Job cuts left Tornados grounded - P & J

[pubsman]

Just spotted this on the BBC, Scotland News page:

"RAF Lossiemouth Tornado squadron grounded over staff shortages"

BBC News - RAF Lossiemouth Tornado squadron grounded over staff shortages (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-23225240)

[OutlawPete]

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/3306528

As the editorial in today's P & J says, thankfully this has not led to a serious incident but it sure makes pretty uncomfortable reading.

[TomJoad]

Outlaw,

Be interesting to learn of the detail behind this story. Was it it a problem with managing the outflow - one would hope the redundancies were staggered. In previous rounds where a station or fleet was deemed to be particularly hit the manners visited the unit so they could take local impact into account.

[dctyke]

A Tornado squadron was grounded at RAF Lossiemouth after a raft of redundancies threatened to jeopardise safety.
Senior personnel said the base faced a “simply unsustainable” situation after the loss of 270 technicians in the MoD’s redundancy programme.
A report revealed that “challenges” at the base combined “to erode engineering standards and practices, threaten airworthiness, and undermine delivery of the levels of flying required”.

As long as senior ranks in Buckinghamshire got promotion out of it it's all fine.:rolleyes:

[OutlawPete]

It certainly raises some difficult questions for some, Tom. Lossie has had a hard time retaining engineers for a long time now. Even those unsuccessful at getting redundancy are cutting their losses and banging out earlier than they would normally have planned to.

The oil industry and it's lucrative wage beckons. For years now guys have been leaving for salaries the RAF can't compete with. I know of someone who left 19 years into a pensionable engagement of 22. Sounds like madness but if you really are that disgruntled even the promise of a pension isn't enough for some.

Sad really that it's been allowed to come to this.

[ExRAFRadar]

This was in the Times yesterday. Seemed to be lifted direct from the Air Clues article

[BlindWingy]

The RAF/MOD can compete with these salaries - the equipment budget is huge. Its just that they choose not too.

[Wander00]

dctyke - Shades of Bader and 242 Sqn! Shameful that the Royal air Force should be thus reduced.

[CoffmanStarter]

Already covered in the Spry Thread :ok:

Mods ... Might be worth rolling up under Spry's Thread ...

[TomJoad]

Just read the Air Clues article and while it addresses the background of the problem and the recovery action there is no analysis of the root cause. Now let me put one thing straight first this is not a dig at the manners , I had the pleasure or working with the trade desks and I know the pressures they are under and how hard they work to deliver a solution. What worries me is that there appears to have been no consideration to or acceptance of a need to manage the loss of experience. Based on past experience of the redundancy programmes I cannot believe that this was the case. Was this simply a result of racing to reduce numbers to a target by a date without considering impact or need or willingness to adjust the task. I guess it was inevitable as type experience is now effectively localised and the Service has no capacity to absorb the pain as it would have done it years past. It can only be a good thing that publication of the incident in the Times has brought the situation to a wider audience.

[TomJoad]

but not immediately obvious from the Spry thread title.

It may come as a surprise to you Coffman, but some people don't have time to read every single thread and post on the forum, instead making a decision on what to read by the thread title.

BGG

Agree:ok: The Spry thread will end up being a collection of disparate threads . I think it's fine, and indeed important, that we are able to break out specific threads to discuss more fully. This will, as Big Green, suggest bring issues to a wider audience.

By the way, well done on introducing the Spry thread, most welcome development on pprune.:D:D:D:D:D

[CoffmanStarter]

Fair do's guys :ok:

[Onceapilot]

Stunning:(.

OAP

[Just This Once...]

Getting quite common this sort of tragic failure. In recent times we have had the collapse of eng supervision on a certain GR4 sqn, the collapse of competency/currency that led to the early demise of LXX, the barely adequate Typhoon proficiency in core roles and now a large ISTAR FE with precisely zero CR pilot execs.

In many ways this is just like the Cold War… for the loosing side.

[isaneng]

Whilst we do have at least one large ISTAR FE, his size has nothing to do with the execs........