Sovereignty and Air Mobility

By BGen (Ret) John Neroutsos

Survival as a nation in the emerging world after 9/11 has renewed our interests in the needs of Canada’s Armed Forces to protect our national sovereignty. Thus, one aspect of Canada’s Armed Forces receiving a variety of comment is its airlift capability. Not all of these comments make us blush with pride. For example in a recent National Post article, Senator Colin Kenny laments “Canadian troops have two options when they are called upon to move quickly to emergencies. They can hitch-hike. Or they can hail a cab. Sometimes they can’t do either.” That pretty well sums up the state of the Canada’s military transportation system today. Canada desperately needs a global reach capability to move personnel, equipment and even its Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) in an expeditious manner to all corners of the globe.

This strategic inadequacy centres on the cost to replace modern transport aircraft. The solution can be purely military, or its resolution just may be found in the civilian world. This became apparent recently when DND contracted with a Ukrainian company to supply our Canadian troops overseas using an ancient Antonov AN 124 aircraft. The cost was approximately $1 million per week.

Air mobility embodied in an air force is an essential component of a balanced force, be it military or paramilitary. Like a self-inflicted wound, our air force seems to have forgotten its core business is about ‘control of the air.’ Thus the requirement is for a balanced force comprising both strategic and tactical airlift.

Now, when perhaps 55 per cent of our operational assets are rotary wing, the corporate knowledge and/or ethos may have been altered as well. Thus core air force doctrine has become more about ‘moving the army forward’ or ‘delivering sensing data to the fleet.’ So, is it an air force that has lost its higher command responsibility and its associated ‘command’ vision? Or, are the skewed rotary assets a result of a predominant role change? In either case, one can only hypothesize how we arrived at this asymmetric operational state.

By thinking ‘outside the box,’ we might arrive at a made in Canada initiative to reinvigorate our wanting air force. If money were no object, our Air Force would likely have a squadron of C17 Globemasters or the smaller Airbus A-400M. Both these aircraft can operate out of semi prepared strips carrying outsized loads. While these aircraft have a limited range with full payload they can be adapted to the strategic, inter-theatre role by way of a built-in aerial refueling capability. Canada needs aircraft with these attributes. However, it is reported that money is not available now or in the foreseeable future. Nor is money available to lease or joint-lease aircraft capable of meeting all the key operational requirements stipulated by our military.

A possible solution might be found in the creation of a new component within the CF - call it an Air Transport Reserve (ATR). A partnership would be established with a civilian airline. This concept would require only a manageable incremental expense for Government. In the initial stages, as the aircraft do belong to the airline, they would be operated by their crews. But, as funds became available for leased or joint-lease aircraft, then mixed manning could well become a reality within an integrated regular/reserve unit. The commercial arrangements could then diminish. The concept is not entirely new and was used with effect by the RAF during WWII with their Air Transport Auxiliary Service.

In the initial stages of forming an ATR, it would be beneficial to resurrect and modify the past airlift exchange agreements (LOC) with the United States. Call this the Airlift Sharing Agreement. When Canada had a need to transport outsized cargo, a request would be made through agreed channels for a C17, C141 or C5 aircraft to support the mission. This airlift sharing agreement would contract the carrying capacity of the USAF’s Mobility Command to meet our outsized needs. An account would be kept that would be self-balancing annually, i.e. at the end of the period, the ton-miles and passenger-miles would be brought into balance or the outstanding shortfall carried over as a first charge against the account for the following period. No money would change hands - imbalances would be corrected by operational flights by the debtor Air Force.

Air Transport Reserve Concept

A brief on this dossier was prepared at Air Command HQ in the early 1980s. It proposed professionally trained civilian air and ground crews integrated into the Air Force's airlift structure. This concept never passed beyond discussion. Since then the Air Force has evolved its concept of reserve employment. The current Total Force doctrine incorporates the Air Reserve within its structure and mixes regular and reserve personnel into a ‘reserve-heavy’ unit. Such a unit within an ATR would facilitate surge capacity and force continuity on demand, without assuming the associated high fixed costs of a regular squadron. Now might be the time to examine further the concept of air mobility using the mixed reserve/regular model.

Recently Major Don Eddie, a Supplementary Reserve officer, prepared an excellent paper on a similar concept. His thesis is to create what he calls the Canadian Global Airlift Reserve and, in addition, to establish a Global Airlift Exchange with the United States. Although his paper was written 25 years after the earlier Air Command briefing paper, the concepts are remarkably similar, and some of the ideas from that paper are embedded in this article.

The proposed ATR would differ from the American Civilian Reserve Air Fleet in two main areas. Firstly, an ATR would be utilized in a day-to-day peacetime role supporting DND. Second, in times of war or national emergency, air force reservists, who are also airline employees, would operate the aircraft. Currently many of our airline’s pilots are ex-military.

Reservists would enlist in the ATR for an extended period, similar to the regular force engagement period. ATR personnel would be kept current in all the required areas, e.g. military flight procedures, security clearances, ID cards, vaccinations, etc. Activated reservists would be on compulsory call-out and subject to military law and discipline.

The ATR would have different levels of activation. In the normal state, any airline crewmember could operate military flights under their respective collective agreement. When activity increased, these crews would fly up to Department of Transport limits. In times of emergency, all aircrew would have to be ATR enrolled reservists to operate flights supporting Canadian military operations overseas. Like the American Civilian Reserve Air Fleet, the aircraft would only operate into secured airports. Canadian military tactical aircraft would perform the air bridge within the intra-theatre area.

The Way Ahead

Some might argue this option champions the cause of commercial aviation and the Air Reserve while using the license and role of our regular Air Force...not at all. Because of the allocation of scarce resources, military transport has not been a priority and to address this situation, alternatives need to be examined. From the legacy airline’s core business prospective, it clearly is not in their best interest. For the Air Reserve, it presents the first meaningful role in a generation.

Ostensibly, attaining a balanced air force is current air doctrine. To achieve this balanced state requires vision and some risk taking. This solution may be too radical for the professional military. But, a governing Council showing leadership might embrace unorthodox means to solve its structural transportation problem. Transportation requirements in the post Cold War era will not diminish but only increase. The Air Transport Reserve model is a concept that addresses these concerns. Ultimately, as funds become available, the potential is there to enlarge the concept from the initial sole airline provider to using the mixed regular/reserve unit model and equipping it with leased aircraft.

Our country has been driven by political neglect into looking at other air mobility options. The Government does not appear to fully comprehend the need nor does it wish to fund an expensive military transport system. Fulfilling the need will call up, in time, the cheaper solution herein suggested. Aviation professionals may not like this watered down version but, when faced with a critical situation and no better solution, will accept it. As stated earlier, there has been a paradigm shift of ethos from the old Air Force. This fact and its logical extension will drive the uniformed and the non-uniformed players to join together in compromise, unlike the pure military play of the past.

There will be problems. Relying on commercial pilots to fill shortfalls might well create the false notion that flight crews, in fact, will be available just as the airlines themselves are increasing their tempo because of the same emergency. Moreover, as some squadrons are discovering, using augmented individual reservists and civilian crews in war zones is proving difficult for reasons of liability and legal responsibility. The creation of this new Air Reserve entity would require cooperation and commitment from the government, the airline and labour unions.

That being said, should Canada wish to defend its sovereignty, there remains the task of building anew Canada’s airlift capability. Thus we would be impetuous to throw out indiscriminately the regular/reserve/aerospace industry model just because we can't afford the Cadillac and won't accept the Chevy pick up. It might well be that the cost savings would be such that even a government with other priorities, and a reluctant professional officer corps, could accept this alternative.

BGen John Neroutsos has over 40 years experience in military and civil aviation and was Commander, Air Reserve Group in 1983-86. He is a RUSI VI member and resides in Sidney, BC.

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