| Submit your comments on this article |
| Great White North |
| Sea King fleet severely restricted |
| 2003-10-31 |
| Investigators were examining the engines and gear boxes on two Sea King helicopters Thursday after the aircraft lost power in flight, forcing the military to restrict the fleet’s flying time to only critical missions. For one of the few times in its troubled 40-year history, the aircraft were ordered to stand down and not fly any non-operational flights. The six now able to take to the air in Halifax and the remaining Sea Kings in British Columbia will not be able to conduct routine training missions, but can still respond to emergencies. Oh, that’s real nice. That could change as early as Friday if engineers find enough similarities between the two mishaps to warrant a complete grounding of the geriatric fleet. "If the incidents were linked it might point to a broader fleet-wide issue," Lt.-Col. Bruce Ploughman, operations officer of the Sea King fleet at Halifax’s Shearwater base, said in a sprawling hanger containing nine of the helicopters. The unusual measure comes after the two aircraft reported similar power failures in two separate incidents more than a month apart. On Sept. 23, a Sea King was practising landings on the deck of HMCS Iroquois when there was an imbalance in the amount of power the engines were producing. The sudden loss caused the aircraft to fall more than a metre to the ship’s deck. None of the crew was injured. On Monday, another Sea King was on a training exercise outside Halifax when it temporarily lost power, causing it to dip before continuing to fly. Sounds like a trend to me. Lt.-Col. Dave Mason, commanding officer of the fleet’s flight maintenance, said specialists were zeroing in on the fuel content, the fuel delivery to the engines, and the performance of the engines and gear boxes. They were also looking at the way the engines and gear boxes were installed and maintained, since both helicopters came from the same hangar and might have been subject to flawed service. The General Electric engine and Sikorsky gear boxes were both updated within the last five years and have about 30,000 flying hours combined, something Ploughman said rules out the common criticism levelled against Sea Kings. "They have been upgraded so this in no way reflects on the age of the Sea King," he said as a colleague stood nearby wearing a badge with a picture of the aircraft and a message - Flying Yesterday’s Aircraft Tomorrow. That shows confidence in your aircraft. In Ottawa, the opposition seized on the latest problems with the Sea Kings by criticizing Prime Minister Jean Chretien for acquiring jets for his use while the Forces have been beset by problems with aging equipment. "Can the prime minister explain why it took him only one day to get new Challenger jets for himself when he wanted them and after 10 years our military people don’t have the military helicopters they need?" Canadian Alliance Leader Stephen Harper said in the House of Commons. Humm, because he thinks more of himself than of those crude brutes in uniform? |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #5 still some 2000 DC-3's and C-47's being used around the globe OP I have an Uncle that used to work on C-47s in SE Asia in the late '50s (Flyin Tiger!) noted engines that had been rebuilt so many times it was difficult to find a place to stamp his mark on the block. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-10-31 5:48:54 PM |
| #4 Some equipment can last forever. There are Fram destroyers from the US WWII fleet still in service around the world. When properly lubricated a low speed reduction gear will last forever. An airframe is an entirely different matter. The services need to get together and compromise on a replacement for the Sea King. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-10-31 5:25:14 PM |
| #3 Maybe it's better that dar-al-Canada no longer has any military capacity worth mentioning. Consider this: right after the Prime Minister of Malaysia gave that speach which would have brought a tear to Hitler's eye, M. Chretien walked up and shook his hand. I kid you not. |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2003-10-31 3:49:30 PM |
| #2 ...Sadly, M. Chretien has absolutely no regard for the Canadian Armed Forces - and it's a shame, because I've worked with those guys time and time again, and it's awful to see them dying the death of a thousand cuts up there. A prediction, because it's my understanding that M. Chretien is as obsessed with his 'legacy' as Someone Else was - he will attempt todisband what's left before he leaves office in order to get himself a Nobel. Imagine the screams of admiration from the left after the leader of a first-world Western nation becomes the first one to actually eliminate his nation's military. (And yes, I know, Canada has treaty commitments. My feeling there is that nations have commitments; politicians only have constituencies.) Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2003-10-31 2:18:16 PM |
| #1 Flying Yesterday’s Aircraft Tomorrow. Well, there are still some two hundred B-52's flying, and IIRC, the last one off the assembly line was accepted by the Air Force in 1962. Most of those still flying have crewmembers, sometimes whole crews, that are younger than the aircraft. I don't have the figures, but there's supposedly still some 2000 DC-3's and C-47's being used around the globe, including a pair at the airport in Omaha, Nebraska, flying under the name "Stagecoach Airlines". They're all getting old, and require special care. Sea King helicopters fall into that same category. If you build it right the first time, and take care of it when it needs it, it'll last. An early nickname for the F-16 was "Air Force Lawn Dart", because so many of them plowed into the ground. That was more due to pilot familiarization than faulty design, but not entirely. It doesn't matter whether it's state-of-the-art technology or something older than I am, if it's not manufactured well, if it's not maintained well, and if the people using it aren't trained well, it's a catastrophe waiting to happen. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-10-31 2:13:05 PM |