I think Peter O'Neil's article (below) was closer to the mark. Hard to believe, but he received the same brief as Daniel Leblanc, who wrote the more sensational article above.
Chopper bidder's tactics anger rivals, DND
AgustaWestland alleges Defence has watered down requirements
The Ottawa Citizen
Thu 05 June 2003
Page: A5
Section: News
Byline: Peter O'Neil and Mike Blanchfield
Source: The Ottawa Citizen; with files from CanWest News Service
A European firm's aggressive campaign against the federal government's maritime helicopter procurement process has triggered an angry backlash by two competitors as well as the Defence Department.
They are ganging up on AgustaWestland, the Anglo-Italian consortium and manufacturer of the EH-101 aircraft that won a huge Canadian helicopter contract in the early 1990s and then had that contract cancelled in 1993 by Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
AgustaWestland has been alleging that the Defence Department is watering down its requirements to ensure that a cheaper, inferior, and less safe aircraft -- in other words, any chopper but the EH-101, now called the Cormorant -- wins the competition for the $3-billion contract.
The Department of National Defence is taking the unprecedented step of calling together security experts and reporters to briefings this week in an attempt to combat the anti-government spin that has clouded the Sea King replacement.
Department spokesman Jeremy Sales said there are "misconceptions" about the 1999 Statement of Requirements and subsequent specifications on the new helicopter, specifications that AgustaWestland has alleged have been reduced to help competitors of the Cormorant.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. spokesman Nick Lappos ridiculed any suggestion that Sikorsky is marketing an unsafe and inadequate helicopter.
He also accused AgustaWestland of misleading Canadians by asserting that the Cormorant, which has three engines, could survive the failure of a single engine while hovering, whereas its competition's two-engine choppers couldn't.
An AgustaWestland advertisement this week said the federal government is willing "to purchase an aircraft that will ditch and sink to the bottom of the ocean if an engine fails while hovering providing it is $1 cheaper than one that will not do that. Saving $1 to lose 10s of millions is strange economics."
"We believe the H-92 is the safest helicopter that's ever been conceived," Mr. Lappos said by telephone conference call during a slide presentation offered to several journalists yesterday.
"I'm absolutely amazed. It is disappointing to find people who will assert, for example, that they are immune to an engine failure when their own flight manual states otherwise."
The Sikorsky briefing cited U.S. army data suggesting an engine failure during missions is extremely rare in any event, with one occurring in a 20-aircraft fleet every 25 years.
Another Sikorsky official, however, endorsed Agusta-Westland's allegation that the Chretien government is diluting its requirements, though to assist another competitor, NH Industries, rather than Sikorsky or AgustaWestland.
"I'd have to say right now that there's a lot of rumour out there right now that they've dropped the bar significantly, and we've certainly questioned the latest release of the specifications," said Lloyd Noseworthy, Sikorsky's regional director of business development in Canada.
Olivier Francou, the Canadian sales director of NH Industries, said his consortium is growing weary of the media campaign mounted by AgustaWestland to discredit the Sea King replacement process, while promoting its own helicopter.
All the helicopters in the U.S. navy are twin-engine, he added.
NH Industries -- a consortium of French, Italian, Dutch and German aerospace companies -- developed its prototype for the NH-90 in the early 1990s as part of a NATO working group.
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