Well it's been a looooooong time, but I'm back at this!
I had a thought which rather tickled me so I decided to run with it - nothing so mundane as Eurofighters for the RBCAF - no, this will be something entirely different! This change also entails a fairly significant reworking of some already-extant tidbits of information, but I'll attend to the details as things go.
I hope you'll excuse the lengthy preamble to come here before we get to the actual profiles, but a bunch of somewhat-tangential background info is necessary in order to make the story to go with the profiles make sense!
So, on with the story!
De Havilland Aircraft of British Columbia Ltd. had a very long history of manufacturing British de Havilland designs for the local market, and after the war it began manufacturing designs of other British manufactures, including de Havilland Canada. By 1967, when DHBC began licence construction of the DHC-4 Caribou for the RBCAF and export to the Asia-Pacific region (the rest of the world was handled by DHC), the co-operation between DHBC and DHC was quite close, manufacturing other DHC types for the civilian market in BC and for export to the five westernmost US states - Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California.
At the end of the war, DHBC had had three plants at its disposal - the original one on Annacis Island in New Westminster, where post-war the production of civilian seaplane types was the primary focus, along with construction of sections of larger types for assembly at the larger facility in Richmond.
The Richmond facility on Sea Island was, during the war, immediately adjacent to to the factory of the Bolas Aeroplane Ltd. and RBCAF Sea Island. After Fairey Aviation Co. of British Columbia absorbed Bolas in 1951, Fairey moved production of Bolas types to its facility in Victoria and sold the Sea Island site to DHBC. This was amalgamated into the existing facility, and after the closure of RBCAF Sea Island in 1964, the air force facilities were sold, split between DHBC on one side and the Floats Division of Hoffar Aircraft (by then part of the Armstrong-Siddeley Group).
The third facility available to DHBC was at Abbotsford, which was built during the war to build Mosquito fighters. In 1959, DHBC became seriously involved in the Trident airliner project, with DHBC being foreseen as a manufacturing point for Tridents for the Asia-Pacific, western US and Latin American markets. To this end, the Abbotsford facility was greatly expanded, and by 1966 it was ready to begin production of the Trident; the first BC-built Trident rolled off the production line in 1968. <Needless to say, in the AltBC world the Trident was much more successful than in the real world!>
In 1961, DHBC became completely independent of the rather incestuous arrangement of the British aeronautical industry, after the British parent was absorbed by Hawker Siddeley (Armstrong/Bristol/Hawker Siddeley did, however, become involved in the BC aero industry, after Armstrong Siddeley took over the Hoffar Group in 1948). In the following years, other DH subsidiaries likewise became independent - DHC, DHA in Australia and DHSA in South Africa. From 1961 on, DHBC was owned by a BC-based ownership group.
In 1974, DHBC bought the Rotorcraft Division of Yarrows Shipbuilding, taking over production of the Yoho and Yarksis series of helicopters, amongst other, less-important types.
In 1977, DHBC and DHC merged to form De Havilland North America, but the two divisions continued to operate mostly independently, with some rationalisation of production lines taking place to eliminate duplicate production lines.
In 1983, the first flight of the Kehloke ('ring-tailed eagle' in Chinook Wawa) took place. This was a 155-190 passenger airliner, intended to be the replacement for the Trident series, and to compete with Boeing's 737 and McDonnell-Douglas' MD80 families. In 1984, Inter-Dominion Airways of BC placed the first order for the Kehloke, putting 28 on firm order and an option on 14 more. The first was delivered to IDA in December, 1985, by which time firm orders for 55 and options on a further 98 had been received from a total of 12 airlines.
Despite the fair success of the Trident and other types and the promising start to the production of the Kehloke, the early 1980s were a difficult period for DHNA, and in March of 1986, it was bought out by Boeing amidst assurances that production lines would remain open. The Boeing takeover was finalised by October 1987, in which month Boeing closed down its original BC-based subsidiary based in Victoria.
In February 1990, after the 55th Kehloke was delivered, fulfilling the original firm orders, Boeing announced the closure of the Kehloke production line, converting the remaining options to 737 variants whilst honouring the original terms. In retaliation, in April the BC government cancelled an order for 3 Boeing 767s which were to have been delivered to the RBCAF for use as long-range VIP transports; in the following month, an order was placed with Boeing's rival McDonnell-Douglas for 3 MD-11s in VIP configuration to fulfil the role envisioned for the 767s; these were designated Detroit CV.1 in RBCAF service.
In August 1991, after significant downsizing of its operations in British Columbia, including closure of the Sea Island facility, Boeing converted the scaled-back Abbotsford plant to the construction of wings for a number of their products, the completed wings then being transported by rail to Everett, WA. Until 1998, the Abbotsford facility also continued to produce parts for the Kehloke as required by law.
The Sea Island facility went in part to a newly-formed company, Sea Island Aeroplane Co., which has since utilised the facility for maintenance and overhaul of a wide variety of aircraft; the rest of the site was razed and was used for construction of a new terminal for Vancouver International Airport - the US And Canada Terminal (the original terminal remains in use for domestic flights, and a third terminal was built at the same time as the US&C for International flights.
After 5 years of sales attempts, Supermarine had failed to secure export orders for either then-current variant of the Shukopoots, the F.4 and FGA.6, and in June 1992 they announced the end of Shukopoots production. Much of the large Kelowna plant went idle apart from the production of Shukopoots parts and overhaul work, along with production of UAV and air-launched weapons. Through the following two years, Supermarine's Dark Corner continued to work on various projects, including UAVs, air-launched weapons, and several possibilities for a Shukopoots successor. However, apart from a man-portable UAV system for the Army which also gained significant foreign interest (and actually gathered firm export orders!), none of these projects met with success, and in May 1994, Supermarine sold the weapons department to Fairey BC.
In 1995, MiG and Sukhoi offered variants of the Fulcrum and Flanker respectively to the RBCAF as potential Shukopoots replacements, but these offers were met with no interest from BC.
Apart from the deal with India in 1975 to manufacture the Shukopoots under licence there, the last major aircraft export order received by Supermarine was from South Korea in 1973, and the twenty years of slim income had begun to wear down the patience of Supermarine's owners. By November 1995, the ownership group had begun to consider selling out, and both McDonnell-Douglas and the newly-formed Lockheed Martin expressed interest. However, the ownership group wass in no real rush to sell, and the secret nature of much of the Dark Corner's work presented some difficulty to a potential sale to foreign owners.
The DHBC/Boeing debacle was a huge blow to BC's aeronautical industry, with the almost complete dismantlement of what had been one of the largest employers in the Dominion and the termination of airliner and helicopter construction in BC. Helicopter manufacture did resume in the form of Kelowna Flightcraft Ltd. licence-building Kamov and Mil designs for sale in North America, but the loss of airliner manufacture was a severe setback. That collapse left Supermarine as the last remaining major aerospace player in BC, and not wishing to see another similar situation, under the encouragement of the Ministry of Labour & Industry and the Ministry of Defence Production, HMDG announced the buyout of the Supermarine ownership group in February 1997, establishing the Supermarine Aerospace Corp. as a Crown Corporation subordinate to the Ministry of Defence Production. First priority was to be given to the development of a replacement for the Shukopoots.
Such a move was not unheard of in BC history, as several times over the years the Crown nationalised certain corporations in sectors deemed to be of strategic value - most notably the creation of BC Ferries in 1960 (taking over the strike-plagued Black Ball Line and all other privately-owned coastal ferry services; the Crown Corporation is subordinate to the Ministry of Transport and the ferry lines are considered integral parts of the highway system) and the formation of the BC Hydro & Power Authority, which amalgamated all power and generating facilities in the Dominion as a Crown Corporation as well.
Through 1997 and into 1998, Supermarine continued work on what had become known as the Fighter 2000 project, but without any significant progress; the BC government rejected the idea of joining the Eurofighter consortium on the grounds that the result would not be sufficiently self-sufficient. In that light, it is perhaps strange that, when Supermarine recalled the earlier Russian offer and made a proposal to MiG for a co-operative development of a new fighter for the RBCAF, HMDG agreed. For their part, Russia and MiG agreed too, and history happened...
The MiG-29SMT (Object 9.18) project was emerging around the time of Supermarine's expression of interest in a collaboration, and this aircraft drew considerable interest from Supermarine's engineers, although in the event, a different approach was taken.
A first prototype "concept" was built fairly quickly in Russia, with the goal of exhibiting it at MAKS 1999. Designated
MiG-29SBK (with 'BK' standing for British Columbia), the new aircraft was a true multirole fighter based on the airframe of the MiG-29S (Object 9.13S), with a glass cockpit, fly-by-wire, a helmet-mounted targetting system and a mixture of Russian and BC avionics, though this first prototype carried a Russian-made radar and a single GSh-30-1 cannon and was powered by two Klimov RD-33 engines.
The next three prototypes were built up in BC using empty airframes built in Russia and shipped to BC, arriving in Vancouver aboard an An-225 freighter. Designated
Supermarine Spitfire 2 by Supermarine and
Spitfire F.1 by the RBCAF. These featured the same glass cockpit as the MiG-29SBK with much the same avionics fit, but incorporating more BC avionics than the Russian-built prototype, along with the BC-made IFF system used on the Shukopoots and a few other BC-specific systems that are kept classified as BC secrets.
The first of the three prototypes was powered by two RD-33 engines, like the MiG-29SBK, and carried a BC Tel-Sensors Division Blue Gold I radar as used on the Shukopoots FGA.6. Completed in May 2000 and first flown later that month, it was shown to the public at the annual Abbotsford Air Show in August 2000.
The second and third BC-made prototypes had a significant difference from the first - they were powered by the Rolls-Royce Spey 207, which gave both increased power and greater efficiency than the Klimov engines. While the second carried the Blue Gold I radar, the third carried the first of the much-improved Blue Gold II radar.
Over the course of 2000-2001 some complications arose regarding the division of labour between Russia and BC, with Supermarine insisting on airframes being built from scratch locally with (minimal!) Russian-sourced equipment being installed in BC, whereas the MiG side wanted to supply airframes to be assembled and fitted out in BC. In the event, the question was settled at the governmental level. The aircraft would be built entirely in BC with necessary components shipped from Russia, as Supermarine had insisted; ; in return, MiG would receive a slightly higher per-unit royalty from Supermarine, and the BCDF would be required to purchase some entirely Russian-made equipment over the following ten years to compensate for the Russian government compensating MiG financially. This arrangement led to the purchase of Pantsir-S1 (SA-22) SP SAM launchers and BM-30 Smerch MRLs for the BC Army, Beriev Be-103 utility seaplanes for the RBCN (designated Taganrog SU.1) and the S-300PMU SAM system for the RBCAF.
(to be continued...)
