The ubiquitous use of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and loitering munitions on the Ukrainian battlefield has dramatically changed the calculus of tactical aviation.
Helicopters have always been vulnerable to surface-to-air threats—radar-guided missiles, man-portable air-defence systems, and small arms fire—but in the years since Russia’s invasion in 2022, the threat of armed drones has expanded exponentially and added a new dimension to how militaries think about mission planning.
Candidates on the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Advanced Tactical Aviation Course (ATAC) this spring got a first trial in the art of exploiting and countering UAS, loitering munitions and air-launched effects (ALE).
Most of their systems were virtual; just two loaned Skydio X2D quadcopters and two Defence Research and Development Canada UAS, along with some land-launched AeroVironment Raven B RQ-11 small aircraft operated by a detachment from the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, made up the actual drone fleet. Still, young air mission commanders and their Army counterparts, ground liaison officers, quickly demonstrated an ability to plan and execute complex missions with UAS as part of their toolkit and their threat matrix.
(The Canadian Army recently invested in AeroVironment Switchblade 300 and 600 loitering munitions for its mission in Latvia, and operates the Boeing Insitu RQ-21 Blackjack and Raven B RQ-11 for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. However, the RCAF has only the large medium-altitude General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-9B SkyGuardian remotely piloted aircraft system, which is not expected to enter service until 2028.)
“We are only dipping our toes into this,” acknowledged Col Dave Forbes, commander of 1 Wing Kingston, Ont., before his new posting in August, “but we need to become fully immersed.
“UAS are everywhere, and we need to be able to operate our own UAS and operate alongside other UAS. Ultimately, the aircraft and the people in the aircraft need to be able to control their own UAS. So, our first steps right now are to use the UAS for things like securing a forward arming and refueling point (FARP) site” with assets organic to 1 Wing.
Forbes saw that potential firsthand during ATAC, watching the live feed of a quadcopter from the seat of a CH-146 Griffon as it approached a hasty FARP site.
“We rolled in and landed at the same time as the FARP team pulled into a clearing. We took on 500 pounds of fuel. They hauled in the hoses and, as we left, they brought down the UAS and were driving away at the same time. [Rather] than this being a very static, very deliberate replenishment activity, it became a highly adaptive, on-call, short duration activity, with integral security, with a UAS providing overwatch the whole time. And the whole thing probably took less than 15 minutes.
“This became a very agile, tactical replenishment, not just a gas station on a parking lot somewhere.”
Complex training
ATAC is the pinnacle of 1 Wing pilot training, a course sometimes referred to, jokingly, as the tactical aviation equivalent of Top Gun, the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School. It was last held in 2023, after a six-year pause due primarily to the Covid-19 pandemic, but also the operational tempo of the Wing.
Building on the Basic Tactical Aviation Course (BTAC) that all aircrew complete, it thrusts air mission commanders into the challenging environment of combined arms, evaluating their ability to execute rapidly shifting missions in collaboration with the Army: company air assault, strike coordination and reconnaissance, non-combatant evacuation, personnel recovery while under fire, fire support, and others.
The course begins with 10 days of distributed learning, conducted virtually from squadrons, followed by two weeks of briefings from Canadian and allied experts from across tactical aviation and other areas of interest, as well as training in a virtual environment. The flying portion involves a full month at 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alta., initially under the guidance of instructors, with a series of mission profiles that increase in complexity.
The spring course included 9 candidates from across 1 Wing, as well as three from each of the Army’s light infantry battalions and one from United Kingdom Army Air Corps. The Army ground liaison officers (all captains) included two graduates of the gruelling Patrol Pathfinder course and one from the challenging Army Operations Course.
The level of experience among all the candidates was considerably higher than in 2023, acknowledged Maj James Hodgson of 438 Tactical Helicopter Squadron, and the officer in command of the Aviation Tactics Flight on ATAC.
“I think that has to do with the knowledge and experience from the last course that has been percolating throughout the Wing; people arriving here were better prepared and more experienced.
“1 Wing as a whole has assimilated a lot of the training from the last one. Graduates have gone back to their units and shared some of these concepts, so others have been exposed to it earlier in their careers. A lot of the information we were teaching on this serial was not necessarily new, but it developed further their understanding and proficiency in some of these concepts.”
The course was supported by about 70 soldiers from Alpha Company of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, a parachute company that allowed the instructors to incorporate para insertion by CH-147F Chinook scenarios into the missions.
ATAC represents the sharpest point on a developing continuum of tactical aviation professionalization. It brings together strong candidates with the Wing’s leading instructors and force development specialists and features a wide assortment of Wing and RCAF resources, including CF-18 fighter jets and contracted Top Aces Alpha Jets and aggressor A-4 Skyhawks.
“Then we pour on the gas,” said Forbes.
The cost is significant, but the payoff is essential to a Wing preparing to transition from the legacy CH-146 to the modernized Mark II Griffon, and then to the next Tactical Aviation Capability Set (nTACS)—a capability renewal that will do far more than replace the CH-146.
“ATAC gives us a core team of reasonable size spread across the Wing, so my commanding officers always have a team of heavy hitters that they can lean on when we’re asked to do something extra complex or with a higher order of danger, or nested within a higher order mission set,” said Forbes.
More than how to employ helicopters to their fullest extent, the course instills candidates with an understanding of how to integrate and synchronize with other combat arms, employing a much wider array of effects.
“Those skill sets are immediately transferable … to non steel-on-steel large-scale combat operations,” he added. “It makes them better in every respect. It’s the most complex thing that we can give them in the cockpit.”
Bridging gaps
The inclusion of UAS, loitering munitions and ALE was based on the observations streaming from Ukraine, as well as in the lessons gathered by the Aviation Tactics Flight of 438 Squadron from the tactical aviation detachment now supporting the Canadian-led multinational brigade in Latvia. Both theaters have exposed deficiencies in tactical aviation that can be addressed in courses like ATAC and BTAC.
“Integration with uncrewed systems is one of the big ones,” said Hodgson. “That’s a challenge for those operating in a NATO environment on the eastern flank of Europe” where partner nations are flying multiple systems with different methods of operating, in the same airspace as crewed helicopters.
“Trying to do that effectively and safely is certainly a big challenge,” he said, and introducing those systems into ATAC generated a “layer of complexity not [present] on the previous course.”
With the opposition force (red team) also operating a UAS, candidates were quickly forced to factor the threat into their planning, as well as how to deliver a counter punch.
The adoption of ALE also addresses a deficiency with the Griffon itself, which is not a sensor data streaming platform and has limited mobility when weighed down with weapons, noted Maj Yvon Voyer, 438 Squadron’s Operations and Tactics Officer and the ATAC exercise director.
The Griffon boasts some firepower with the C6 machine gun, M134 minigun or the .50 calibre, “but not enough to take on an armoured vehicle or something that is dug in,” he observed. And without a datalink, it is limited as a reconnaissance platform. UAS or ALE, when paired with a helicopter, can be used to “pretty significant effect to enable firepower and reconnaissance.”
It’s not hard to envision a scenario where control of an Army launched Switchblade could be transferred to a helicopter and vectored onto a specific target or manoeuvred for reconnaissance well behind enemy lines.
With some of the Wing’s best candidates and instructors participating in ATAC, the course was deemed an “ideal place” to start thinking about the complexities of UAS and ALE, said Voyer.
“We didn’t give the students a tonne of UAS to use, but we did give them a tonne to think about,” he said. “Going forward, we won’t be able to execute tactical aviation missions without consideration of UAS.”
As a result, graduates can now “speak the same language to leverage those capabilities,” added Hodgson.
Professional development
The revival of ATAC in 2023 is part of a wider professionalization of tactical aviation. In fall 2024, 1 Wing reintroduced basic fieldcraft to all new members—as well as some with limited operational experience.
Known as the Core Tactical Aviation Course (CTAC), the two-week field orientation hones skills that were sidelined for many members in the decades of peace support and counterinsurgency missions. With major combat operations now the primary focus, survival orientation, camp routine, tactical road movement, weapons handling, and even call for fires are a necessity for aircraft and vehicle technicians, clerks, and other members of a squadron.
“We have no mechanism to bring people in and teach them the basics outside of the unit level,” said Forbes. “We used to deliver this training at a centralized core level, called the Land Officers Familiarization Course, but it was focused almost exclusively on tactical helicopter pilots.”
The Wing wants to ensure “a baseline knowledge” of fieldcraft and battlefield skills—from lighting a Coleman stove, to shooting, communication, and medicating—“such that everybody who is posted to tactical aviation, regardless of rank or trade, will conduct CTAC,” he said.
With a tactical aviation detachment supporting the brigade in Latvia, the course also provides a means “to cement those skills” before members deploy. The first iteration of the course, held at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier, Que., had almost 80 participants, all of whom became tactical aviation qualified. Several of the instructors had backgrounds in combat arms.
In addition to CTAC, the Wing is introducing specialized courses on downed aircraft recovery and FARP operations. Navigating to a downed helicopter while dealing with drones, landmines, and other threats, and then recovering personnel and/or the platform, is a critical skillset the Wing needs to build, Forbes explained.
FARP training, which has primarily focused on the technical aspect—putting fuel into a running helicopter—now must be far more dynamic. The conflict in Ukraine has repeatedly shown the short lifespan of static vehicles, so FARP standard operating procedures must become more adaptive to the realities of dispersed operations, what Forbes called the “Ninja supporters of tactical aviation.”
The various courses are part of what he called a continuum of tactical aviation professionalization to ensure the Wing is generating knowledgeable and exceptionally well-trained aviators at a steady rate.
The rhythm of three BTACs and an ATAC every two years, along with the CTAC and other courses, is a way of mitigating some of the risk that could affect the wing as it transitions from the legacy Griffon to the modernized Mk II, and then to nTACS and whatever platforms and new infrastructure that entails.
“[It could] quite possibly be more than one platform type to include armed reconnaissance helicopters and utility assault medium lift helicopters and infrastructure and other things to go with it, including air-launched effects,” said Forbes. “That could be a quantum leap in a number of ways for everybody—technicians, aircrew and others.”
Developing the right skillsets in mass now could be pivotal to bridge both transitions, he explained. “We need to have enough higher end people to carry that through if there’s a gap during those transition years.”
The challenging nature of the courses should help with attrition, he noted, while CTAC, with its exposure to army-related skillsets, could winnow out new recruits who are not comfortable in that environment.
“The professionalization continuum of training doesn’t mean anything unless we also address our human resources challenges,” he said. “Not everybody who joins the air force wants to do army things and tactical aviation does a lot of army things. We’re trying to change how we see the recruitment and onboarding of our junior tactical aviation members at the start of their professional continuum.”
Likewise, early exposure to UAS and ALE is a key element of their professional development, he noted. Even if the systems are not likely to become integral to the Mk II Griffon toolkit, experimentation in courses like ATAC and BTAC serves “as a learning step to help accelerate our knowledge and doctrine and tactics development leading towards nTACS.”
If the Wing can give aircrews and technicians more exposure to UAS with various payloads before nTACS delivers, “they will be much more equipped for when we do onboard those platforms,” said Voyer. “These mission commanders are probably going to be the commanders of units by the time we start getting those new platforms.”
Modernizing a workhorse
The Griffon Limited Life Extension (GLLE) project will breathe new life into the CH-146, a multirole utility helicopter that operates from 10 locations across Canada. But when a platform performs tactical aviation in support of the army, flies combat support and search and rescue, and is an essential asset for special operations forces, planning and managing when aircraft are withdrawn from service without disrupting critical operations is a balancing act.
“Every time they [the Royal Canadian Air Force] hand an aircraft over to Bell, they have to consider those four roles and the maintenance of an equilibrium at each of the 10 units operating the Griffon,” said Marc Bigaouette, director of Canadian Government Programs at Bell Textron Canada. “International commitments like the current deployment to Latvia also play in that equation. It’s not as if it was one role from one location and they can part with a large number of aircraft.”
Bell completed the first flight of what is being labelled the Griffon Mark II (MkII) in June 2024, which launched the in-house aircraft testing and evaluation program with its pilots and flight test engineers.
“The initial phase of the testing and evaluation really has to do with the functionality of the aircraft, the flying characteristics of the aircraft,” Bigaouette explained. “Eventually, we will move into the operational testing and evaluation (OT&E)” with the air force, likely by mid- to late 2026.
“Initially we fly the aircraft, and then we fight the aircraft,” he quipped.
To date, Bell has fully assembled two CH-146s and another three are moving through the production line at its facility in Mirabel, Que. As well, the first two of the remaining 85 Griffons have begun the upgrade process with Bell’s partners, Alpine Aerotek and Heli-One, in British Columbia.
Bell expects to begin returning certified Mk II Griffons to the RCAF in 2027.
The GLLE program includes new avionics, cockpit displays, and a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6T-9 Twin-Pac engine, among other improvements. In short, it represents a complete cockpit transformation from analog to digital systems.
Getting to that point was no small feat. Much of the initial design and engineering work was conducted remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, an added challenge that Bell opted to push through by transitioning from a 2D to 3D design approach.
“It wasn’t perfect, but it was industry’s way to keep it going at the best speed given the circumstances,” said Bigaouette. “We had never done a complete end-to-end design remotely on an aircraft.”
When the design team resumed working on the physical aircraft, “we had to account for the slight differences between the 3D models and the 2D that this aircraft was really built on,” he noted.
At present, each aircraft upgrade takes about a year to complete. The objective is a six-month timeframe once Bell, Alpine and Heli-One clear all certification and reach full-rate production, at which point the company hopes to move up to 13 aircraft through at a time.
The rate of induction will be determined by the RCAF, which must balance the operational commitments of its squadrons—especially search and rescue—with aircraft availability as it removes helicopters from service.
Bigaouette said the RCAF has been embedded in the design process, and receives regular updates on the test and evaluation benchmarks and production timeline.
“The idea has been to develop this aircraft in cooperation with them. When they see fit, they will start integrating their own pilots into our operation,” he said. “And as that schedule risk diminishes, they will be able to commit to additional aircraft coming to us, and exactly when they’re coming to us.”
The pace of the project, which has encountered some delays resolving software issues, is being set based on how all the partners can manage their respective workflows, he added. “The idea is to achieve a decision that’s best for the entire enterprise, not best for one partner at the expense of the others.”
Bell had originally planned to upgrade the first 12 Griffons before handing off to Alpine and Heli-One. Since both support sustainment of the CH-146 fleet and are involved in pre-production efforts of GLLE, Bell opted to transition modification embodiments to Alpine and Heli-One much earlier in the project execution.
“This is allowing them to have a healthy build up so the [learning] curve is acceptable to them,” said Bigaouette. “It’s end-to-end participation with our partners. It’s not us saying, ‘This is how you’re going to be doing it.’ We are responsible for the end state in terms of quality and maintaining the schedule. But if there are things they feel they can do better—because their installations are different than ours, because they are used to working with in-service aircraft, whereas our area of specialization is with new—it is in the project’s interest to make room for their expertise and their best practices.
“We don’t want to approach this as a cookie cutter. We want to approach this as a total industrial capability solution that is predicated on the expertise that we have in this country.”
Bell is responsible for training RCAF technicians and aircrews on the upgraded airframe. The training programs are being developed with the support of instructors at Bell’s training academy in Fort Worth, Texas, and will be conducted in Mirabel.
Though the transition from an analog to a digital aircraft is a significant change, the conversion program is a matter of weeks, not months, explained Bigaouette, who served as commander of B Flight at 427 Special Operations Aviation Squadron when the RCAF transitioned from the CH-135 Twin Huey to the CH-146. He recalled splitting the squadron in two to be able to send half to Fort Worth for initial training, followed by six weeks in Valcartier to practice flight manoeuvres, while the other half remained operational.
He noted the publications, which will inform the training, are being produced in parallel with development of the Mk II, rather than sequentially. “It’s all going to be happening at the same time, so when we reach certification, we’ve already got publications feeding directly into the training material.”
Bell will also have to train its own and partner technicians to support the Mk II. Bigaouette noted the companies will need to maintain the legacy platform even as the upgraded CH-146s enter service. “Managing two fleets with one group of personnel… it’s important that we do this in a deliberate fashion, that we do not overload our people with information. Therefore, for those who are going to have to maintain the dual capability, we will start a little earlier to make sure they have all the time required to absorb not only the information, but the implications for the military airworthiness systems. It’s a lot more involved than what people might think.”
The success of GLLE is a whole-of-company effort, he added, as Bell monitors the RCAF’s next Tactical Aviation Capability Set (nTACS), a program that will include the replacement of the CH-146.
“We’re really proud to be doing this at Bell. It’s a very emblematic program. As an OEM, we have both the modernization and the sustainment. Our aspiration is to carry this model well into the future under nTACS.”