The RCAF has officially taken delivery of its first CC-295 search and rescue but the first new aircraft to enter the inventory in five years won’t touch Canadian soil for at least six months. The bright yellow state-of-the-art aircraft was formally accepted by the Air Force at Airbus’s factory in Spain and will stay there until June according to the Canadian Press. Canadian crews will train on the aircraft in Spain before flying it to Canada. There was no official announcement of the delivery. It’s not clear whether the delay in deploying the plane is related to issues the RCAF is having with the flight manuals that accompanied the CC-295.
The Air Force was supposed to get the plane Dec. 1 but the “delivery” was delayed until Dec. 18 because military officials found unspecified issues with the manuals. The company, the Air Force and the Department of National Defence are working through the manual dispute in the meantime. “We will continue to work with Airbus to ensure the acceptability of remaining work, including revision of technical manuals, completing training for the initial RCAF crews and conducting initial operational testing and evaluation in Spain in the first half of 2020,” DND spokesman Daneil Le Bouthillier said in a statement.