Euro.cz: Canada interested in Czech fighter planes
ČTK |

13 October 2009

Prague, Oct 12 (CTK) - The Canadian Royal Air Force (RCAF) has voiced interest in the purchase of nine Czech L-159 light fighters for its aerobatics demonstration team Snowbirds, but the Czech Defence Ministry had not reacted for six months to it and only did so in August, the server Euro.cz writes Monday.

Ministry spokesman Andrej Cirtek said as the talks were in their initial stage, he could not elaborate.

The Czech Republic has been trying to sell 47 of the aircraft for years as the Czech military does not need them.

Canada has set aside an equivalent of two billion crowns for the renewal of Snowbirds. At the beginning it was considering extending the life span of the 35-year-old Canadian-made CT-114 Tutors, but later it came up with the idea of the purchase of L-159s, Euro.cz writes.

The Canadian authorities wanted to settle the affair by the beginning of the summer, but then they postponed the decision by six months, Euro.cz writes, but despite this, no one from the Czech Republic checked from the spring till August whether the information on Canada's interest was truthful.

Euro.cz writes that Martin Bartak, former deputy defence minister for strategic planning and now Defence Minister, did not dare or want to discuss the bid during the political turmoil following the March fall of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's government.

It was only in early August that Czech air force attache Jan Sykora in Washington flew to Prague to discuss the affair with Czech authorities.

Jan Fulik, a newly appointed deputy defence minister, confirmed in the second half of August that the Czech Republic was interested in the deal.

St.-John Williamson, vice president for business development and sales of Aero Vodochody, aircraft manufacturer, and Mike Mendoza, a special aide to the company's board, then prepared the documents for the talks with Bartak's Canadian opposite number Peter MacKey in Ottawa on September 19.

"As Canada is dealing with the question of a training plane for its air force, it is possible for the Czech L-159 to seek the bid. The Czech army could use the Canadian cargo planes C-17 for the transport of troops and materiel abroad," Cirtek said.

"The only thing we can reveal is the fact that the talks were conducted, while no agreements have been concluded," Martin Danko, public relations manager from the firm Penta, Aero's owner, said.

At first, the Czech military was to buy 72 L-159 Alcas, under a contract signed 1997. The military later said it would only keep 24 of them and the government decided in 2004 that it wanted to sell 47 aircraft.

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But Dan Dempsey, a former Snowbirds leader and author of a book on the demonstration team, questioned whether such a purchase would ever take place.

"One of the issues you always have with aerobatic teams is compatibility with other aircraft that you have within your inventory, because of maintenance and spare parts," Dempsey said. "If you take nine stand-alone aircraft of any kind and bring them into the country, you'd have a huge maintenance issue to start with, and you'd have a huge training issue."

He said the Czech proposal was "wishful thinking on someone's part."

Dempsey said it was his understanding that Canada's air force will continue to operate the Snowbirds' Tutors until 2020. In the meantime, it would search for a replacement aircraft.