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Assembly of the first of Canada’s fleet of CC-295 fixed-wing search and rescue (FWSAR) aircraft is well underway at the Airbus-Pre Final Assembly Line (Pre-FAL) in Tablada, Spain.
The front-, mid- and rear-fuselage sections have all been delivered to Tablada, where they are being mated together before transfer to the nearby FAL in Seville to be joined by the wings, engines and other major components.
FAL operations will begin in late 2018 leading to roll-out of the aircraft in the first quarter of 2019.
Delivery to the Royal Canadian Air Force of this first of 16 ordered aircraft will be in in late 2019.
Good day. I was wondering, given the somewhat limited range of the C-295, if there has been any consideration given to stationing a small number of FWSAR aircraft in the Canadian north, perhaps in Yellowknife, or Iqaluit. Two aircraft could be stationed in the north with air and support crews rotated in and out on a 30 or 45 day rotation. Day to day maintenance materials could be containerized so as to reduce the need for extra storage facilities, and could be refreshed as needed.
Such a deployment of FWSAR would vastly reduce the response time required for a timely rescue intervention far from Trenton, Winnipeg, Comox, or Gander, for example.