Chilean Navy to buy Persuaders

[Gladius]

During the act of official reception of the Frigate "Almirante Lynch" carried out last wednesday in the Naval Base of Valparaiso, the Chief Admiral of the Chilean Navy (Admiral Rodolfo Codina) revealed to the Media, the negotiation process being carried out at this moment by the Chilean Government to buy seven CASA C-295 Persuader from the European Consortium EADS.

The plan is conceived in two Phases to replace the aging fleet of Chilean MPAs (P-3A Orion and P-111) now in service. During the Phase I, two C-295 MPAs would be bought and some time after, the Phase II imply another five planes with the same configuration ("MPA Persuader").

The other two projects commented by the Admiral were the new Oceanographic Ship to be built by ASMAR and the future replacement of the old fleet oiler "Araucano" (AO-53).

Link to the complete interview published (in Spanish) by the official Chilean Navy Website.

 

[contedicavour]

Given the length of the Chilean coastline and the huge size of their EEZ I would have expected Chile to buy longer range MPAs such as second hand Orion P3Cs instead of new but shorter ranged (and less well equipped) Casas.

cheers

 

[swerve]

Given the length of the Chilean coastline and the huge size of their EEZ I would have expected Chile to buy longer range MPAs such as second hand Orion P3Cs instead of new but shorter ranged (and less well equipped) Casas.

cheers

Perhaps the idea is to have something which can be operated from dispersed bases along that very stretched-out country. There are quite a few small airfields, because flying is often the easiest way to get somewhere, especially in the south, where there are many islands, & no roads connecting some parts of the mainland to anywhere except Argentina. Only road route from Punta Arenas to the heartland is still via Argentina.

I imagine most of their patrolling is littoral. In the south, that means flying among a tangle of islands.

I think the mission system on the C-295s can be rather good, constrained only by weight & space. I believe it's the EADS FITS system, which is a modular system they can plug whatever into they can afford & there's room for.

 

[Super Nimrod]

See below

 

[Super Nimrod]

Swerve said;

I imagine most of their patrolling is littoral.

You might be surprised Swerve mate, but I took the below direct from the Chilean navy web page English version.

"Chile’s maritime territory, including the Exclusive Economic Zone and the Continental Shelf, covers more than 4.5 million square kilometres. According to international conventions, Chile’s designated Zone of Responsibility for Search and Rescue occupies over 26.4 million square kilometres."

Thats a pretty large patrol area by anyones standards. :eek2

This nice graphic here puts it into perspective;

http://www.armada.cl/p4_ingles/site/artic/20050707/pags/20050707101037.html

Indeed we might perhaps start to ask if this aircraft is up to the job required and if a C-130 variant might have been better

 

[contedicavour]

Swerve said;



You might be surprised Swerve mate, but I took the below direct from the Chilean navy web page English version.

"Chile’s maritime territory, including the Exclusive Economic Zone and the Continental Shelf, covers more than 4.5 million square kilometres. According to international conventions, Chile’s designated Zone of Responsibility for Search and Rescue occupies over 26.4 million square kilometres."

Thats a pretty large patrol area by anyones standards. :eek2

This nice graphic here puts it into perspective;

http://www.armada.cl/p4_ingles/site/artic/20050707/pags/20050707101037.html

Indeed we might perhaps start to ask if this aircraft is up to the job required and if a C-130 variant might have been better

Indeed, at least a ATR-72 or, better, older versions of P3C Orions being mothballed or retired by a number of navies (such as the Netherlands who have transferred theirs to Germany). Also, larger birds such as ATR and P3C can much more easily carry anti-shipping missiles and torpedoes for ASW.
The CASA plane is strictly coastal patrol and I've never seen one with anti-shipping missiles under its wings. Has anybody seen this ?

cheers

 

[Gladius]

Well, if they had had the money or interest, refurbished P-3C would be my favourite option but we have some points to consider here:

· ENAER is a partner contracted by EADS-CASA to manufacture some parts of CN-235 & C-295.

· The Chilean Armed Forces have experience with P-3 & C-295. If you go with the ATR-72 or a similar aircraft, you have to add its new logistic chains, training programs, land crew formation, systems providers, etc... So we would be talking about a little bit money there. But the ATR-72 was not considered in the tender, and apparently neither refurbished P-3s.

· The Chileans already have some C-295M in service, buying the MPA variant they will have only one logistic chain (C-295) instead three (P-3 + P-111 + C-295) or two (C-295 + a different plane).

· The tree candidates announced by the Admiral Rodolfo Codina during the interview conceded during the Official Reception of the new Scorpene SSK "Carrera" (December 13th, 2006) were: the S-3 Viking (ex-US-Navy), the Fokker F-50 or F-60 (from Netherland) and the C-295 MPA.

· The Range problem. Well, its true the C-295 MPA have less patrol range than P-3C but the contenders were Vikings and Fokkers not Orions.

· The last question is the budget of the program 150-180 million US$. So a little bit restricted IMO.

 

[contedicavour]

Wow Vikings were considered ? Amazing ! I though they all had been retired by the USN quite a while ago.
You are right to point out the industrial link between Enaer and Casa. This probably is reason n°1 not to probe too far beyond C295.

cheers

 

[swerve]

Wow Vikings were considered ? Amazing ! I though they all had been retired by the USN quite a while ago.
...

cheers

Not yet. Soon. But both those already retired & those soon to be retired mostly have several thousand airframe hours left. Nothing wrong with them at all. For EEZ policing etc. they'd be pretty useful. Dirt cheap. Plenty of spares stocks.

 

[AegisFC]

Wow Vikings were considered ? Amazing ! I though they all had been retired by the USN quite a while ago.
You are right to point out the industrial link between Enaer and Casa. This probably is reason n°1 not to probe too far beyond C295.

cheers

I thought the Vikings were retired as well, until I saw 2 flying around 2 days ago, they are pretty good looking planes.

 

[Feña]

Hi, i´m from chile and the americans offer their Vikings for no money but we had to make the overhaul work in the Joint States

But if u compare the S3 with the persuader the latter has more range and on-station time, and as far as I know, the Casa plane can be equiped with harpoons and torpedos, dont know about sonobuoys ...

Bye

 

[contedicavour]

Hi, i´m from chile and the americans offer their Vikings for no money but we had to make the overhaul work in the Joint States

But if u compare the S3 with the persuader the latter has more range and on-station time, and as far as I know, the Casa plane can be equiped with harpoons and torpedos, dont know about sonobuoys ...

Bye

Interesting, I've never seen a CASA plane with Harpoons or torpedoes under the wings. Do you have any pictures please ?

cheers

 

[Feña]

Hi, actually I dont, but the plane does have six hard points under the wings and the manufacturer says that it is fully ASW / ASuW capable.

Besides I dont think that the chilean navy will acquire a toothless plane, we dont had the money to afford that kind of mistakes ...

And if you consider that the standar surface to surface missile is the Harpoon its kind of easy to hope that the MPA missile will be the air launched version ...

Bye

 

[Feña]

There you had an artistic view of the chilean persuader, this one is out of the EADS web page

http://eads.net/web/pressdbdata/es/1024/content/OF00000040950509/2/66/41829662.jpg

And the official note ...

http://eads.net/1024/es/pressdb/pressdb/20071018_eads_casa_c_295_chile.html

Bye