Canadian Content

 

Call it what you will: the Lockheed Martin Lightning II, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) or even the “next fighter aircraft” – the latter being the federal government’s generic preference in response to the political controversy about the program – but there’s no disputing its importance to Canada’s aerospace sector.

Some 70 domestic and foreign-controlled companies have more than $435 million in contracts for JSF work, including key components already in aircraft coming off the production line at Fort Worth, Texas, for Lockheed Martin’s priority customer, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

The program’s potential for Canadian suppliers was recognized as early as the mid-1980s, shortly after the U.S. began considering an “affordable” common platform to replace the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet fighter and AV-8B Harrier jump-jet, as well as the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt, a tank-buster known colloquially as the Warthog.

It has been an ambitious and costly challenge. The latest estimates top the trillion-dollar mark over the life of the program, but the global market is put at 3,000-plus aircraft, with more than 2,400 destined for the U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps (USMC). Canada is proposing to purchase 65 Lightning IIs as replacements for its CF-18s, the first of which entered service in 1984 and have undergone extensive upgrades since Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. While unit and long-term service costs associated with a JSF fleet are still a contentious and politically-charged issue, there’s no disputing the initial industrial benefits so far.

There are three versions of what Lockheed Martin has successfully branded as the only “fifth generation” fighter due to its blend of stealth, electronics and other technologies. They are the 35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) model Canada wants, the 35B short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant, and the ruggedized 35C for aircraft carrier deployment.

Canada’s success in getting work on all three, which have a high percentage of commonality, is essentially an evolution of the federal government’s support for the development of highly effective “niche” players in a fiercely competitive international environment. Some of those have blossomed globally and the industry collectively continues to keep the country in the top ranks of the world’s aerospace exporters. LGen Yvan Blondin, the new commanding officer of the Royal Canadian Air Force and a former CF-18 pilot, acknowledged this during an exclusive interview with Canadian Skies in October.

“We’ve got a very strong industry for a small country,” said Blondin. “Since the Second World War, we’ve always been strong. We found some niches, some capabilities . . . and we’re actually really good and we compete worldwide.” He cited CAE’s presence in the global simulation market. “When you’ve got a program like the F-35 . . . certainly the industry wants to participate. It’s not just the money; it’s also the opportunity to develop leading-edge technology, to be part of this . . . because some of the technology developed for the F-35 is going to have an application somewhere in the civil sector as well. . . . I can understand the government’s emphasis on considering what’s best for defence and at the same time to factor in what’s best for Canadian industry.”

Blondin – who had been second-in-command to his predecessor, André Deschamps, since July 2011, and before that commanded 1 Canadian Air Division for two years – is intimately familiar with the JSF. Immediately after the change-of-command ceremony, he conceded that while the JSF was “a hot topic,” the public “mostly political” debate was something “that has to happen” on a major procurement. However, he said, his job now is essentially to counsel the new Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Force LGen Tom Lawson, another former CF-18 pilot. “My predecessors have advised, given the mandate given to the Air Force, that the F-35 was probably the best airplane to do the job,” Blondin said. “I truly believe that . . . the F-35, from all the airplanes that are available, is the best airplane out there.”

With that in mind, Canadian Skies put a series of questions to a small group of companies working on the JSF program in Canada which, if all goes according to plan, will be a multi-decade involvement.
Avcorp, based in Delta, B.C., has been designing and building major structures for leading aircraft manufacturers for 50 years. Although it has a “close relationship” with Lockheed Martin, Avcorp’s involvement in the JSF is through BAE Systems which, with Northrop Grumman, is a “Super Tier 1” supplier to Lockheed Martin.

Avcorp, which responded to a BAE Request for Proposals (RFP), manufactures and assembles the outboard wing (OBW) element of the carrier-based C version. It got the job by offering “best value” and, in preparing to manufacture, followed a rigorous New Product Introduction (NPI) process to implement the OBW-unique tooling and production processes. This included a tailored “stack drilling” process to simultaneously drill hundreds of different-sized holes through up to five layers of composite, titanium and aluminum skins and sub-assemblies. Avcorp does subcontract some JSF work to Canadian and U.S. suppliers, including a Delta neighbour, ASCO Aerospace Canada Ltd. (a subsidiary of Belgian-based ASCO Industries), which does five-axis machining on large complex titanium sub-assemblies.

Asked about the political turbulence surrounding the JSF, Larry Glenesk, vice-president business development-defence, was mainly concerned about the “lack of complete information” that has appeared. “Very few in the public are aware of how much has been, and continues to be, accomplished on this program on a daily basis,” he said. “More than 50 aircraft of all three variants are in ground and flight testing. . . The first three international F-35s, for the U.K. and the Netherlands, have been rolled out and the Royal Air Force has taken delivery of their first. As well, Japan and Israel have joined the program and 150 aircraft are on order or have been delivered.”

Although Glenesk said the company recognizes the possibility of Canada buying some fourth-generation F/A-18E/Fs from Boeing as a “stop gap,” as Australia has done, that would not displace the F-35, “which we understand is beneficial in the long term, from performance, interoperability and supportability standpoints.” He put the potential total value to Avcorp of JSF work at “significantly more than $500 million over the next 20 years” and said the creation of high-value aerospace jobs is important not only to the company, but also to the local and regional economies.

“This program is one of the key elements to achieving Avcorp’s strategic plan, specifically our goals to double our revenues and to diversify our portfolio to at least 50 per cent government and defence work.” The current mix is approximately 75 per cent commercial and 25 per cent government.

Magellan Aerospace is headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., and has major facilities in Winnipeg and globally. Involved in the JSF project for more than 13 years, it announced plans in 2009 to invest up to $120 million in its plant in Winnipeg with the assistance of $43.4 million in federal “repayable cash-flow support” for technology and process development over 5-7 years. So far, Magellan’s investment has amounted to $65 million with more to come and the anticipated revenue from Magellan’s JSF work is estimated at close to $2 billion over the next couple of decades.

Although Canada plans to acquire only the F-35A, Magellan is producing components for the B and C versions too: horizontal tail assemblies for the A; the vane box and transition duct elements of the lift-fan module as well as a range of titanium and aluminum components for the B; and landing gear elements for the C as well as carbon-composite nacelle covers for all three in addition to gear box housing and oil tank sand castings. A small amount of non-core work is subcontracted.

“While the process associated with winning the various work packages was different in each case, there was a bidding process for each work package and the work was won competitively,” explained Scott McCrady, the company’s JSF Program Director, adding that in addition to Lockheed Martin, Magellan’s JSF customers includeBAES as well as Eaton, Goodrich, Fokker, and Hamilton Sundstrand. “In every case, the opportunity to bid on the work was as a result of Canada’s early and sustained participation on the program,” he said. “In some cases, a long-standing relationship supported the process.”

Like others, McCrady is cognizant of the politics here and in the U.S. but says it is unlikely that the JSF program would be cancelled outright. “Having watched it since the 1990s as a strategic program for Magellan, my analysis is that the total number of jets produced for the program in the end will likely meet the current estimates. In Canada’s case, while the government’s review continues, it should be pointed out that the program is already delivering aircraft to the U.S. and international customers. Even though being in early stages of ramping up to full production, the JSF program has been a positive program for Magellan to date.”

Like others, McCrady is cognizant of the politics here and in the U.S., but says it is unlikely that the program would be cancelled. “Having watched it since the 1990s as a strategic investment for Magellan, my analysis is that the total number of jets produced for the program in the end will likely meet the current estimates. In Canada’s case, while the government’s review continues, it should be pointed out that the program is already delivering aircraft to the U.S. and international customers.”

Then, there is the curiously-named NGRAIN Corp., which has transformed a three-dimensional gaming software concept into an increasingly valuable technical tool now used on dozens of aircraft for training, maintenance and analysis. The engineer-intensive company is headquartered in Vancouver with offices in Richmond, Va., but Gabe Batstone, the company’s Ottawa-based chief executive officer, was in Fort Worth for meetings with Lockheed Martin’s JSF team when Canadian Skies caught up with him.

“Our main contribution is the Low Observable Health Assessment System– it ensures that the stealth signature is intact,” Batstone explained. This kind of aircraft assessment used to be a manual pen-and-paper exercise, but NGRAIN developed an approach that captures and communicates information on what needs to be done to the F-35. Equipped with a ruggedized tablet displaying a 3-D representation, the aircraft maintainer does a walk-around, using a stylus with GPS capability to trace potential problems on the aircraft skin, which are then presented on the display. “It’s really about the stealth coatings and what state they’re in after a mission, to ensure that it’s still stealthy,” Batstone said, adding that it has led to similar work for Lockheed Martin on the F-22 Raptor, flown only by the U.S. Air Force.

NGRAIN’s proprietary technology uses volume rather than surface graphics, which essentially replicate an object’s outer surface. The volumetric approach is based on a series of points or “voxels” which can be used to replicate the inner core as well. Batstone likened the result to a “sandcastle” in that every point and space is recorded. “Those are the grains of sand, and because every grain has its own little spot in space, you can apply unlimited attributes to that point,” he said. Hence, GRAIN. The N part is derived from the unlimited aspect.

Batstone said Lockheed Martin became aware of NGRAIN from its work for other aerospace companies as well as an Industry Canada-led showcase of Canadian companies’ capabilities. “We impressed them,” he said matter-of-factly. “When it came to this specific project, they did consider other alternatives, including their own internal capability, but they determined that NGRAIN had a unique technology and so would be the best-value provider.”

Asked how critical the JSF work is to the company’s long-term economic health, he replied that it is “certainly a key program that we’re proud to work on and has led us to new opportunities within Lockheed Martin and . . . it has certainly helped us in other arenas to prove the value of the NGRAIN technology.” That said, the company’s diversified customer base means that it’s not dependent on Lockheed Martin. He was equally sanguine about the politics of the program. “By being one of the largest acquisition programs in history, during a time of significant economic challenges in the world, it’s not surprising that it would face some scrutiny. However, from my view, having worked on dozens of platforms, it’s one of the best-run programs that we’ve ever encountered.”

Having never finished an engineering degree (“probably a service to aviation,” he says), Ken Pole has had a lifelong passion for things with wings. The longest-serving continuous member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa, Ont., he has written about aerospace in all its aspects for more than 30 years. When not writing, Ken is an avid sailor, diver and photographer.