CDN fighter jets temporarily plug hole in U.S. air defence

[teacher]

Way to go boys and girls!! I'm sure it was nice getting away from home base for awhile.

Canadian fighter jets temporarily plug hole in U.S. air defences

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Published Tuesday November 27th, 2007

OTTAWA - Canadian CF - 18 fighter jets helped plug a hole in U.S. air defences for almost two weeks this month after American jets were grounded as part of a crash investigation.

The request to fill in for U.S. F-15s over the Alaskan coast was considered an urgent priority for NORAD, especially in light of the return of Russian strategic bombers to Arctic patrols.

Although not unprecedented, defence officials said the now-concluded operation was one of those "extremely rare" occasions when Canada was able to contribute to the defence of its much larger neighbour.

The aircraft are now back at their home base in Bagotville, Que., and the air force was able to lift what was described as a veil of operational security.

"I can't say precisely how many CF-18s were involved, but certainly there were a few," said Maj. Mike Lagace, a spokesman for Canadian NORAD operations, based in Winnipeg.

"We really don't want to say very much in case they're called on again."

On Nov. 2, an American F-15C - an older variant of the hardy fighter-bomber - suffered a catastrophic failure over Missouri and crashed, resulting in the grounding of 700 frontline aircraft.

The pilot ejected to safety.

Urgent inspections were carried out on the entire F-15 fleet with newer models eventually restricted to "mission-critical" sorties only.

U.S. Air Force Gen. John D.W. Corley, who heads Air Combat Command, said in a statement that the grounding had "significant operational impact" but that U.S. and coalition partners were able to make up the difference.

In Afghanistan, French Mirage 2000 jet fighters were called to replace American F-15s in providing close air support for NATO, including Canadians troops.

Japan also grounded its F-15s following the U.S. crash.

F-15s have been a pillar of U.S. air power since the mid-1970s, but the air force said in 2004 it intended to replace them gradually with Lockheed Martin's modern F-22 Raptor.

NORAD - the joint American-Canadian air defence command - had initially hoped to be able to fill the Alaskan gap with F-22s, but not enough of them were available, said Canadian defence officials.

The Canadian fighter jets were stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base, near Anchorage, Alaska, and worked alongside the American 611th Air Operations Squadron, conducting sovereignty patrols on behalf of the Americans.

"It shows the joint capability where Canadian and American forces work as one," said Lagace.

The resumption of Russian Tu-95MS bomber flights this summer along the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic borders have kept NORAD "quite busy" and the pressure has not eased, he said.

After almost of decade of infrequent forays, the Russians startled Western militaries by resuming high Arctic long-range patrols, which had been a prominent feature of the Cold War.

Flying in pairs for up to 12 hours, the Tu-95MS strategic bombers trace the edge of American, Canadian and often Danish air space near Greenland, forcing NORAD fighters to scramble to meet them.

http://www.canadaeast.com/news/article/139352

[jet a1]

well that explains the crazy military action in yev lately...

[invertedattitude]

Cool!

[mellow_pilot]

That ought to shut up those idiots who always make wise-cracks like, "do we even have fighters?" or "we've only got, like... 2 that can fly...?

F*%kin right we have them, and big brother down south asked for our help!!!(again)

[ahramin]

Still, i am surprised we could afford to get them to Alaska let alone put them to operational use there.

[C-FABH]

Guess this means we could borrow some of their C-5's next time instead of calling Volga Dnepr? Only so much you can pack in a Globemaster, you know!

[WJflyer]

Guess this means we could borrow some of their C-5's next time instead of calling Volga Dnepr? Only so much you can pack in a Globemaster, you know!

We have a MOU with the US Air Force to lease their C-5's for $16,000 per flight hour, $7,283 bucks per flight hour for USAF C-17's. To lease An-124's, we pay around $23,000 per flight hour, Il-76's are $10,700 per flight hour.

Availability of USAF assets however, is more limited, due to the current commitments the USAF is tasked on.

[petite]

This makes sense of a message I got from a friend based in Bagotville. Telling me he was in Alaska and was freaked that I already had snow. All I could think was "Why the hell is Steve doing OJT in Alaska?"

[32a]

Still, i am surprised we could afford to get them to Alaska let alone put them to operational use there.

Ahramin, don't be surprised. Even with all the resource limitations, there are many things Canada's Air Force can do extremely well. Unfortunately, you won't see it all in the papers for various reasons.

[ahramin]

32a, i guess i am just sour that we cannot provide air cover to our troops in Afghanistan. To me this should be the most important job the air force has.

If our ground pounders are going to be deployed anywhere in the world, they should be able to count on Canadian planes being available round the clock to drop big nasty bombs directly on anyone making their day difficult.

Otherwise i think we are just asking too much of them and don't deserve their efforts.

[yultoto]

Guess this means we could borrow some of their C-5's next time instead of calling Volga Dnepr? Only so much you can pack in a Globemaster, you know!

We have a MOU with the US Air Force to lease their C-5's for $16,000 per flight hour, $7,283 bucks per flight hour for USAF C-17's. To lease An-124's, we pay around $23,000 per flight hour, Il-76's are $10,700 per flight hour.

Availability of USAF assets however, is more limited, due to the current commitments the USAF is tasked on.

The US Air Force is by law, only allowed to bill direct operating costs like fuel, crew costs etc, not the overhead, the depreciation, capital expenses etc. Most of that is fuel. Its far from a true reflection of cost. This is a great way for the US Air Force to have others pay for fuel in peacetime when they is not enough flying hours to keep pilots current. Its very unlikely that the US Air Force will let Canada use its C-5s and C-17s these days with the amount of flying they have to do for themselves already.

It is however a great deal, and as often as they agree to fly for us, we should us them.

You forgot (or did you) to tell us how much it costs Canada to fly its own C-17s.

Denmark recently pulled out of NATOs' NSAC (a projected pool of NATO operated C-17s operated in like fashion to the AWACS) citing the high cost of operating C-17s. The Dutch published their projected NSAC cost which came out close to 45,000$ an hour to fly the C-17s, close to double the cost of renting An-124s.

Thats close to what I figure Canada is spending flying its C-17s to and from Kandahar.

Cheers!

[chuck130]

Ahramin--

It's not that Canada can't deploy it's CF-18's to Afghanistan, we, as a nation choose not to. All members of the coalition have made their contributions, and close air support to the troops is provided by other nations. Canada is currently contributing thousands of hours of Herc intra-theatre airlift to the coalition, which is a major $$$ commitment. We as taxpaying Canadians should be thankful the brass and government du jour has decided against sending more assets into this Operation.