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View Full Version : Lt Col (Ret'd) Laurie Hawn versus "The System"


Wholigan
14th Feb 2017, 13:02
You may find this too much of a long read, but I recommend that you do read it, as it represents what is wrong when you let politics and ignorance together enter the sphere of military acquisition. You also may not agree with me or what is written in this post and that is your prerogative.

My good friend Laurie Hawn was an outstanding fighter pilot, who fought doggedly for what he thought was right throughout his 30 years regular service in the RCAF. He later became one of those very rare breed, a totally honest and committed politician and, during his time as an MP, he continued to fight honestly and fairly not only for his constituents, but for the Canadian Military and, in particular, the RCAF.

I am appalled with the way he has been treated because of his honesty and for standing up for his beliefs, and I am even more disgusted that the serving officers who agree wholeheartedly with him have been legally muzzled from fighting for what they believe to be right.

To give you a better picture of the man, so you can make up your own mind about whether or not he is worth listening to, I’ll give you some background information. I do not apologise for the length of this background.

Laurie is a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the RCAF, businessman, and he was the Member of Parliament for Edmonton Centre from 2006 until 2015. He served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence from October 10, 2007 until May 24, 2011. He was appointed to the standing committee on National Defence, as well as the committee on Public Safety and National Security. In the Canadian parliamentary system, Parliamentary Secretaries act as a liaison between the government and House of Commons. Laurie was a Canadian representative and a co-chair of the Permanent Canada-United States Joint Board of Defence as of 2012. He also sat on the Treasury Board sub-committee on the Strategic and Operating Review.

In his 30 years in the Air Force, Laurie made the rank of lieutenant-colonel and commanded a CF18 Hornet equipped tactical fighter squadron at Cold Lake. He then served an additional five years as honorary colonel of 417 Combat Support Squadron.

When he retired in 1994 from the RCAF he entered the financial services business where he opened and managed branch offices. Hawn is a founding member of the Investment Advisors Association of Canada

In January 2016, Laurie Hawn was appointed to the Edmonton Police Commission.

On October 1, 2010, Hawn was appointed to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada in recognition of "many years of dedication and hard work in the House of Commons, including on Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan”.
For his military service he received the Canadian Forces Decoration with 2 Bars.

I believe he “knows of what he speaks”.

This is what he has published on his Facebook page and I can assure you he will not leave the situation unchallenged.

——————-
By Laurie Hawn:

Speaking truth to power can be risky.

I re-confirmed that this week by speaking out rather more forcefully than was appreciated to the Commander of the RCAF and the Chief of the Defence Staff, on the issue of the CF-18 replacement. This is a condensation of some of my main points, and I know that senior military leaders have their hands tied. As followers will know, I have been very critical of the 100% politically motivated plan to buy 18 “interim” Super Hornets for some time and the story only gets worse.

We could fill the fabricated “capability gap” with 27 F-18C/D aircraft from Kuwait at the bargain basement price of $330 million, but we’re not pursuing it. We could also upgrade our 76 CF-18s to Super Hornet system status for about 20% of what it will cost us to buy 18 Super Hornets. Rather than pursue either of those options, we’d rather waste about USD 5.4 Billion on 18 aircraft with no real increase in capability. The cost of 90 F-35As will be USD 8.5 Billion (USD 94.6 million per) in the latest contract; and that unit cost will come down to USD 85 million by the time we should be receiving our first aircraft about 2020. What is wrong with this picture?

The F-18C is virtually identical to our CF-18s, while the Super Hornet is very different in size, radar, engines, mission computers and other systems. We don’t have the qualified technicians, pilots and support capacity to manage our current fleet; and adding a dissimilar fleet will make a very difficult job impossible. We are losing pilots to release at a rate that is unsustainable, and there is no ether that we can dip into to hive off more to get trained on the Super Hornet.

Neither the CF-18 nor Super Hornet actually has the kinematics to properly execute our primary mission of peacetime air sovereignty, with commercial aircraft operating above 40,000 feet. F-35 can properly execute that mission, and many more. The real experts were not consulted and, in fact, 240 of them have been muzzled with lifetime non-disclosure agreements. Why would a government with nothing to hide do that? The answer is that they wouldn’t, and this government has a lot to hide. It would be nice if the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner would take an interest. The options analysis that was conducted and clearly showed F-35 to be the answer has been suppressed, because it didn’t conform to the Prime Minister’s foolish and inaccurate statements during and since the 2015 campaign. And you thought that Donald Trump was the only purveyor of “alternate facts”.
Super Hornet also has serious safety concerns with the oxygen system that has resulted in 297 (reported) incidents that have resulted in the permanent grounding of some aircrew. Can we afford that and has anyone done a risk analysis of operating Super Hornet?

An open and fair competition could be started tomorrow and take no more than a year; but the government wants to kick the can down the road until after the next election. If the Statement of Requirements (SOR) is not “modified” to eliminate F-35, that aircraft would win any fair competition, just as it has in so many other cases. There’s good reason to believe that the SOR is being “massaged”. There will be nothing interim about a Super Hornet buy. Even if F-35 were to win a rigged competition, the sudden realization will be that, “Gosh, we just cannot afford a mixed fleet and we’ll just have to buy more Super Hornets.” The first part of that statement would be correct – we cannot afford a mixed fleet of Super Hornet and F-35 down the road, just as we cannot afford a mixed fleet of CF-18 and Super Hornet today.

The latest bit of insanity is that we are looking at buying two-seat Super Hornets and putting navigators in the back seat as Weapons System Operators (WSO). Our primary mission is air defence and there are no two-seat air defence fighters in the world today. There is a reason for that - navigators in fighters and many other applications have been overtaken by technology years ago. To be sure, fighter pilots will also eventually be overtaken by technology; but for the next few decades they have a job to do. We have no capacity to train WSOs, even if someone did invent a reason to want to do so.

The bottom line is that we can’t afford to do what we’re doing for a wide variety of reasons – Canadian sovereignty and security, financial, technical, personnel, moral, alliance support, Canadian industry, etc. If we carry on, I firmly believe and many others share my belief that we will kill the fighter force. I simply can’t support that and my conscience will not let me stay silent and be deemed complicit by that silence. I have been in and around the RCAF for 53 years and it is soul destroying to see what is happening in the name of politics. As anticipated, my vocal opposition to the plan was not well received by the most senior leadership of the RCAF and Canadian Armed Forces. I was asked to resign my position of Honourary Colonel of 401 Tactical Fighter Squadron (the oldest Squadron in the RCAF, 20 Nov 1918). That, I dutifully did, but since I’m not important enough to have sword, I just fell on my pen-knife.

I will continue to advocate for what I think is in the best interests of the RCAF, Canada, our aerospace industry AND taxpayers. Most Canadians may not really care about Super Hornet versus F-35, but I think they do care about the waste of billions of dollars for very little return, especially if it’s purely in the name of politics. More to follow.

Lonewolf_50
14th Feb 2017, 14:12
Stand up and be counted.
Nicely presented so that someone not familiar with the issues can understand it.
Will be interested to see responses here.

polyglory
15th Feb 2017, 09:15
What can one say, just wish we had more like him.

More power to his elbow.:ok:

A_Van
15th Feb 2017, 09:27
Abstracting from politics, establishment, and some paranoid issues the picture could be considered in the following way:

A "country X" has a fleet of about a hundred aircraft manufactured in early-mid 80's.
Many pilots that fly them are younger than this heavy metal. The planes undegone two modernizations, but further attempts to teach old dogs some completely new tricks seem to have little sense.

Some suggest to switch to a second hand stuff that is a little younger, but it's still second-hand and will just postpone the problem adding a lot of chaos related to such an additional interim switch.

Thus, the idea of a radical solution by buying a new brand aircraft appears to have no reasonable alternative. And F-35 is the newest brand.


Then comes politics and pseudo-finance and try to bury common sense.

Fitter2
15th Feb 2017, 09:40
A Moscow troll appearing to be helpful - what could possibly go wrong.

Heathrow Harry
15th Feb 2017, 11:01
bit paranoid of the RCAF - what possible effect can the Hon Col. of a squadron have?

Other than embarrassing a few politicians of course..............

Shabby

Wholigan
15th Feb 2017, 15:12
Forced to resign as RCAF honorary colonel for criticizing Super Hornets, former Tory MP says (http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/national/forced+resign+rcaf+honorary+colonel+criticizing+super/12910920/story.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&utm_term=Autofeed#link_time=1487135051)

sandiego89
15th Feb 2017, 15:58
One minor comment on his disregard for back seaters: "The latest bit of insanity is that we are looking at buying two-seat Super Hornets and putting navigators in the back seat as Weapons System Operators (WSO). Our primary mission is air defence and there are no two-seat air defence fighters in the world today".....


I believe the US two seat Super Hornets, "F" models, put a heavy emphasis on Fleet Air Defense (and do strike as well) and are coded in the 100 and 200 series in most carrier wings as the fleet defense "fighter" squadrons taking over from the F-14. The MiG 31, SU-27, remaining F-4's, Iranian F-14's, some F-15s, some French aircraft, etc also conduct air defense and have WSO's....Most are multi role and having the WSO comes in handy...


I have no opinion otherwise except to note that "mavericks" that speak their mind can be refreshing, but they can also be an irritant....Often at the same time....

Wholigan
15th Feb 2017, 18:38
There is no alternate universe in which I could in any way consider Laurie Hawn to be a "maverick". You only have to read about him to see that is true.

He may well currently be an "irritant", but maybe somebody needs to be right now.