DEPTH AND FORWARD

[Phoney Tony]

Interesting article in the STAR, quoted:

Defence chiefs collate aircraft as being either in the Forward Fleet or Depth Fleet.

All aircraft in the Depth Fleet are being serviced or upgraded.

Aircraft in the Forward Fleet are supposed to be ready to take part in operations around the world.

But the MoD has also admitted that some of these planes may also be unusable.

Why have MoD used Depth and Forward?

Surely it should be:

Depth and Shallow!

Forward and Backward!

[Jet In Vitro]

Officer Commanding Shallow Fleet or OC Backward Fleet sound like non career enhancing postings.

[Avtur]

More like drowned or struggling for air fleets...

[Bts70]

As a simple explanation.

Depth - Away from Unit (Minor, Major servicing / upgrade etc)

Forward - Yes available for Ops BUT every now & again maintenance prevents their use (Fuel leaks that take weeks to fix, OOPs maint etc). As good as us Engineers are we sometimes run out of quick fix spray.

Or

Depth - Making money for our supporting arms.

Forward - Overused / stretched beyond limits / extended beyond belief / skill fade preventing expedient return to service!

[Avtur]

So operational, or non-operational?

Or does not having an MBA cloud my logic?

[Axel-Flo]

Names of course for what you refer to in the new "buzz word" extra abbreviated lingo in use......
Outside the box, TRI-centric, customer focused approach, transactional leadership, transformational leadership.....

It's all just a " bit sh1t n'ting init?"

The leads of such, if they are in fact anymore, are still really
OC Ops, OC Admin, OC Supply and OC Eng.........:ok:

[Party Animal]

We really should have the classification of 'operational' for each fleet but it would be too embarrassing for the real figures to get out and no-one wants to face up to the problem of reality. Eg,

Depth = 5

Forward = 9

Operational = 2

[Willard Whyte]

Surely it should be:

Depth and Shallow!

Forward and Backward!

Perhaps Arse and Elbow would be better given the MoD's competence.

[Phoney Tony]

There seems to be an enduring process which pervades MoD and OGD.

Discover a problem.

Employ external consultants to examine the problem.

After much expediture of effort and resource provide a report which tells you what you already know.

Change the management structure. Invent new terms/ names for the new structure.

Change the name of the of the component parts which comprise the problem.

Sit back and conduct self-congratulation at a job well done.

Original problem - still there.

[dallas]

Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic more like. Changing stuff has often been used camouflage decay, while implying groundbreaking new utility. Does wonders for careers tho! :hmm:

[Willard Whyte]

As good as us Engineers are we sometimes run out of quick fix spray.

As, if, and when F-35 comes in to service they're going to have to come up with a stealth version of this pretty sharpish:

http://avacalouca.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/bodge-tape.jpg

[Mr C Hinecap]

OK. Here is the link to the 'article' quoted:
Plane daft! British aircraft suffers as third of RAF frontline jets are grounded | Latest News | Latest Breaking News | Daily Star. Simply The Best 7 Days A Week (http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/371039/Plane-daft-British-aircraft-suffers-as-third-of-RAF-frontline-jets-are-grounded)

The Daily Star Sunday is not known for it's insightful analysis of the MoD. It is a non-story. The likes of 'depth' have been used for several years and were part of the focus on ops and supporting the front line operation. They distinguish the difference between what are activities in support of ops and the front line and what are essentially maintenance activities that were often performed elsewhere at MUs etc.
Accurately identifying what aircraft are available for ops is a very important part of managing expectations of governments when they want to do something with those aircraft.

So - poor article but if you got to make a couple of ill-informed one-liners, great.

[Red Line Entry]

Do keep up at the back! The Forward/Depth construct has been around since about 2003 so it's hardly new.

The National Audit Office Report (2007) identified that Harrier and Tornado IPT support costs had reduced from £711M in FY01/02 to £328M in FY06/07 (and supporting roughly the same number of aircraft) while at the same time reducing maintenance time (GR4 Minors reduced by 37% compared to the times achieved by DARA).

Far from being a 'change of management structure', it was a really successful improvement programme. Just a shame we then went and got rid of the Harriers!

https://www.nao.org.uk/report/transforming-logistics-support-for-fast-jets/

[NutLoose]

I can see how they arrived at Depth and Forward.

Depth will be based on the term Deep Maintenance

and

Forward will be based on the term Front line.

Sad really that these people seem to have nothing better to do with their lives than to invent bnew word plays to make themselves feel they are in the loop.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Now I'll have to revise my understanding of "defence in depth".

I guess it now refers to the counter in Stores?

[Engines]

Gents,

While it's easy to have a pop at the Star for it's defence reporting, the MoD does have a bit of a situation here, within the 'Depth/Forward' issue.

The RN used to run a system that classified aircraft as being in either 'Operating' or 'Reserve' fleets, similar to the 'Forward' and 'Depth' classification. These were aligned in 2003. So far, so good.

A couple of problems arise when you start looking at the 'Forward/Operating' fleet and what is happening to them. The first. In some cases, aircraft at 'Forward' are undergoing quite extensive packages of upgrade work that takes them out of play for some time (up to 5/6 months). In no way could these be called 'available for ops'. The old RN system used to have a sub-classification for these, called the 'Forward Immediate Reserve (FIR)'. However, the RAF system didn't, and the 2003 system doesn't. This leads to a 'Forward' fleet number that is optimistic.

The second issue is more serious, and it's due to 'fleets within fleets', as well as 'fitted for but not with'. These can, and do, have the effect of drastically reducing the number of aircraft that can actually, truly be called 'available for ops.' Some of the reductions are due to funding limits, but they are aggravated by poor configuration management of the aircraft fleets. This is a long standing problem.

C Hinecap is bang on the menu here about managing expectations, and my direct experience of the problem was at Strike, when we got a PQ asking a very straightforward question about 'numbers of RAF Harriers available for operations'. I drafted a reply that accurately broke down the whole fleet, finishing with the number of aircraft we had that could be accurately called 'R2'. It wasn't a big number. My draft went up to the gods, and by the time the reply went out, the number had been inflated to include all aircraft that weren't actually in storage at St. Athan.

The MoD's 'situation', as I see it, is that the RAF consistently overstates how many aircraft it has 'available for operations'. There may be various reasons for this, but my own view (and I'm happy to be wrong) is that the actual (low) number of aircraft that could, on a given day, be 'thrown into the war' or 'committed to operations' is seen by the VSOs as politically unpalatable.

Best regards

Engines

[gr4techie]

Forward = (Potentially*) Available on front line.

Depth = Deep behind the front line sat in a hangar in St Athan or Marham in bits and pieces.


* However, aircraft that are forward could be unserviceable. Unless it a GR4... then it's more than likely unserviceable.

Officer Commanding Shallow Fleet or OC Backward Fleet sound like non career enhancing postings.

I've never fancied a commission as the "P Ed O" of the gym.

[Engines]

GR4,

It's not so much the aircraft that are unserviceable - that happens all the time, it's 'ops normal', in my view.

However, an aircraft that's in a five month modification line at 'Forward' isn't, by my definition of the term, 'available for ops'. Neither are aircraft that would need to be fitted with kit that's already deployed on other aircraft on ops. Neither are aircraft that would need a mod embodied to be able to fit that kit in the first place.

The accurate number (in my view, anyway) is this - how many aircraft can be declared (at the same time) as 'Force Elements @ Readiness at R1 or R2'? The problem is that this would be a smaller (much smaller) number than the politicians (or the public) would expect. And there aren't always especially good reasons for those numbers.

Thoughts, anyone?

Engines

[downsizer]

There is one reason for fleets within fleets, fitted for but not with, etc, etc..... And that is money. It costs too much to have entire fleets at current TES and the bean counters won't fund it.

[downsizer]

However, an aircraft that's in a five month modification line at 'Forward' isn't, by my definition of the term, 'available for ops'.

Long term mods don't happen at forward. At least not nowadays, and haven't done for some time. At least in the RAF.

Also your continual RAF bashing detracts from some very good posts that you make. Aren't we above petty service bashing here?

[Party Animal]

Engines - spot on.


The accurate number (in my view, anyway) is this - how many aircraft can be declared (at the same time) as 'Force Elements @ Readiness at R1 or R2'? The problem is that this would be a smaller (much smaller) number than the politicians (or the public) would expect. And there aren't always especially good reasons for those numbers.




This is the real question that journalists should ask followed by scrutiny of the figures before exposure. The headline would be far more sensational if, for example, it could be pointed out to Joe Public that with a fleet of 58 airframes, only 6 could be launched within 48 hours for operations. Senior leaders could then be put on the spot to explain why.

[Red Line Entry]

Senior leaders could then be put on the spot to explain why.

Why on the spot? Why would they not answer "Because it would cost a fortune and be a waste of taxpayers' money to have aircraft at an unnecessarily high readiness state".

I expect Joe Public to have unrealistic views on the issues of maintaining high performance equipment, but I'm surprised at the questions being raised on this forum.

I wonder how many Formula 1 cars are ready to be pulled out onto a racetrack at immediate notice?

[Engines]

Downsizer,

Sincere apologies if you took my post as an example of 'continual RAF bashing'. Having run fixed and rotary wing fleets in both RAF and the RN, I can assure you that the fleets within fleets problem was far more prevalent in the RAF than in the RN. Lots of reasons, some good, some bad. Perhaps it's got better. Great if it has.

I can absolutely assure you that RAF aircraft underwent some honking great packages at Forward. In fact, from 2000 onwards (about) it was declared policy to move fixed wing assets and activities from Depth to Forward. I was part of a major study that looked at doing that very thing for Harriers. That led to more aircraft at Air Stations, but a lower percentage 'available for ops', in my definition.

The issue I wanted to highlight was the 'fleets within fleets' one. I don't really bother about the colour of the cloth, more the results. What I know is that for a number of reasons, the fixed wing fleets I worked with at Strike were very badly affected by poor configuration management - that led to decisions being taken on mods and updates that led to the fleets being unnecessarily fragmented and limited in what they could do. You're absolutely correct that financial restrictions played a big part. But some of the pain was self inflicted.

Perhaps it's all better now. Perhaps it's not.

Once again, sincere apologies and...

Best regards as ever to all those trying to shuffle the packs....

Engines

[downsizer]

Major mods aren't done at forward and haven't been for quite a while now. As I stated earlier.