Halifax Herald ~ 4 July 2012
Tories to hit Sikorsky for delay
July 3, 2012 - 8:07pm
By PAUL McLEOD Ottawa Bureau
The government says it will level “significant” fines against Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. for missing yet another deadline to deliver CH-148 Cyclone helicopters.
But it’s not saying whether it will demand the entire $80.6 million it can charge Sikorsky for breach of contract.
Meanwhile, the delays continue to handcuff the Canadian Forces.
The government retrofitted HMCS Regina and HMCS Montreal, two Halifax-class frigates, in order to allow the Cyclones to land on and take off from the ships’ flight deck.
But when it became clear the choppers would not arrive on time, the Forces had to spend more money to reverse the HMCS Regina retrofit so it could once again handle Sea Kings.
A Defence Department spokesman estimated the cost of the retrofits to be about $600,000 per ship. The Canadian Forces could not confirm that number by deadline Tuesday or provide the cost of reversing the Regina refit.
With work to return its flight deck and hangar to original specifications completed, the Regina was deployed Tuesday to the Arabian Sea as part of Operation Artemis, a Combined Maritime Forces counter-terrorism mission.
The Cyclones and Sea Kings are significantly different vehicles and that would require major changes to the flight deck and the hangar, said Lee Myrhaugen, a retired colonel and former deputy commander of Maritime Air Group.
“It’s extremely frustrating for the navy, for sure,” said Myrhaugen.
“You put all your efforts into making sure that you’re prepared for the new aircraft and when things get delayed, you have to turn around and say, ‘What is all this good planning and activity for?’ ”
The $5.7-billion purchase has become a nightmare for the government. Announced in 2004 by the former Liberal government, Sikorsky was supposed to start delivering the choppers in 2008 and the entire fleet of 28 was supposed to have arrived by now.
Instead the government gave Sikorsky a 43-month extension in exchange for more than $100 million in extra industrial and economic promises from the company. That deadline ran out on June 30 without a single helicopter delivered.
The government has already collected $8 million in fines from Sikorsky and can now charge a further $80.6 million.
The Department of Public Works would not confirm Tuesday if it was charging the full amount, saying it was in talks with the company.
“Failure to deliver fully compliant marine helicopters will be met with significant additional charges,” said Amber Irwin, spokeswoman for Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose.
The government did not set a new target date for receiving the Cyclones, but there are signs it won’t be any time soon.
There are currently no plans to convert any more ships to handle Cyclones, said Chris McCluskey, spokesman for Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino.
There are two Cyclones sitting at CFB Shearwater, but they are not up to specifications and do not count as delivered aircraft.
While the choppers are theoretically flyable, no flight training is currently being done with them. Instead they are being used only for maintenance training.
Sikorsky was supposed to deliver a series of “training” Cyclones with weaker specs than the final product, but those have not yet arrived.
The road to replacing the Sea Kings began in 1992 when the Brian Mulroney government announced they would buy 50 EH-101s at a price of $5.8 billion. The next year, the Jean Chretien government tore up that deal and had to pay a penalty of close to $500 million.
Over the years, the cost of the program has ballooned from a projected $2.8 billion to an estimated $5.7 billion.
(
[email protected])