New Royal Navy trainers

[mmitch]

The Navy has received four Beech 'Avenger ' trainers.
Avenger ‘backseater’ trainers handed over to Royal Navy: key.Aero, Military Aviation (http://www.key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=3287&thisSection=military)
mmitch

[Tallsar]

MFTS rules! Get one of them on SAR standby never mind just teaching SAR planning....since we ain't got nothing else at the moment! :ugh::)

[jamesdevice]

how long before they get used as stand-ins for maritime patrol work? Must be better than using a C-130

[rotormonkey]

I'm sorry, but what's the point in the Navy having these aircraft?

[daze_gone_buy]

and that was extravagant in this austere environment. New aircraft is really flash...

[Tourist]

rotormonkey

It may surprise and disappoint you to discover that the RN now has aircraft, and thus a need to train aviators.

It's a fairly recent thing, we have only had them a bit over 100 yrs now.

[cazatou]

Tourist

A fair point!!

PS Just when is the refurbishment of HMS Victory due for completion?

[Engines]

Caz,

Just asking, because the humour escaped me there; what was the point you were trying to make about HMS Victory?

Best Regards as ever

Engines

[cazatou]

Engines

The current contract for the preservation of HMS Victory is £1,500,000 per annum - however,the new 10 year contract rate will not be revealed!!

[rotormonkey]

Tourist,

Surprised, no.

Disappointed, yes; that after a bit over 100 years, you still persist with the training of 'observers'!! :ok:

[oldgrubber]

Rotormonkey,
"I'm sorry, but what's the point in the Navy having these aircraft?"

The fact that you ask that question must mean that
a) You're after a bite.
b) You're not very up to date on training requirements.
c) You're just not very bright.

Shall we give you the benefit of the doubt and go for option "b"?

Cheers now

[[email protected]]

Or is it just that 750 (resettlement) Sqn needed a new type on the civil register for their pilots to get their licences on;)

'The RAF has got King Airs so we need something as good' - that sort of well thought out argument perhaps:E

So the only FW assets the FAA own are 4 civvy twin-props - doesn't really seem cost effective, why not get the RAF to do the training like they are doing on the Griffin at SARTU?

[Tankertrashnav]

My next-door neighbour - a recently retired RN Lt Cdr has been taken on by the company (its name escapes me) as a civilian observer instructor on 750, a job he's been doing until March on the Jetstreams at Culdrose. Saw him yesterday and immediately noticed he's now sporting four rings instead of two and a half on his flying suit, but he assures me the pay doesnt match the apparent rank! This is a guy who's been teaching observers 10 years off and on, and he's just been on a course at Cranwell to learn instructional technique, including how to do a lesson plan! Seems like there's still money to burn if you look around.

I think I am right in saying that the whole operation is civilian - can't get my head round the way the services have changed in recent years.

[Dan Winterland]

''Saw him yesterday and immediately noticed he's now sporting four rings instead of two and a half on his flying suit, but he assures me the pay doesnt match the apparent rank!'' '

He's in the wrong job then. There are plenty where it does!

[Tankertrashnav]

As a 50 something nav?

[Engines]

Err, Caz....

Still trying to get your point - so there's a contract for upkeep of Victory, and they haven't disclosed the cost - and....?

Typhoon costs weren't disclosed to Parliament for over 15 years.

Best regards as ever,

Engines

[Ken Scott]

how long before they get used as stand-ins for maritime patrol work? Must be better than using a C-130

Sorry? What's the range/ endurance of said new beast? It would have to patrol out to 30W to do the SAR job, I'm not sure I'd fancy stooging around at low level so far out with only two engines, rather than flying in a proper man's aircraft!

[Tourist]

Ken

Beechcraft: Comparison Tools (http://www.hawkerbeechcraft.com/beechcraft/tools/#view=map&aircraft=bkingair350i|bkingair350ier)

This link would tend to suggest that the range and endurance of the 350ER are not that bad! And remind me what the failure rate of PT6 engines is?

High Expect.

No.
Interestingly though, I was chatting to your mum in a post coital moment the other day, and as she panted slowly back to earth, she did say that you were a little bit hero worshipful of the reds, but only the RAF are arrogant enough to assume that every pilot aspires to be a sparrow. Sharks was always my goal.

[Chicken Leg]

Hello Crab, it's been a while!

So the only FW assets the FAA own are 4 civvy twin-props - doesn't really seem cost effective, why not get the RAF to do the training like they are doing on the Griffin at SARTU?

Because for the Crabs to operate a four aircraft training Sqn, they will need Wg Cdr to command it, with around 300 officers and airmen below him (of which 250 would be engineers and around 40 MT Drivers. The remaining 10 would be RAF Coppers - one of which will be a Sqn Ldr, the other 9 would be Cpl's to push the button on the electric barrier into/out of the base). They would need to reopen St Mawgan and then retire the Tutors, Shadow's and Sentinels.

They would also need to increase the budget to the health service to help look after those personnel who 'didn't sign up to do PT'!

Still, achieving a political win over a sister service would make it all worthwhile.

[Tourist]

....................
:D:D:D:D:D

[Ken Scott]

Tourist,

The 'Beechcraft Comparison' you recommended shows that the ER (Extended range) version has a range of 2806nm, with a payload of 1 crew & 1 passenger - more than enough for any SAR scenario I can contemplate.....

Because for the Crabs to operate a four aircraft training Sqn, they will need Wg Cdr to command it, with around 300 officers and airmen below him (of which 250 would be engineers and around 40 MT Drivers. The remaining 10 would be RAF Coppers - one of which will be a Sqn Ldr, the other 9 would be Cpl's to push the button on the electric barrier into/out of the base). They would need to reopen St Mawgan and then retire the Tutors, Shadow's and Sentinels.

So, looking at 45(R) Sqn, the only comparable King Air driving outfit in the RAF, it's clearly vastly undermanned, with only a Sqn Ldr in charge. I'll get onto Manning at once....

[Tourist]

"The 'Beechcraft Comparison' you recommended shows that the ER (Extended range) version has a range of 2806nm, with a payload of 1 crew & 1 passenger - more than enough for any SAR scenario I can contemplate....."

I think you are taking this thought experiment a little too seriously.

In the unlikely event that they start using them for long range SAR, what would any other crew members extra to the pilot +1 do except look out the window?
One can fly it and look out whilst the other looks at the radar/does radios etc. It's not like they are going to be dropping difars or liferafts is it?

[AR1]

With a name like 'Avenger' one could be forgiven for expecting it to look like it was capable of 'Avenging'..

[forget]

The TBF Grumman Avenger, a carrier-based torpedo bomber, was built to avenge the devastated American fleet at Pearl Harbor.

The Grumman name worked. Beech (Kingair) Avenger? If it wasn't so cringe making it would be laughable. So who's responsible? Any clues? Air Training Corps competition?

[Lynxman]

With King Airs operated at Cranwell with 45(R) Sqn on the civvy register, Shadows with 5(AC) Sqn at Waddington and now the Avenger with 750 Sqn at Culdrose you'd have thought that it would justify one support organisation for them all, or at least those on the military register, and maybe just one name rather than three!

[Tourist]

However, the 45 sqn Kingair 200s are I believe SERCO owned?
The 5 sqn ones are wierd, and the 750 ones are militaryish.
I'm sure they are on the same IPT, but they do very different things, and in the case of the 200 vs 350 are very different, hence the separate type ratings.

ps I don't think anyone had to pay for the names, so it isnt too extravagant.


Having said that, I will probably find out that they funded at working group to think up names.

I do like the fact that 2 of the punchiest names we currently have are for puddlejumpers!

[Tallsar]

Got to agree as far as the long range stuff is concerned KS...but have we actually got a beast on a proper SAR standby yet...along with some of the right kit?:confused:

[Chicken Leg]

So, looking at 45(R) Sqn, the only comparable King Air driving outfit in the RAF, it's clearly vastly undermanned, with only a Sqn Ldr in charge. I'll get onto Manning at once...

I'm pretty sure you don't want to get into a conversation over the manning of 5 Sqn's assets! And I don't mean for opsec reasons!!

[forget]

I do like the fact that 2 of the punchiest names we currently have are for puddlejumpers!

Make that 1 as soon as Northrop-Grumman wakes up to some ferriner using a registered/copyrighted product name - on a competitor's machine. :hmm:

I give it a week.

[jamesdevice]

Any chance they added wing hard points while doing the conversion?

[BEagle]

Victory is an historic relic of incalculable value that reminds us, as a nation, of a time when the fleet was all that stood between us and funny foreign food.

Damn right - long may she serve!

As for the Avengers, if the RN has a need to train rear crew and this aeroplane meets that requirement, WTF are you lot arguing about?

I'm not convinced that the Avenger is the right platform for the turbulent, low level environment, but if the RN finds that it meets their essential training needs, so be it. End of - as they say in yoofspeak.

[INT ZKJ]

I am very disappointed with the content of this thread as by it's title I thought that the RN had finally purched something better than the RAF trainer!

http://pop.bodio.co.uk/index_files/image8861.jpg

[Rigga]

"With King Airs operated at Cranwell with 45(R) Sqn on the civvy register, Shadows with 5(AC) Sqn at Waddington and now the Avenger with 750 Sqn at Culdrose you'd have thought that it would justify one support organisation for them all, or at least those on the military register, and maybe just one name rather than three!"

Don't know about these new Fishy ones - but I believe the Light Blue ones are all operated to EASA rules and have OEM support (Beechcraft) and, I suppose, a figurehead of a PT being told what to sign.


...and I wonder if Hillman Motors (A Routes/GM Company) think theirs was capable of "Avenging" too?

[jamesdevice]

not General Motors - 'twas Chrysler

GM was Vauxhall / Bedford

[FODPlod]

Are the FRADU (http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/operations-and-support/establishments/naval-bases-and-air-stations/rnas-culdrose/fleet-requirements-air-direction-unit-fradu/index.htm) Hawks still flying?

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQIDI6k6LQUQRN0aWqb3BxccARAQI8uCB57LHBtDPK 581OxAxKV

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQKH05J8TNv2O26znNrmR3KmBzbPbp33eCctDmTCrP se0oM0U-FVA

[XX514]

I'm not convinced that the Avenger is the right platform for the turbulent, low level environmentISTR that the RN spent a stupid amount of money about 25 years ago on a study to find out why baby observers who had starred in 750 had so much difficulty when stuffed in a goon suit and strapped into the back of a Sea King on a dark and stormy night. Perhaps the Avenger is the right platform for precisely that reason. Mind you, flying clockwise round the Scillies at 2000ft is not, as I recall, a particularly turbulent environment.

[6Z3]

25 years ago...mmm. That would have been about 7 or 8 years or so after the RN binned the Sea Prince in favour of the Jetstream for Observer training in '79, which they got on the cheap from the crabs* and in which the crew flew in shirtsleeves. The back of the Sea Prince on the other hand was a dead ringer for the black hole occupied by the Observer in the ASW Wx I,III, and SK. ISTR there was another stupidly expensive study about that time trying to establish why, of the 7000 observers interviewed, only 22 had wanted to be Observers when they applied.

As an aside, I still haven't worked out the value to RN Observers of low level over land nav in their curriculum, and also continental landaways involving a stupidly high instructor/student ratio;)






*that's another story involving the venerable Pig (Varsity), RAF Oakington, the mid 70's defence cuts and of course BEagle will remember that debacle fondly!

[Smashy]

"As an aside, I still haven't worked out the value to RN Observers of low level over land nav in their curriculum, and also continental landaways involving a stupidly high instructor/student ratio"

Simple;:cool: it all helps in the transition to the LH seat of a Commercial Jet later in life!!!!

[Tourist]

"As an aside, I still haven't worked out the value to RN Observers of low level over land nav in their curriculum, and also continental landaways involving a stupidly high instructor/student ratio"

Training is never wasted. Who would have thought we would find observers operating on NVGs over Afghan. Without a very basic grounding in low level nav, the NVG course would have been a lot bigger challenge for them. They are also taught DR Nav even though we have GPS.

One foreign landaway per course is not too extravagant, especially when the Dominie used to fly to Portugal to make one radio call!

[BEagle]

*that's another story involving the venerable Pig (Varsity), RAF Oakington, the mid 70's defence cuts and of course BEagle will remember that debacle fondly!

Yes indeed, old chum - that was another cock-up of impressive proportions!

The worthless piece of junk known as the Scottish Aviation Jetstream T Mk 1 made a brief and expensive appearance at RAF Oakington when you and I were still enjoying life at RAFC. If memory serves, half the course flew the good old Pig, the other half the Jetstream. The Jetstream people hated the thing and it had a design fault (electrically actuated fuel cocks?) which caused a few engines to stop without being so ordered. For some reason, the Jetstream's electrical system used every method of generating electricity known to man short of the Wimshurst Machine and its vagaries could, it seems, cause things to go unexpectedly quiet.

Scottish Aviation denied that there was a problem until they had a double hush whilst doing a compass swing.... But the final straw was a double engine failure on take-off at CFS Little Rissington in Nov 1974, fortunately without fatalities, whereupon the wretched things were taken out of service.

ME flying training continued on the much-loved Pig, until the defence cuts...sorry, 'review', which ordained that ME training was no longer needed, so the Pigs were finally pensioned off 1976. What little ME refresher training was needed was conducted on the Beech Baron with ba at Hamble; other folk flew a few hours on the Andover or, for those who just needed some asymmetric time, on the Canberra T4. All rather ad hoc though.

By the time the RAF started ME flying training again, the Jetstreams had been modified to eliminate the double hush problem and some had been palmed off onto the Navy as the Jetstream T Mk 2 with a radar pimple on the snout (and perhaps a boathook, aldis lamp and big brass bell), to replace the elderly Sea Prince for looker training.

A miserable, poorly harmonised abortion, the Jetstream T Mk 1 was an abysmal contraption. One ETPS preview assessment concluded that the C-130 would make a good lead-in trainer for the Jetstream; perhaps the words of a legendary test pilot should have been included: "Access to the cockpit is difficult; it should be made impossible!".

[forget]

"Access to the cockpit is difficult; it should be made impossible!".

Supposedly written up after the first RAF flight of the Balckburn Botha. :D

[DADDY-OH!]

I think they may be for the Boeing P8's that the RN will be operating.
:ok:

[Tankertrashnav]

Just seen a King Air fly over my garden for the first time. For a few seconds I thought "Jetstream" before remembering they have all gone. Sounded pretty similar to me.

[Martin the Martian]

They're not Avengers! Where's the ball turret and the bomb bay?