Over at Noah’s True North Strategic Review, a question came up about the Cyclone helicopters in Royal Canadian Navy service and whether the navy would include Cyclone landing pads on the upcoming Canadian Continental Defence Corvette design:
Q6. Any updates on the Cyclone helicopter and its replacement? I’ve read that the class is grounded and it’s already an orphan. Has it rolled into NTACS?
You probably heard our favorite Vice-Admiral absolutely tearing them apart lol. The fleet was grounded due to parts issues, a long-standing problem with the Cyclone fleet. In fact everything about the Cyclone is a problem.
I’ll let Mr. Topshee explain:
So yeah, the fleet was grounded or should I say the majority of the fleet is still grounded. Not all of them anymore, but still the majority last I heard like two weeks ago?
Of course even before the grounding the fleet was in bad shape. Nearly half haven’t flown this year, and again the majority is still grounded. Link 11 deprecated back in January/February? Lockorsky is asking ~$20,000,000 an aircraft to upgrade to Link 16, and even then it will take about two/three years to get the entire fleet upgrades.
And it ain’t like Link 16 is some optional capability. It is quite literally the standard. You can’t do much without it.
This isn’t counting other capabilities set to deprecate or in need of upgrading on the way to Block 2.1 … All to support, yes, an orphan fleet that we are paying tooth and nail to keep going.
And it isn’t like Lockheed is winning here. They reported a $570 million loss on the Cyclone this year. Quite literally no one is winning here. We are all suffering to keep these birds flying, lord forbid if we try to keep them going into the 2040s as planned.
Cyclone isn’t a new helicopter. It’s a product of 1990s requirements, from a contract signed twenty years ago. It still has yet to reach its final Block 2.1 state. I get why it’s frustrating to everyone. I’m glad Topshee said the quiet part out loud. Call them what they are.
I’m of course missing things, I know. I wont go into the entire history and issues with the fleet (yet) but I will say that I truly believe there is no fixing them by this stage. The navy has been using modified Hammerheads to fill the gaps and future UAS will likely take some role.
Unmanned systems aren’t at the level though to fully replace the capabilities a maritime helicopter like the Cyclone brings to the table. The loss of the fleet is a loss of capabilities. Eventually something has to give.
I don’t wanna go to into the Cyclone right now, as I’m currently working on something for it. However there are a lot of issues, more than the public knows.
As for NTACS? There is no plans to include the Cyclone. At least not right now. The NTACS team went back to the drawing board over the summer to hammer out what they want. We’ll see what comes of it.
Pre-delivery Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone helicopter, 4 April, 2012.
Photo by Gerry Metzler via Wikimedia Commons.
