Ernie Cable is a former Canadian maritime aviator, and presently the Historian of the Shearwater Aviation Museum. This article was first presented at the Joint Airborne Surveillance and Patrol Workshop. Canada employs Aurora surveillance aircraft to monitor our aerospace and maritime approaches, ready to respond to challenges to Canadian sovereignty and project our legitimate national interests abroad. Unfortunately, many of our leaders fail to realize the importance of surveillance aircraft in general and maritime surveillance aircraft in particular, both during periods of mounting tension and in quiet times, when Aurora surveillance safeguards their daily well-being.
Surveillance is essential to protect sovereignty.
All other aircraft support training, search and rescue or transport. The Aurora is Canada's only strategic surveillance aircraft. At over 25 years old, their airframes require refurbishment and their avionics and sensor systems require modernization because they can no longer perform the deep ocean and littoral surveillance against modern maritime and land targets. Moreover, maintenance costs have soared because spares and technical support are no longer available from the original manufacturers. Submarines and Peacekeeping During the Cold War, security restrictions precluded public knowledge of the thousands of hours of Aurora surveillance of Soviet submarines off Canada's coasts.