DARA St. Athan to be sold off

[Navaleye]

Yet more rumours here, but I can't say I'm surprised. The cutbacks on FJ numbers in the recent White Paper make it an easy target for the bean counters.

From the beeb (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4114777.stm)

[Grimweasel]

At this rate this wretched stupid bunch of lefty to$$ers will have no armed forces left.

Stop cutting the forces and have a good look at Immigration and single mothers who cost this country billions. Bloody benifits are crippling this country. Single mothers...ever heard of the pill?? Close the borders and MAKE those dole sponging idiots WORK for money. If not let them starve. Un-lucky.

The forces of this country fight for our people and great nation but increasingly I'm begining to wonder if its worth it.

Rant over.

[littleme]

I couldn't agree more Grimweasel! It makes me SO cross! :*

[Beeayeate]

GW

Don't be reticent, tell us, in your own time, what you really think. :rolleyes:

Anyway, it says the idea is to move the workload back into the RAF! Just who do the bean-counters think will do it now that they are simultaneously cutting the numbers?

Here we are at the beginning of Century 21 and the same old idiotic lack of planned direction that was extant in the 60s/70s still prevails. The thing about centralised servicing (another thread) is a case in point. It has been tried and found wanting.

It must be so frustrating in today's mob, and you can't even let off steam without a H&SW certificate

[tucumseh]

Tend to agree with you all, but can't help recalling this conversation...

"Do you want 18000 manhours work?" (on an equipment they'd declared a capability on).

"No, we don't regard MoD as a customer"

BAe got the work. Never looked back. It only takes one to let the whole workforce down.

[pr00ne]

Grimweasel,

LEFTY to$$ers? How do you work that one out then? This is hardly a Socialist regime is it?
These Lefty to$$ers who keep on increasing the defence budget ARE a real pain, fancy them planning to order rotten socialist lefty nonsense like two 60,000 ton aircraft carriers, and continuing with the 2nd tranche of Typhoon at £4.3billion for another 89, after all we’ve already got 55 on order, why do they think we need ANOTHER 89? Why on earth do these left wing socialist idiots think we need to invest in this F-35 thingy with those right wing religious zealots in the Pentagon? Good God man they’ve even gone and joined them as development partners with a share of the largest fighter programme on this planet, who needs all those nasty defence jobs making the damm things for the world?

On top of all this they are only presiding over the largest proportion of the UK population who have been employed in history, lefty sods!

Fact:

The UK is a declining population, without immigration we won’t have enough
Doctors, dentists, nurses, taxi drivers and fruit pickers to name a few diverse past times where we benefit hugely from immigration. Take a closer look at the asylum seekers and the skills they bring, and try living the existence of an asylum seeker, I can assure it is NOT pleasant and rather different from the sensationalist nonsense in some of the more ludicrous DAILY papers, this is an area I am very familiar with and the urban myths out there are just beyond belief compared to reality.

As to dole sponging idiots, man are you living in the 70’s! YOU try sponging off the “dole” these days and see how difficult it is! This ‘ lefty bunch of to$$ers’ have made it rather hard to sponge and not work, and a damm good thing too.

As to single mothers, well, you really do need help don’t you?

BTW,

Exactly WHO started all this privatisation and selling off of defence assets, I think you’ll find it was one Margaret Thatcher!

There is a world outside of the Daily Mail you know!

Pr00ne

[Jobza Guddun]

"As to dole sponging idiots, man are you living in the 70’s! YOU try sponging off the “dole” these days and see how difficult it is!"

Ah, there's the problem, we've all paid into the system through income tax, so we'll get nothing. Don't bother working after leaving school at 15 and you'll be sorted.

Especially if you're a single mum of 16 or a druggie.

Come to Kings Lynn Pr00ne and have your eyes prised slightly apart.

[pr00ne]

Jobza,


..."Don't bother working after leaving school at 15 and you'll be sorted...."

There you are, another urban myth, it is rather difficult for most people to get any state benefit at 16, and in the current employment employment environment that is quite right, jobs are about.

As to single mothers at 16, fine, attack one of the most vulnerable groups in society, you really think a council flat and a pittance a week is a cool and cushy life for someone who had their entire life before them and now has a huge problem for the next 18 years.

I'v 'e been to Kings Lynne, and Ramsgate, and Dover and lots of other places where these people need representing and protecting, their lives are on a knife edge, it's not the cushy number you think.

My eyes are wide open and I see more of this sort of thing than you possibly can unless you ARE an expectant 16 year old who has just been deserted by the guy she thought her future lay with and now has no prospect of a decent income until she is nearly 40.

Pr00ne

[Silent Air]

Let's be realistic, the country is full of inappropriate immigrants and work-shy soap dodgers but they are not living the life of riley off the state. We are talking min disposable income.

St Athan is sitting there with a 'real estate' (to coin our US cousins) badge, they're going to cut and run......

[Stitchbitch]

pr00ne, nice one, agree with you mate!:ok:

[teeteringhead]

Is there any chance of talking about DARA at Saints rather than dole scroungers or single mothers????

The study is really looking at St Athan's future beyond 2009, up to which point current contracts would sustain the viability of the site. And what commercial organisation these days (or, in some people's opinions, the RAF) has a guaranteed future beyond 5 years in the future.

Of course E2E was not the best news for DARA, certainly not for DARA St Athan, but it could have been worse, even for Saints. There is extra VC10 work going there, and the fast and pointed stuff ain't going away tomorrow. And as Beeayeate notes (in the last on-thread post!), the RAF is not going to have an easy time taking over Tonka deep servicing; personally I'd hate to be OC Eng at Marham right now (or any time for that matter.....) ;)

Who would be surprised if OSDs (eg F3 and Jag) slipped to the right - my first operational type had an OSD of 1983 when I started flying it - it made 2002 in the end! And will the current Hawk really go out of service in 2010? I wouldn't bet on it. And even if it does, who is best placed to service the replacement? Might just be a "centre of areospace excellence" in the Vale of Glamorgan.

And of course other bits of DARA, notably DARA Fleetlands, stand to benefit from the rotary roll-back flowing from E2E.

And anyway, are we not talking privatisation rather than "binning"?; was DERA (pronounced by regulation Dare-err rather than Dearer) any better/worse when it sort of became Kwinticue - I don't think so. Discuss.

[BEagle]

Probably the worst imagineable place from which to conduct a full air test in a VC10 with its narrow taxiways and short runways, lack of de-icing.......and dismal weather factor. The odd night or 2 in the Bovvy Castle was OK though!

But (apart from the horrid journey in the wetched white van man LVT) it was always fun going down to Scrapheap Challenge to watch them rebuilding our ancient VC10s for me to air test. They always flew nicely; it was only the electrics, avionics and the odd incidence of smoke on the flight deck which caused the odd moment. Loss of no 1 and 3 busbars in a VC10K once - that was most thought provoking as any VC10K aircrew would know...

Can't see the local MP giving up RAF St Athan without a fight!

[Grimweasel]

Pr00ne...

Are you infact Alan Milburn or Alistair Campbell 'in cognito'???

(I know you are not thicko Prescott...no swearing)

[Navaleye]

Well said Silent Air, sort that problem out and the country will be in fine shape and perhaps they'll give us an airforce back.

[BEagle]

..and perhaps a proper Fleet Air Arm as well!

[soddim]

Looks like the sell-off rumoured for St Athan is yet another example of disposing of the family silver – will we ever regain the capabilities we are selling off?

And once again these threads elicit from Pr00ne the assertion that Bliar and his lying mates are increasing our defence spending. In that case why are we going to have less squadrons, less people and less capability?

As for presiding over full employment, how many of those jobs are real ones? Lots of people round here are only working 16 hours a week so that they can keep their family credits and this lot have created so many non-jobs in the public sector that they have surely created enough labour-dependant workers to breeze through the next election. If employment is that strong why is the total income tax collected not enough to avoid the excessive government borrowing likely in the next quarter?

It’s no good shouting the praises of your mates in power, Pr00ne. We can all see how they have turned around the best economy any government this century inherited when they came to power and we will all see their indecent rush into the next election to avoid the consequences. In the meantime, our defence assets are going under the hammer while Bliar struts the World stage with less and less forces to put where his mouth is.

[HOODED]

Nice one Soddim, couldn't have put it better myself.:ok:

[pr00ne]

Soddim,

Ho hum…………………

….”And once again these threads elicit from Pr00ne the assertion that Bliar and his lying mates are increasing our defence spending. In that case why are we going to have less squadrons, less people and less capability?....”

Yawn, because they HAVE increased the defence budget, by 1.4% in REAL terms and increased the Iraq fund, fact! Is it enough? No, I don’t think it is and the farce of reducing the programmed spend on SH and CVF are cases in point. MoD traditionally mismanages its budget and all procurements, especially the larger ones, once again this is coming home to roost.

Less squadrons and less people, why? Because the folk that run the air farce say that is the way to get more capability in the expeditionary environment with kit like Typhoon, F-35 and NEC, do I believe that? No, not for a second, I just don’t like people spouting on about expenditure cuts when the opposite is happening.

As for the economy, well, I suppose that is a matter of opinion, if what you say is right then labour will get kicked out in the next election and the Tories returned to power, do you really see that happening?
As to insufficient income tax collected, sorry, but you are just plain wrong, we have the highest ever income through income tax thanks to the highest ever level of employment in modern times and the lowest level of national debt since World War One, Government borrowing, do you remember Lamont and Lawson? This lot are spending a fortune on Education, Health and infrastructure, like it or not that is where the ELECTORATE want the national purse spent and not on defence, that is a shame and I wish it were not so, but who ever said life was fair?


Just to stay on topic, I think DARA was a dead duck from the day it was created. BAES and other OEM's can do the work and in todays software driven world if you ain't got access to software source codes you are dead. Lockheed-Martin won't release these to a soul on the C-130J so I don't expect Eurofighter to on the Typhoon.
AMRAAM is an example of the future of military 3rd/4th line maintenance, even break the seal on the thing and you invalidate the guarantee, if you want it fixed ship it back to the plant. Raytheon support it and do ALL maintenance. That will be the way of the F-35 and thus there is no use for DARA once current legacy platforms are retired.

[teeteringhead]

there is no use for DARA once current legacy platforms are retired. But is that not part of the point I made earlier pr00ne?

It's always difficult to say when OSDs will really be - none have ever moved to the left...... and despite recent adverts, I still believe Marham will struggle to get on line on time and within budget (whatever the latter may be!)

[The Maintainer]

Sorry - can't let this one go. While the defence budget might be increasing in real terms compared with the overall economy, it's shrinking (rapidly) when compared with inflation in the defence sector - I've heard estimates ranging from 12% to 20% in the last 12 months. So while Buff can quite happily claim to be increasing spending 'in real terms', in proper real terms the amount of stuff that money can buy is shrinking considerably. Not all the problems with project budgets are created by MOD mismanagement - a lot of the problem is actually industry's inability to control inflation in the defence sector.

[tucumseh]

The Maintainer......

Spot On. Many moons ago the Defence Budget, or at least the equipment procurement part of it, was tied to DTI Indices. For example, if the aerospace industry was running at 12% increase per annum, that is what relevant MoD projects got if their projects weren't firm price. A simplification, but you get the drift. Additionally, project managers had "CB Tolerance" i.e. they could exceed budget by 20% without re-endorsement, to pay for unforeseens. Neither exists now. The former because, in theory all contracts are firm (not), the latter because "smart procurement" is meant to eliminate unforeseens. (But first you must employ people with the experience to avoid the avoidable and manage the unavoidable and that hasn't been MoD policy for nearly 10 years).

Remember. Projects may be over BUDGET but they are seldom over a fair and reasonable COST for the ACTUAL requirement. PMs despair of what comes out of MB. I've lost count of the times a URD has said "Here's £xM and this is the capability we want. We'll tell you later how many we want but there'll be no more money regardless of unit cost. And no, we don't want pubs, spares, repairs, training, simulators, integration rigs". It's not unusual for budgets to be less than 20% of actual cost. And you wonder why there's kit shortages?

So, please don't berate PMs until you know the facts. (Or tried it yourself).

[soddim]

Of course they're collecting record taxes, Pr00ne, but still not enough to cover the money they're wasting and they are almost up to their planned borrowing ceiling with a whole quarter of the financial year left.

Of course they'll get re-elected, Pr00ne, because they will cut and run to the polls early before their black hole becomes obvious and they have to raise taxes some more. In a similar underhand manner they are trying to avoid the civil unrest from their cocked piece of anti-foxhunting legislation by a deal with the Countryside Alliance legal beavers.

Meanwhile the sell-off will continue. No piece of MOD real estate will be safe and eventually the RAF will be down to just a few runways for their few squadrons.

Apart from all that, Pr00ne, Happy Christmas!

[crossbow]

Meanwhile the sell-off will continue. No piece of MOD real estate will be safe and eventually the RAF will be down to just a few runways for their few squadrons

The trouble is that the RAF operate over 75 Stations. They also operate 62 Squadrons. To the bean counters thats almost one squadron per station. Now I know that a lot of the stations are not airfields, but in the future we will be forced to operate more aircraft from fewer airfields. Sad I know but its basic economics (bean counting). A friend of mine (RW) was taken aback when I suggested to him that airfield may have to operate both Fixed and Rotary at the same time, but I think thats what the future holds.

Airfield Review (http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/news_0501_02.html)

[airborne_artist]

A friend of mine (RW) was taken aback when I suggested to him that airfield may have to operate both Fixed and Rotary at the same time, but I think thats what the future holds.

Bit like Yeovilton and Culdrose then.

[crossbow]

God No.....No where near like Culdrose and Yeovilton. I can't ever imagine the RAF plumbing for anywhere as busy as that.

No, No... When I said both FW and RW together I meant one squadron of each.

[Navaleye]

The simple fact of the matter is that the MoD is effectively bankrupt in much the same way as Marconi was and is now selling assets to fund its day to day existence. Increases in defence spending? Lies. Re-equipping our forces for future needs? Lies. I'm afraid St. Athan is paying the price for incompetence and mis-management in London.

[crossbow]

Very true J AEO.. I dont think for a minute there has been incompetence and mis-management in London

Those of you who have been to St A will have realised that its a large airfied with not much happening. Last time I was in there as I landed a bunch of tumbleweed rolled down the main. I think it simply isn't required and sadly therev are a few other airfields going to follow it.

[HOODED]

St A is/was a heavy maintenance base ergo long term mainenance where an aircraft arrives and leaves about a year later. So tumble weed on a particular day would not be too surprising. As for "maybe we don't need it" I 'd have to disagree here.
Take for example the Harrier, nine lines carrying out Majors plus modifications. Where is the maintenance being carried out now? Answer it's not. All heavy maintenance work is to be carried out at Cottesmore but there is not the infrastructure there. The HMF hangar is busy doing the GR9 upgrade with all lines full either with the last stand alone Minor/MinorStars or GR9 upgrades. The fleet is running out of hours as a result and some ac are already grounded out of hours.
Answer?
Either build more hangars to do the stand alone Minors/Majors but where do we get the money/manpower? Money is V Tight and manpower is about to be massively chopped to save money. Bit of a circle here!
Other option buy in stand alone Minors/Majors. Being looked at but costs money and the old cheapest bidder was DARA not BAE and weve got rid of them!
Probabble solution?
Extend time between maintenance, been done before and resulted in much more heavy type maintenance being carried out by the front line squadrons and as a result reduced availability. Sadly this is the probabble outcome and at at time when any spare capacity at first line is long gone and further engineering manpower cuts take effect from April. The doubleing of time between maintenanace from the origional timings will result in a lot of very tired jets trying to be kept serviceable by fewer engineers with fewer spares working longer hours than they are allready.
Result?
Less flying in less well maintained jets and a less than happy Squadron as a whole.
Hope not but I can see it happening sadly!

[pr00ne]

Crossbow,

The RAF does NOT have 75 stations!

Even if you count places such as Mona and Weston on the Green you are still over by more than 20 in the UK.

The DART team are looking at MOD owned airfields, of which there are 73 when you include Gliding sites and relief landing grounds like Chetwynd, Halton and Kirknewton. These are not RAF stations but Army, RN AND RAF.

There are undoubtedly too many MOD airfields but I doubt if silly calculations like 62 Squadrons to 75 stations, palatable nonsense as those numbers are, is any part of the review.

DARA was a non starter from the time it was established, in the current industrial/commercial climate no stand alone maintenance outfit is going to stand a chance when it has to compete with the likes of Lockheed Martin and BAES.

[teeteringhead]

And of course St A is no longer owned by the RAF, but by the Welsh Development Agency (well, they've got it on a125 year lease) and the RAF have nothing to do with the running of the airfield either - that's done by DARA - who are a part of MoD - and it continues to be run under military regulations.

The last Harrier left a coupla weeks ago - so I hope that Witt/Cott have got themselves sorted out! At least they must be better sorted than Marham seems to be for taking on the GR4 task.....

[mbga9pgf]

Pr00ne,

Do you want to tell us what the actual change in real terms the defence budget has undergone once the 3 billion savings we have to make to recieve the recent extra funding, combined with the cost of the introduction of Resource Account Budgeting has made? We may be recieving a REAL terms increase of next to sod all, but we are also incurring an increased cost to the treasury before we can even spend the money.

I think you will find that once you look through the traditional new Labour spin, you will find we are being firmly shafted.

[pr00ne]

mbga9pgf,

A little off topic aren’t we? What is a “budjet?”

Whichever way you look at it a real terms increase is just that, an increase after adjusting for inflation. As for RAB, accounting for something when the expense is incurred and not when it is invoiced is just sound financial practice, as is the practice of not accounting for asset depreciation annually, as was the case pre RAB, but spreading it over a year in normal departmental expenditure. You are talking about £86 Billion in assets after all!

As for savings incurred, every single £ saved is reallocated in the Defence budget and is NOT a part of the increase.

Not sure what your point is………………….

[mbga9pgf]

Whether RAB is sound financial practice or not is not my point; RAB has conveniently saved the governent millons in defence expenditure as a result of the costs inccured under adopting RAB within the armed forces accounting system.

With regards the savings, it was my understanding that we were to recieve 4 bn increase only if we established savings of 3 bn before hand; in other words only a 1 bn increase advertised as a 4 Bn increase, hence my allegations of spin.

As for my shocking spelling, I apologise

:O

[pr00ne]

mbga9pgf,

Afraid you are totally wrong on spin, if what you allege were to be true then it would have been presented as a £7bn increase in the defence budget, which it wasn’t.
Yes those savings are targeted and have to be delivered, but the defence vote has now been passed and approved and is now set in stone at the figure presented to parliament.

A £4bn increase is what you have.

RAB is an accounting tool and hasn’t “saved” anyone anything.

I see you edited your spelling, good luck in the spelling B.

[tucumseh]

"RAB is an accounting tool and hasn’t “saved” anyone anything".


What RAB did, in common with other administrative initiatives, was employ rafts of "experts" who saw it as a chance to advance without actually having to make decisions. So even more had authority without responsibility. Created the ideal recruitment base for senior management though.

This thread is about DARA. In a previous life they had a very simple test of efficiency. Identify Direct and Indirect labour. The former contribute directly to the output (i.e. serviceable kit). A ratio had to be maintained - any reversal meant Indirects were becoming too much of an overhead and a hindrance to efficiency. RAB employs Indirect labour and so Direct labour must work harder and longer to stand still. As RAB was "staff neutral", Direct labour actually reduced to accommodate it.

On a lighter note, as part of the same initiative CDP issued a directive that Government Furnished Equipment in contracts was taboo, which theoretically would make asset accounting easier. (A daft solution to a non-existant problem and one which wholly contradicted the policy of incremental acquisition). The RN pounced and on one aircraft upgrade program they cited CDP, saying "No, we're not releasing the aircraft as they would be GFE. You must buy new ones. Merlins will do, thanks". Good try.