Air Transport Mounting Arrangements

[HEDP]

Why is it not possible for Air Transport to collect frieght (primarily helicopters) from the many airfields that are AT capable (i.e. Wattisham)?

There seems to be an aversion to this as a capability.

Is it realised how much engineering effort is required to 'fix' helicopters once they have flown as frieght in order to then fly them to where they live and vice versa. This process involves amazing amounts of man hours and engineering effort for what appears little benefit.

I do understand the strains that AT are under but fail to see the 'huge' impact on an aircraft being loaded or unloaded at a different airfield, is it truly that difficult and given the percieved level of difficulty has it been assessed in a manner that balances the needs of all, not just AT?

Dons body armour,

HEDP

[rudekid]

HEDP

Perfectly reasonable question.

I can supply a few 'reasons' why this is not done as often as it should be to make the user units a bit happier.

There is still a willingness from the operators to do this and it has been done recently, but overall the perceived impact on theatre ops is often a risk that the command chain is unwilling to take.

Sometimes, the user units won't open the airfields for an AT move or don't have the crash cat required. Additionally, especially the C17, doesn't have the flex in terms of availability to pre-position at a hub airfield. This would inevitably waste time when the ac could be doing something more valuable.

Sadly, the days of us being able to do as you suggest are gone. Lack of frames/crews/time makes it a non-starter on a regular basis.

[Wrathmonk]

Appreciate you probably can't say for good OPSEC reasons but what "Crash Cat" arrangements are put in place for tactical landing strips? Theoretically speaking, if it is ok to fly an aircraft with pax and freight on-board onto a strip in the middle of nowhere with no ambulance / fire truck etc can't you just use the same thinking for putting an aircraft into, say, Wattisham (assuming it's in support of current ops). If the risk management is acceptable in theatre surely if its in support of ops its acceptable out of theatre? Or is it UK H&S intruding again?

[Been There...]

Having been involved in tasking AT assets in the UK and overseas I know that the decision to operate onto strips without CAA/FAA crash cover is not taken lightly.

Even if a task is in support of Ops whilst mounting out of a UK airfield, you can't use operational crash cover exemptions, unless you needed to move someone otherwise they would die (Aeromed?), but then I think the crew would also be on very thin ice if things went wrong.

I think that in the event of an accident where people died due to a lack of fire cover the coroner wouldn't be too pleased if the only reason that the cover wasn't in place was because the MOD didn't have enough money for fire cover at that specific airfield.

It all boils down to not enough money, crews, aircraft, equipment....the list goes on.

[MrBernoulli]

One point worth bearing in mind is that former fighter/bomber fields may not have the ACN (Airfield Classification number) i.e load bearing strength (not forgetting runway length) to take large AT aircraft, particularly with a load and lots of fuel to go somewhere half decent.

Sure you may have seen AT aircraft, once upon a time, operating from e.g.Coltishall or similar, but that was usually for a Families day type scenario - very light loads and little fuel. Similar for aircraft arriving at such bases to offload, say troops from a nearby army base - the vast majority of the fuel and, therefore, weight, is gone.

[Green Flash]

Wrathmonk
My thoughts exactly! Surely bouncing a Herc etc off the bondu in the back of beyond with no fire cover etc has got to be more risky than a normal approach to thousand's of feet of black stuff, probably with some basic approach aids too. And if, heaven forbid, something did happen then the local civvy emergency could be called (admittedly, not as quick as on site teams).:confused:

[Green Flash]

Are medics, firecover etc detached to places like, for example, Keevil, when AT are practising? (Opsec to be considered, naturally.)

[hellomoto]

Surely the answer to your question is 'main base policy'. We've had it for years.....Premusably brought in to save on hours, landings etc on the AT fleet.

[Noise_Jammer]

Not entirely related but I remember when I was an apprentice at RAE Farnborough many years ago. 3 AN124s airlifted the Land Rover Camel Trophy teams out to Siberia I think. The sun came out and the aircraft started sinking into the taxi ways. Even forced cooling with water only meant that they had to be moved ever hour to prevent damage. We had seen these aircraft many times at Farnborough but they were ‘show weight’. When the aircraft left they conducted their familiar engine checks on the runway. It was only then that we realised that the aircraft were really heavy and used maximum take off power to depart. Amazing the size of the bits of turf from the edge on the runway that were lifted and hurled at cars.
Aircraft at air shows are very light indeed.

[Wader2]

Seems to be two things here not just one:

Why is it not possible for Air Transport to collect frieght (primarily helicopters) from the many airfields that are AT capable (i.e. Wattisham)?

Here we seem to be talking about collection for deployment.

Is it realised how much engineering effort is required to 'fix' helicopters once they have flown as frieght in order to then fly them to where they live and vice versa.

Here we seem to be talking about aircraft returned from deployment.

This process involves amazing amounts of man hours and engineering effort for what appears little benefit.

The aircraft have to be prepared somewhere. Presumably easier to do this at Wattisham rather than fly them to Brize and prepare them there. Similarly on return it would be easier to recover them at Wattisham.

The nub of the question thus seems to be, 'why do we have to transport our helicopters (by road) when they could be delivered to Wattisham direct.' In other words very little to do with engineering effort, or am I missing a trick?

The point about crash cat for a fully loaded C17 departing Wattisham has been made. There is also the additional 'out of service' time of the additional turn-round at Wattisham and the recovery leg to Brize, not to mention the possiblity of the crew being out of duty time.

Making the same argument for troop moved however I would argue that delivering 200 squaddies direct to home would go someway to improve morale rather than a convoy of buses from Brize.

[Mr C Hinecap]

It is far more efficient to run your AT from central hubs and use lower priority / cheaper / more plentiful modes of transport to serve the hubs. We have so few frames that it does not make sense to use up all those hrs/takeoffs/landings to pootle up country and pick up a frame or freight. On the engineering front - you'd have to do that work after the frame had been freight anyway. If it is too difficult to put a team at the hub for a week or two, get it moved by road to a better facility. Just a thought.

[LXGB]

Wattisham:

7,500 ft Runway.

Full ATC Radar Unit with PAR recovery.

Cx Cat MOD 3A (Can be upped to 4A by prior arrangement, has been up to 5A with a bit more notice for special tasks).

Existing Medical Cover.

C17s and A300s have operated there before. No parking for them mind, but you just go runway BLACK for a couple of hours while you offload on the ORP.
Lot less fuss than driving 6 hours to / from Brize!

LXGB

[Been There...]

Are medics, firecover etc detached to places like, for example, Keevil, when AT are practising? (Opsec to be considered, naturally.)

Yes, fire and med cover is provided to the correct levels.

[LFFC]

Why not put your request to DTMA at Andover? As the joint organisation (with a distinctly green shade) responsible for tasking all AT flights, I'm sure they would be happy to task as you wish if they were able to.

Remind me again please - why is there no parking available for large aircraft at Wattisham? The taxyways were perfectly usable by large aircraft when Wattisham was an RAF base!

[Been There...]

Because it costs money to keep an airfield open for large aircraft operations eg taxiways have to be repaired and kept FOD clear.

There are many parts to the jigsaw, some of which prevent large aircraft movements from taking place at smaller airfields despite the user unit wanting it

Movements teams, ac handling equipment for loading/unloading pallets, pax processing, catering, customs, crew duty outbound (pre-positioning ac to load at start of 14hr day) and inbound (use of aircraft the following day, in the event of a delay).

I am not saying that they are not achievable, just that with the very limited manpower and assets we have these days spread so thinly, keeping your aircraft operations from one large base does make sense, espeically when the C-17 (or other large ac) movement isn't the only one going on.

In my previous job there was a suggestion to reduce the length of the runway to 3000ft as this was all the Apache needed thereby reducing costs at Wattisham. Fortunately this was thrown out!

[BEagle]

I've certainly flown in and out of Wattisham in a VC10! Although it is a bit tight east of the old Q access, for sure.

We also used to be able to bring back as many folks as we could squeeze in to the VC10K when we were trailing jets home from APC etc - because we were under the OpCon of the AAR people at Gp, not the leaden hand of Ascot Ops who ran the shiny fleet.

So we took peeps to Leeming (div to Tesside due to cross winds), Marham, Wittering, Leuchars etc whenever we could. BUT that was also because the aircraft and crew weren't subject to DTMA tasking - and because we could!

Having been on the other side of the fence myself and enjoyed waiting for a coach trip from Brize to Suffolk, I was always keen to try to fly the guys direct to their own bases if chums at Gp could be persuaded.

With crew manning and tasking being the way I'm told it is these days, the necessary slack in the system just isn't there to provide door-to-door trooping, very regrettably.

[wz662]

Just remind me, how many Condec loaders do the movers have? and are they anywhere else other than LYN and BZN.

[hellomoto]

Condec :eek: There's a blast from the past!! Believe it or not, a small morsel of money has been spent since Condec and the movers have moved on, past TREPEL to ATLAS :ok:

[wz662]

OK so Condecs are now called Atlases but the question remains are there enough (servicable) of them to be positioned around the country?
I remeber it was a major logistical operation to get a loader deployed to West Freugh and that was between GW1 and GW2 when things were quiet

[Ken Scott]

We used to collect & deliver loads to/from deployments around all the major bases in the UK - few of the airfields in the UK are a challenge to a C130, even if we want to carry fuel for, say, Akrotiri. My understanding is that it is simply policy that the load comes to Lyn/ Bzn, presumeably because it is cheaper to move by road that it is by air. One of the last times I 'picked up' was from Warton, taking Typhoons away - we were on the ground for 2 1/2 days to allow time for loading, not exactly a good use of an AT asset.

It used to be the norm to leave Lyn very early to get to Wittering or wherever at opening time, to then sit around for hours while they squeezed in the load (how long does it take to get a helicopter on board?) & then if we were lucky we had enough crew duty left to reach our destination. From an AT point of view it makes more sense to get the loading done at home base, while the crew are still asleep.

As for doing strips with no firecover, it's usually there, certainly in the UK even when we're doing landings on beaches, & whenever possible on operations too. Chances of being allowed to land at an airfield in the UK without it? Zero.

[Pontius Navigator]

Ken, when your secret base, soon to become a housing estate, gets a shed load of helicopters instead of fixed wing trucks, will that make a difference?

[Pontius Navigator]

Viz, given Ken's knowledge of FW and a Secret air base I anticipated, possibly wrongly, that he was at a base soon to become a RW base.

[Truckkie]

Fellas

As an AT operator it all boils down to best use of airframes from MOB's with full organic support. I have been to many airfields to collect pax and freight and on more than one occasion been delayed due to u/s loading equipment at airheads not used to large AT moves.

Lack of engineering support has also led to tasks being delayed as we don't have the specialised trade cover or personnel at outlying airbases to fix snags that would possibly be dealt with at Lye or Brize. In the good old days there even used to be spare airframes that you could crossdeck onto and still get the job done!!!

Not to mention airfield opening hours,crash cats,ACN/PCN,GSE and movements support.

We would love to come to you and get you home quicker but in the current climate it ain't gonna happen!!

[Kitbag]

Truckkie (and others) you are being a bit disingenuous when you say 'Not to mention airfield opening hours,crash cats,ACN/PCN,GSE and movements support.' True there is not a lot that can be done about ACN?PCN, but I don't think there are many MOBs certainly FW that can't take a large aircraft, in my experience moving Fast Jets around the world on fairly major (including operational) deployments most loads tend to bulk out rather than weight out. Airfield opening hours WILL be changed if the staish decides it will be so and the Ops staff (much maligned) have been known to cut all sorts of deals to get an extra crash wagon in place. By not practicing moves at units then it is not surprising that movements sections are rusty at the final handling point- bit of a self fulfilling policy there. As for Been There 'Because it costs money to keep an airfield open for large aircraft operations eg taxiways have to be repaired and kept FOD clear.' that rather begs a question as to how you think aircraft operate on airfields.

[Rev I. Tin]

Kitbag,

Please PM me.

[Ken Scott]

Pontius: Maybe I should change my location description, events may overtake the housing estate proposal!
However I doubt it would much change how things currently operate, except it would be a shorter road move for the helicopters if they were prep'd at home base, or a short flight to Bzn to be done there. Would be a tad ironic if we ended up flying backto Lyn to load up!

[Mr C Hinecap]

Kitbag - if you can find any rusty movers out there, I'll be damned impressed! They are all rotating through ops rather frequently where they can practice their arts. Also - having spoken to many MSFs recently, I can tell you they are pretty switched on cookies. Oh - most freight now goes by surface means - so the more of them who practice that, the better it is really.

[Kitbag]

Mr C, I apologise if I have upset any of the movers, that was most certainly not my intention having worked with some good guys in the past. I was rather trying to rebut the assertions of Truckie et al as far as the availability of station support for AT was concerned.

[Been There...]

As for Been There 'Because it costs money to keep an airfield open for large aircraft operations eg taxiways have to be repaired and kept FOD clear.' that rather begs a question as to how you think aircraft operate on airfields.
True, but if you reduce the number of operating surfaces you require the aircraft to operate on, you can reduce the maintenance costs. This might be why the majority of the taxiways are not cleared for large aircraft use at Wattisham and they use the ORPs to load/unload instead. That is what I was trying to explain.

[Kitbag]

BT

Understood, however use of an ORP by AT at a RW base shouldn't cause too much hassle to other users should it?

[Been There...]

Shouldn't affect the RW assets but because the AT asset will now be blocking the active runway, the airfield will be black to FW assets.

However, as has been alluded to above, using the deployed airfield isn't the major issue. It is the lack of assets generally; AHE, airframes, crews. Also as has been stated above, most crews would rather go to 'home base' to pick or drop off personnel/equipment as most of them have been pax themselves, but we now longer have the assets to pre-position an aircraft the day before and load it there. Most aircraft come back from a route, get unloaded, prepped and then reloaded overnight for the following days trip. To preposition means losing a days flying which we can't afford at the moment.

Another point which has sort of been touched on is that the costs for deployment from a home base lie with the user unit/HQ. If they have have to up the crash cat, bring in extra staff, pay for HOTAC for the crew and movers/engineers/support personnel, those costs lie with deploying unit/HQ. Most of the time they would rather pay c*ck all and ship people by bus to the airheads. Sorry but that is the way the bean counters work as they have no concept of the morale!

[LXGB]

Kitbag: "...use of an ORP by AT at a RW base shouldn't cause too much hassle to other users should it?"

No hassle at all whenever it's been done at Wattisham.

At Wattisham the taxiway LCGs and widths are OK for larger aircraft. They are also maintained to a good standard and swept regularly, as is the runway.
Unfortunately a new hangar was built after the RAF left which makes access on to the main apron a bit tight for anything larger than a C130, hence the use of the ORPs for parking larger aircraft.

[Kitbag]

BT all points raised seem valid, except...

blacking a RW airfield for a day to FW is how important or how inconvenient?

and 'Another point which has sort of been touched on is that the costs for deployment from a home base lie with the user unit/HQ. If they have have to up the crash cat, bring in extra staff, pay for HOTAC for the crew and movers/engineers/support personnel, those costs lie with deploying unit/HQ. Most of the time they would rather pay c*ck all and ship people by bus to the airheads. Sorry but that is the way the bean counters work as they have no concept of the morale' Is there really a need for HOTAC?

As I said earlier and I think you agreed, if the Staish is prepared to make it happen for whatever reason a lot of the Station based objections go.

Note, not trying to pick a fight here, just questioning assertions made. It seems that in reality the lack of AT is the crux, not the will or ability to make it happen.

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

One thing all of you who seek the lay any of the blame for this home base crock at the feet of the AT crews need to understand is that PILOTS LOVE TO FLY! If you can get your head round that simple concept you will soon realise that the "blame", for want of a better descriptor for the home base policy lies firmly at the feet of the bean counters :}

Ask any AT drivers if they would like to increase their P1 time, quicken their time from Co to Captain, hasten their ATPL point etc etc and they will bite your hand off. Never mind the enjoyment they get from going somewhere different, flying new approaches/departures more take off's and landings etc etc. Pilots love to fly and given the chance thats what they would do pretty much most days of the year. So next time your on a bus for 12 hours heading to/from Lyn/Bzn and chuntering about feckin Albert/Shiney crews trust me it's not their fault :=

[Wader2]

SFFP, very true and also, oddly, for navs too who far rather land at a base they did not take off from. Pilots, OTOH, really don't mind if they only land at the base they took off from as long as the take-off is not too long after the landing.

[LFFC]

LXGB "Unfortunately a new hangar was built after the RAF left which makes access on to the main apron a bit tight for anything larger than a C130, hence the use of the ORPs for parking larger aircraft."

Another masterpiece of planning and forward thinking! I wonder where that came from?

[Pontius Navigator]

LFFC, the same team perhaps that put the F4 hush house on the lazy runway at Coningsby which put a bit of a damper on BBMF using the runway.

[Comp Charlie]

I apologise if I have upset any of the movers, that was most certainly not my intention having worked with some good guys in the past.

*Faints*

CC

[HEDP]

Thanks for the opinions,
It seems that this all lends itself to the AT having a hub in Cyprus and then both other ends could be serviced the same way, pick up and drop off where convenient.
It still amazes me that when Apache are changed over in theatre, with C17 parking about 100 metres from the Apache servicing hub, we cant drop one and pick one up at the same place, if not two at a time. With the bill that delivery and recovery from Brize attracts does anyone look at the overall impact to all parties rather than just the AT impact?
I dont pretend this is a panacea but where appropriate that it should not be discounted when other MOD issues are taken into the equation.
Wattisham: Runway, ILS, PAR, ORP parking, C130 can get on the apron etc. Also a plan discussed, but awaiting funding, to demolish a HAS site and establish a purpose built AT apron in support of 16X. Now there would be a capability, the largest Bde not having to troop through SC to BN taking god knows how long and arriving wherever they are going fit for f*** all. All when they are the lead Bde for rapid response!
Not to mention having a Bde Para Sqn for jumping that has bugger all to do for the foreseeable future.:E
HEDP

[Brain Potter]

Wattisham = LCG IV

No good for heavy-ish VC10 or medium-weight TriStar. C17 - not sure.

[Safety_Helmut]

Theoretically speaking, if it is ok to fly an aircraft with pax and freight on-board onto a strip in the middle of nowhere with no ambulance / fire truck etc can't you just use the same thinking for putting an aircraft into, say, Wattisham (assuming it's in support of current ops). If the risk management is acceptable in theatre surely if its in support of ops its acceptable out of theatre? Or is it UK H&S intruding again?
That has to rank as one of the most utterly stupid questions that I have read on pprune.

S_H

[LXGB]

Wattisham = LCG IV


LCG III last time I looked.

[Jobza Guddun]

DTMA?

Don't Try to Move Anything?

[HEDP]

Oh they are so, so, TRYING!!!

[Rev I. Tin]

Chaps,

DTMA is dead. Long live DSCOM (Defence Supply Chain, Operations and Movements). Still means the Prince of Darkness has a very long screwdriver.

Embrace change!

[Truckkie]

As an AT driver I have absolutley f**k all to do with planning where I pick-up and drop-off my non-tactical load. Don't lay the blame at the feet of the operators for your long bus drive/load issues - put it through the tasking agencies!!!

[BEagle]

As an ex-AAR driver I used to try f**king hard to do plan where to pick-up and drop-off my role support personnel load. Lay the blame at the feet of the operators for your long bus drive/load issues if they haven't at least tried to put it through the tasking agencies!!!

[brit bus driver]

Another helpful comment from the Cold War.....:hmm:

[BEagle]

And that from some rubber desk Johnny.....

2 lorry loads of paper clips, is it?

[TheInquisitor]

I do understand the strains that AT are under but fail to see the 'huge' impact on an aircraft being loaded or unloaded at a different airfield, is it truly that difficult and given the percieved level of difficulty has it been assessed in a manner that balances the needs of all, not just AT?

It IS about balancing the needs of all. Assuming that the extra flying time involved is do-able within Crew Duty limits, the airfield requested is suitable, equipped, and prepared to open outside hours (assuming this is necessary - often they are not, as what budget holder has the spare cash to open his airfield out of hours these days?), your load is not so large it precludes the delivery leg by taking up wieght required for the extra fuel involved, and many other factors in the process, requests by 'customers' for 'home airhead' loading / unloading CAN be accomodated......IF the 'customer' is prepared to foot the (often significant) extra costs involved - which they very often are not.

Even if the above applied, many other things can stand in the way. The general paucity of AT assets, and flying hours available on them will always be a factor nowadays. Also, if your task takes an extra 10 hours (not uncommon when you factor in transit time to you 'manor', loading and unloading time, and transit time back to the the AT MOB), that is 10 hours that somebody else cannot make use of the AT asset for, which would preclude, for example, an entire Gib resupply taking place.

Many customers of AT, understandably, fail to grasp the way the AT world operates - although to you, your tasking / deployment / exercise / freight move is the most important thing in the world, so is everybody elses! We serve a much wider community than you might imagine and in the current climate it is the norm for the few serviceable airframes we can offer to be continuously tasked in between periods of maintenance and rectification - therefore every hour added to a task for your convenience will mean an hour less for somebody else. It has to come from somewhere!

In days gone by we had the airframes (less knackered and with plenty of flying hours) and the crews, to have much more flexibility over these issues. With today's Op tempo, an ageing fleet that we have to stretch out to meet in-service dates of long-awaited replacements, and ever-shrinking budgets everywhere, sadly we cannot do for you what we really would like to be able to - to make your moves as hassle-free as possible.

[Spit the Dog]

Lay the blame at the feet of the operators for your long bus drive/load issues if they haven't at least tried to put it through the tasking agencies!!!

BEagle, I know it has been some time since you operated on a front line sqn, and even then you certainly were not put under the pressures that are currently being felt be our present trukkie crews, but are you seriously suggesting that during the often 20 to 24 hr down time spent back at our home-bases, we just pop into the Sqn and start questioning a laid down itinerary.

[BEagle]

No - and I hope that you get as much time away from work as you can when you're back from the places you go to these days. You all deserve it!

[LXGB]

Meanwhile, today at Wattisham:

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s114/9arrow/WattishamAntonov-AN-1242little.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/garysted/IMG_6016.jpg


First of many I hope!

[HEDP]

And all happening over a weekend, just demonstrates how importantly this is viewed and the local ability to provide the required services I guess. Mind you I guess the cost of airtesting and transiting a number of helos to get them back from BN may well far exceed the cost of the delivery direct to where they are required.

There was talk about a purpose built air movements airhead at Wattisham some time back, anyone know if this is still on the backburner or whether it has now been discounted?

HEDP

[Mad_Mark]

I find it a tad embarrassing that we are now having to employ our former 'foe' to move our military hardware around :O

MadMark!!! :mad:

[BEagle]

A similar piece of Commie crap just came thundering over Witney at very low altitude (approx 1750 UTC).

Perhaps these cheap and nasty contract outfits have as similar a disregard for other rules as they do for following published departure procedures?

I've never seen anything that big that low over the town in the 23 years I've lived here.....:mad:

[HaveQuick2]

There was talk about a purpose built air movements airhead at Wattisham some time back, anyone know if this is still on the backburner or whether it has now been discounted?

I would have thought the cost of flattening the Southern HAS Site would be prohibitive, after all, these shelters are designed to be moderately difficult to destroy.

Note that the HAS sites at Alconbury, Upper Heyford, Bentwaters etc still stand, even if they are just used for car/grain storage etc. Even the new landowners must have baulked at the cost of demolishing them.

[FormerFlake]

As you can see some very high tec kit is needed to load and appache onto a C17.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/wardy/2002-019_155.jpg

Clearance when loading is also a facotr.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/wardy/2002-019_170.jpg

There is also not a lot of room as our C17 have the extended range tanks.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/wardy/2002-019_162.jpg

You should see how crammed it is with 2 Apaches squeezed in.

You can understand why they want to do it a Brize.