the mission is over they go back to their holes and don’t necessarily work together again."

The force is being assembled slowly. Eventually, it’s expected to include several warships, including a yet-to-be purchased amphibious ship, plus helicopters and other aircraft and a force of several hundred troops.

The Sea Kings are a stop-gap that will help get the program started. Eventually, some other helicopter will be tabbed for the troop-carrier role. It might be a specialized aircraft or a variant of the new Sikorsky Cyclone helicopters that are to start replacing the Sea Kings in 2008.

"The final choice in terms of the lift capability has not been finalized," Houde said. "We are continuing to develop the options, but of course the Cyclone is one of the options being considered."

If I were one to talk out of the only orifice located on the back of my body, I might suggest that Shannon Park will be the new home for the "troops"


 
Interesting,

might not be a perfect solution but I am confident from experienced posters above that it will be a good temporary solution. At least the Sea King can carry a C6 machinegun for cover.

Douke
 
IMHO an excellent stopgap solution. Why not use what we have while we have it. I checked out some of the links from previous pages to familiarize myself with the Cyclone...I don't want to offend anyone, but it looks like a VIP passenger chopper. I guess looks can be deceiving.

I also like the link on the "Enforcer" series Amphibious ships...nice.

The "Super Stallion" looks very aggressive and sturdy, can we get some of those please? ;)

If I understand correctly, we will hitch rides with Medium lift choppers from other nations? Man..we should have hung on to a couple of those Chinooks eh?

Anyhoo, I'm happy the military is finally getting some attention and I support any progress with procurements. I think a new era is at hand..slowly.

Gnplummer :cdn:
 
If they make the cockpit NVG-compatible, I'll fly them over here!  :salute:

I would also like the C6 replaced with an M134 7.62 mini or the GECAL hi-rate .50...

Like SKT said, the SK is not inherently unsafe, the flexshaft cable that caused the fire and crash of 12425 in 1994 has been resolved.

As I said before, I'd fly it here in a troop transport role, but put some proper theatre-specific eqpt on it (NVG, M134/GECAL/get rid of the Tacco and Aesop's console for more troops further fwd to help CofG...sorry SKT...unless of course you want to man the LH dor gun?)

Cheers,
Duey
 
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