Typhoon Radar

[pubsman]

E-Scan contract placed:

BBC News - Eurofighter radar deal secures 500 jobs in Edinburgh (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-30114054)

[melmothtw]

1bn Euros just for integration (the development and testing work is all done and paid for)? Anyone with any knowledge as to how these sums are worked out care to elaborate on where this number came from?

**and just to note, I am a journalist, and while I won't use your information directly (my editor doesn't like me attributing quotes to internet monikers) I may use it as the basis for further inquiries.

[Rhino power]

1bn Euros just for integration (the development and testing work is all done and paid for)?

Development and testing are far from 'done and paid for'...

A slightly more informative article from Flight Global...

AESA radar deal lifts Eurofighter sales prospects - 11/19/2014 - Flight Global (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/aesa-radar-deal-lifts-eurofighter-sales-prospects-406257/)

-RP

[Sandy Parts]

e-scan? has it a button to raise the scanner marked "e-up"? If so - shades of the Bungling Baron? :p Good news for all the wiggly amp tefal-heads at Selex.

[tucumseh]

Good news for all the wiggly amp tefal-heads at Selex.......

Who have designed and built some of the finest kit ever seen in any aircraft.

They'll always be Ferranti to me!

[Lima Juliet]

Deliverance

How many hours have you had sat behind AI24 FOXHUNTER, then? As your 50/50 experience is a bit different to mine!

I reckon I had a failed gadget about 10% of the time and it never failed on me once on over 40 Operational Combat Air Patrols over Bosnia and Iraq.

LJ :cool:

[tucumseh]

If I recall, Ferranti supplied parts of Foxhunter, and sat in store for years waiting for the GEC parts to be ready.....


Reliability. Can't speak for Foxhunter. Tornado always was different and its radar wasn't managed by, for example, the Fire Control and Surveillance IPT. (The 1989 IPT model, not the inefficient 1999 one we all know and love).

The RAF endorsed a multi-million upgrade to Blue Parrot (Buccaneer) near the end of its life to raise the System MTBF from 3.5 hours to around 6, which they deemed acceptable. At the same time the superb Blue Fox (SHAR 1, and more akin to Foxhunter) System MTBF was just over 30 hours and considered excellent by the RN.

Part of the problem was it was the job of what are now called Requirement Managers to keep the MTBR (Removals, which places the demand on logistic support regardless of whether it is a NFF or not) as close to the MTBF (actual verified Failures) as possible. Too big a gap is often down to poor fault diagnosis, poor training, poor pubs etc. When these "RqM" posts were disbanded the work was never done, and the MTBF and MTBR gap widened to a ridiculous degree. In 1989 it got to the stage in, for example, Sea King HAR Mk3, that complete radars were being hooked out every day, on every tail number. The MTBR was in low single figures; in fact minutes at one point. But the MTBF was in the 60s, well above spec. THAT'S where the money goes when you chop a handful of key posts as a "savings" measure.

[m0nkfish]

How much experience do you have with Typhoon RADAR, as its this system that is being upgraded not the RADAR of a retired aircraft!

[MAINJAFAD]

If I recall, Ferranti supplied parts of Foxhunter, and sat in store for years waiting for the GEC parts to be ready.....

Indeed they did Tuc, Not surprising seeing FMCW was something that Ferranti had been working on since 1951 (years before any other radar firm in the UK). I'd concur about Ferranti radar kit, of all the stuff I've worked on, the best. Worst bit of kit, I've ever work on for reliability was American.

[Lima Juliet]

Deliverance

Fair enough, mate, maybe the 2 FL Sqns I was on had a better Avionics Trade Manager! Certainly, 10% (1 in 10) isn't fantastic, but it's better than 50% (1 in 2). :ok:

My experience on Ops was always better as the jets were better husbanded and also the climate was normally better (warm and dry) than good old Blighty. That always meant that the failure rate was far better. Also, if you had an 'iffy' jet you would crew out for the spare in good time - as you pointed out having the main RADAR fail 'sausage side' is always a bit of an issue!

LJ

[Courtney Mil]

My experience of Foxhunter is much more like Leon's, if that high. That was early nineties. Perhaps I just hit it at the right time.

[Sandy Parts]

always seemed to be that when we got shiny new kit, the excuse was "its brand new, you've got to expect a few teething problems". Then there was a short happy period (of variable length depending on usage and quality of original design). Then we were into the "ah well, that is getting on a bit now so you've got to expect a few problems" :p
I always thought is was some sort of 'trade-training' deal the MoD had with BAE etc in order to keep our fine techies at the top of their game!

[Courtney Mil]

Actually, Blue Circle performed exactly as expected throughout its life. :cool:

[salad-dodger]

Actually, Blue Circle performed exactly as expected throughout its life.
Should this be added to the Procurement Successes thread, or was it late/over budget?

S-D

[Take That]

Deliverance, sorry to hear of your experience with the AI24, but I concur with LJ and Courtney (with 2500 hours plus from Z list pre Stage 1+ onwards to base that on). That said, maybe I too was always lucky to be on Squadrons with some brilliant avionics technicians, who always seemed to work wonders despite some trying times when spares were in short supply.

[glad rag]

I just wish it could be taken for granted that the components that make up the weapons system just worked. It can be done, just not in the RAF it seems.:(


Seemed to work on jindys fine :E

[MAINJAFAD]

Deliverance

Bloodhound Mk 2 (all the stuff I worked on came out of Ferranti at Wythenshawe), though most of the radar stuff was done at Edinburgh.

The US system was part of that piece of junk better known as Radar Type 93.

Leon and Courtney have hit the nail on the head, Quality and Experience of technical staff plays wonders or disaster on the serviceability of radar equipment, be it on the line, in the 2nd line workshop or at a deeper level. Have one or two wizz kids of JNCO's or OR's and a good Trade Manager on your repair organisation and your serviceability will be top notch. Have a couple of monkeys in the repair organisation that break everything they touch, the opposite. The other thing you have is though some bits of kit may be built by the same firm, the design team developing and making those bits will be completely different, thus one bit to kit will be top notch, while the other will be a complete pile of poo.

As the experience levels of your staff gets higher, the more serviceable the kit gets, age of equipment does have an effect, however if the kit is set up correctly it should be less of an issue. By setting up correctly I mean measuring the output at the test point and if it's on the verge of being outside of tolerance, try to get the reading to the middle of the spec. If that cannot be done the item being serviced is on the way out and should be replaced (if you have the spares of course). Most of the real long term defects I've seen in 30 years of doing electronics have been because the last person to do the servicing didn't do that (the reading was in spec (just), so he moved on to the next step of the servicing).

[O-P]

OK, I'll bite!

Just over 2500 hrs on the F3. From pre Z-List, (whatever they called prior to Z-list...apart from concrete)?? to Stage 2 fully spammed.

I'm in with Courtney and LJ, the set at the start was awful. In the end it was the best you could ever get from a HPRF RADAR that lacked MPRF. It's failure rate was not great. but also not that bad! On firing up the jet you could see from the PWAZ and A-Scope if you had a dud.

I seem to remember that once they realized that some of the LRUs (7+9) and (2+ something), needed to be matched and tuned, everything got a lot better.

47 Missions sausage side, no RADAR aborts...I did get hit by lightning on the way home once...that shut the whole jet down, bar the FBW.


Wasn't the F15A radar an utter disaster when it first came to the front-line?

Courtney,

On the F-15, how many times were you lead nosed?

[GreenKnight121]

MAINJAFAD, O-P:
As a former USMC avionics tech (A-6E, F/A-18A* FLIR/l a s e r** systems, "I" level), I can say definitively that you both hit the nail right on the head with regards to tolerances.

If "good enough" was accepted to send a LRU out the door, it was guaranteed that the matching LRUs in 30%-40% of the aircraft it could be installed on were also at the edge of tolerances, and the combination would result in an immediate "fault" condition.

The only way to make sure of success was to align everything to as close to "ideal" spec as possible.


Additionally, as Leon Jabachjabicz noted, operating environment had a major effect. At MCAS El Toro (Santa Ana, CA) the air was normally moderately dry, and we were far enough inland to not get salty air (actually, the normal breezes/winds were from the more arid areas further inland), and we had little problem with corrosion.

At MCAS Iwakuni, Japan and NAS Cubi Point, Philippines, however, the air was more moist and hot - leading to corrosion of cable pins, etc. This was even more pronounced aboard ship - to the point that ~70& of the faults that LRUs (line-replacable units) came in with could be cleared by simply unplugging all the internal cabling, spraying cleaner on all the pins & contacts, and re-connecting them. This quickly became our standard "first action", even before hooking it up to the test bench to run a diagnostic.

The problem was that the humidity was allowing a fungal film to grow on the connector pins, which blocked the low-power current flows of digital electronics. This was normally invisible - but if left untreated it would become visible, and even begin pitting the plating on the pins!

MAINJAFAD also has a point on the "design & make" aspect. The AN/ALQ-126 Defensive ECM system on the A-6E (and other aircraft) was a very low MTBF item in the early 1980s-with MTBRs around 10 hours. The LRU was a two-deck box, full of circuit boards that were covered with IC chips. When Sanders developed the -126, they "had a brilliant idea" - to "make maintenance easier", they put almost all of the IC chips in plug-in sockets (the sockets were soldered to the boards). Over 90% of failures were cleared by "simply" reseating all of the >300 IC chips in the LRU - a process which took several hours, but which had to be done, as invariably in each LRU there were multiple chips that had vibrated loose enough to break connection - despite the "hold-down clamps" Sanders had installed to prevent that.

The solution was developed and tested by my A-6E squadron ( VMA(AW)-242 Black Bats at that time) while on deployment to MCAS Iwakuni the summer of 1984 - my good friend Kevin convinced his superiors to let them modify 3 -126 LRUs by removing all of the sockets and soldering the chips directly to the board. The modified LRYs immediately went to over 100 hours between failures, and once NAVAIR approval was granted to modify all the LRUs in the squadron, the MTBF eventually settled at about 200 hours - a 20-fold increase. Troubleshooting and repair time also dropped dramatically, as now there was usually only one point of failure, which was easily and quickly located and replaced.

Sad to say, when the change was made official throughout the Navy/Marine Corps aviation community, the credit was given to the squadron's avionics maintenance warrant officer. He had argued strongly against Kevin's suggestion, but once the test worked well, he had submitted the "Bennie-sugg" (Beneficial Suggestion Program) paperwork with his own name as "originator of suggestion", thus the credit (and financial award) were given to him, and NOT to the ones actually responsible.




* While my squadron ( VMA(AW)-121 Green Knights at that time) was deployed aboard CV-61 Ranger in 1985-1987, I also worked on the S-3A FLIR, and worked beside the guys working on the cameras from the F=14 TARPS recon pod.

** stupid board auto-scramble function - can't even spell l a s e r properly without it changing things... laser.

[ancientaviator62]

As an ex Air Radar Fitter your quoted MTBFs would have been like manna from heaven on the Javelin and early Lightning. The remarks about the quality and experience of the maintainers rings so true. First time I applied for aircrew (as a J/T) the Eng O refused to sign my application as 'he could not afford to lose me' ! Instead I got a spec rec for promotion. Escaped eventually !

[Courtney Mil]

O-P, re your F-15 question, I never flew a lead-nose one. That's not to say there weren't occasional radar snags on start, but that meant calling in the problem and a short wait for a radar specialist to arrive in a big truck with lots of goodies in it. Said specialist (our best was a very attractive blonde) would plug into the intercom and ask questions, direct one to do stuff with the radar and run the odd short diagnostic. She would swap out a box, ask for a check, bid one a good a flight and off we'd go.

Just about the only radar unit that couldn't be changed on the line was the antenna. I don't recall a significant failure in flight.

[sarn1e]

F/A-18A/B/C/D Lot 5 to Lot 14 (1200 hrs over 2.5 years). Failures:

9 radar overheats (same ac 9 times over one weekend), had to recycle it every 15 mins but it worked fine.

1 partial INS failure after t/o, re-aligned in flight

1 generator failure

1 gearbox failure

0 FCS failures

0 Engine failures

Never (not once) climbed out after signing for the jet; you remember the failures because they were that rare.


Tornado F3 (1500 hrs over 15 years - every radar standard from X-list to the end, albeit not very much of the final version). Failures:

Radar c10% complete failure and c10% partial (single TWT, Lock, etc).

MMS: in the early days you were hard pushed to get a rocket off the jet under any circumstances, but that improved significantly.

Fair number (over 10) engine failures - rarely complete, but they did all require changing (on one occasion both at the same time after a double VIB - which wasn't in the FRCs).

Numerous hydraulic (and CSAS) failures, including a utilities failure right out of the factory on pick-up.

And you needed two INSs for the number of times one went walkabout.

I didn't climb out very often (though I knew plenty who did at the drop of a hat) but I climbed out many more times than I wanted to, especially for CSAS - though that also got much better, over time.


Now let's talk about reliability...

[Courtney Mil]

In a strange way, this is quite a good demo/simulation. I always loved being able to keep the target in scan at 120 off boresite.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HOvAtAX3DT0

[Lima Juliet]

Not so sure I like the slewable RADAR display - it has similarities to the FULCRUM's slewable display which could be most confusing. Also, from the video, why when you're supporting shots in a 2 v 8 would you turn in opposite directions when you would be better off staying a visually supporting pair? :eek:

I know we used to split to RADAR supporting pairs in the F3 with JTIDS when we had Skyslug versus bigger rockets like AMRAAM or AA10c. But that tactic would be wasted on a single seat, agile wonder jet with BVRAAM, AMRAAM and ASRAAM and likely to have the advantage - why would you take the risk of losing visual support?

LJ :cool:

[Courtney Mil]

I used it in the early trials of this radar. You soon get used to it. Better than a squished display and no room for a wide screen TV.

[Lima Juliet]

So what happens when you get a pop-up 100 left and 100 right - or do you have to have Marty Feldman vision? :p

http://www.unsungfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/feldman04.jpg

[Courtney Mil]

Love it!!!

[FoxtrotAlpha18]

This is the kind of thread I come here for - informative, technical but not overly so, unclass, good natured banter...keep at it!

[MAINJAFAD]

Sarn1e,

That's what I'm talking about. The RAF/MoD is so institutionally setup to accept routine failures as normal. When you see what it could be like it is all rather depressing. Especially as when the operators say "it's not that bad" what motivation has the MoD to produce the goods?

The RAF, and this is as prevelant with the Typhoon, operates with so many deferred faults that it is rare to see a fully mission capable aircraft on the line. Something that was uncommon during my exchange.

It's all a bit sad really.

The problem with Typhoon that normal RAF issue, Lack of spares. Electronics items fail, especially when they are pushed to the limit as regards space, weight and being thrown around the skies with G loading that would kill most civil electronic kit in minutes. The other thing about comparing the US and UK maintenance systems (correct me if i'm wrong here, GK121) is the US Avionics guys tend to be specialists in one aspect of the aircraft's systems (They will be a radar, a radio, an instrument or electrical system specialists) while the RAF have somebody who has to know the whole lot (where in the past the RAF avionics trade had some form of separation of those 4 specialists). If something goes wrong on the line, they have a much deeper understanding of that particular bit of kit. Having had two amalgamations of trade within my service period, I know for a fact that it caused issues, best summed up by this video.

HyJY-T32GVQ

MAINJAFAD also has a point on the "design & make" aspect. The AN/ALQ-126 Defensive ECM system on the A-6E (and other aircraft) was a very low MTBF item in the early 1980s-with MTBRs around 10 hours. The LRU was a two-deck box, full of circuit boards that were covered with IC chips. When Sanders developed the -126, they "had a brilliant idea" - to "make maintenance easier", they put almost all of the IC chips in plug-in sockets (the sockets were soldered to the boards). Over 90% of failures were cleared by "simply" reseating all of the >300 IC chips in the LRU - a process which took several hours, but which had to be done, as invariably in each LRU there were multiple chips that had vibrated loose enough to break connection - despite the "hold-down clamps" Sanders had installed to prevent that.

Don't know if the British MoD ever did that in an airborne system, definitely did it with a transportable ground based Air Defence Radar, After the radar was moved from A to B, the operators tried to run it up and found it wouldn't work. On opening the racks up, the RAF Technicians found piles of IC's laying at the base of the racks.

[O-P]

LJ, Courtney,

I'm sure that once you get used to the display it'll be one of those things that you could never live without (a bit of colour would help)...I do hope that auto track initiate is a standard function however!

Fire and run, love it! Split my assets, love it even more. If two enemy jets are in the same piece of sky then I only need to look in one place, if they aren't, I get seriously worried! The fire and run theory was used by F16s before they got a BVR capability, although a bit of North European weather could scupper those plans

I loved JTIDS, but I don't think we ever used to the full with say 4 independent, yet supporting fighters...OK someone had to be the leader. I suppose we got close with night/IMC 4 ship ops.

Oh,

In my time on the F3.

Numerous VIB captions in the early days (all went out on throttle back)

No Hyd failures

1 Oil P

Numerous CSAS 1st Fails, all reset (Early days)

1 RHAG engagement (practice)

4ish battery chargers

Many IN runaways (Having two was pointless, you didn't know which one was playing stupid. 3 would have been a better idea) The RLG GPS solved that problem.

10+ main Comp stops/freeze

3 rides in C/F18's, no snags

1 ride in an F18F. Engine failure after 20 mins (Oceana) Jet had 260+ hours on it from new

[GreenKnight121]

USN/USMC:

At squadron level ("O" for organization) the avionics guys are generalists, trained mainly to quickly diagnose and change out LRUs, and to find & repair wiring harness problems.

At the next level of maintenance ("I" for intermediate), we were trained on specific systems or related groups of systems - I was trained on the FLIR/l a s e r systems, other guys were trained on radios, others on navigation systems, or ECM, or radar - etc. There was an IMA (Intermediate Maintenance Activity) at each base, and we deployed personnel with squadrons when they went elsewhere for more than a couple of weeks. The IMA avionics shops were in ISO containers - airconditioned/heated, with the test benches inside -so we could fix LRUs "in the field". In 1984 we packed all of them up and flew them from MCAS Iwakuni, Japan to NAS Cubi point, P.I. for 6 weeks (thank you, USAF C-141s), then brought them back - this was a normal evolution.

"I" level techs frequently went over to the squadrons to help with an unusually nasty problem, or to help out during high-tempo operations, or just to "see how the other half lived". This was particularly true aboard ship or when deployed overseas.

Both of these were, of course, staffed by military personnel (except for an occasional civilian "tech-rep" (technical representative), either from the manufacturer of a high-value system or a government-employed rep from NAVAIR.

Depot level maintenance was usually civilian contractor work with a minimal military staffing "for oversight".


The Hair Farce ;) worked a bit differently, with more personnel at the squadron level - these were more specialized than in NAVAIR - often requiring 3-4 personnel to perform a task the USN/USMC would use 2 for.

For example, in NAVAIR avionics techs were permitted to remove/replace access panels themselves, in the AF an airframes person had to do that part - NAVAIR avionics techs could apply electrical power to the aircraft to run up the systems, AF avionics guys had to get a aircraft electrician, and so on.

I believe that USAF squadrons also have people specialized in systems - or they used to. Nowadays, the "smart planes" pretty much diagnose themselves, all you need is someone who can remove/install the boxes and deal with the wiring/databus.

http://m.carolinacoastonline.com/article_2c388842-198b-11e4-8332-0019bb2963f4.html?mode=jqm

http://www.dvidshub.net/image/564241/logistics-squadron-preps-us-downsizing-afghanistan#.T-4JwZHYHf

http://www.mca-marines.org/files/imagecache/full_page_image/Yasaki2.jpg

http://d1.static.dvidshub.net/media/thumbs/450x300/photos/0909/204659_q75.jpg

[O-P]

Del and Sar,

Perhaps I selected the wrong phrase.

I would have loved to have flown an aircraft that was fully serviceable, had no Greens/Reds to worry about...Sadly every aircraft I flew had a limitation in the F700.

I also picked up F3s from Warton, watched the guys cry as we took their babies away, then tore the paint off them in the Irish Sea. What was your record speed?

On my first Sqn engines/and spares were flowing like gummy bears, then the wall fell down. The Jet then got dramatically better, only spares dried up (Dam'd those wars)

[MAINJAFAD]

GK121

Thanks for that, Very much like the old differences between the RAF and FAA. As you stated All box changing based on what the BITE says is bust.

[Courtney Mil]

MAINJAFAD, you are right. But that was very much because some folk in the early days, understandably, took modern BITE to be exactly what it said it was and believed that the fault codes would do all the diagnostics for them. To a considerable degree they do. Then came people with far greater depth of system knowledge who realised there was more to it and the promise of a BMW-like service and repair system didn't quite do all it claimed. Sadly, working practices had already become chiseled into tables of stone and there was no hope of a Velvet Revolution.

[engineer(retard)]

The RAF endorsed a multi-million upgrade to Blue Parrot (Buccaneer) near the end of its life to raise the System MTBF from 3.5 hours to around 6, which they deemed acceptable. At the same time the superb Blue Fox (SHAR 1, and more akin to Foxhunter) System MTBF was just over 30 hours and considered excellent by the RN.

Not a fair comparison given they were generations apart in technology and decades apart in terms of service. The Parrot update was primarily to one LRU; the rest of the system was on the upward leg of the bath tub curve. That said, Parrot reliability went up after 3rd line was given to Industry. In terms of reliability, Blue Parrot and MCS from the F4 seemed to be on a par but both were 2nd hand from the RN.

MAINJAFAD hit the nail on the head about the influence of the techies on the kit, sometimes it was a matter of taking some short term pain to get everything well in spec, to get a long term benefit. But you can only do that if you have a spares buffer.

[t43562]

pmKZTJgS4sM

[Courtney Mil]

The ability to reposition AESA gives the capability to scan beyond 90 off borsite. Keeping a target 120 off post-launch is an excellent tactical capability. No reason for it to be unreliable.

[whisperer]

"Keep it simple! Less capability and more reliability please because when it fails I have ZERO capability. "

I couldnt agree more, in fact I often had discussions along these lines with F3 aircrew (both driver & ballast). I am sure they would have traded a fair bit of (supposed) capability for reliability on the earlier incarnations of blue circle.

The difficulty is getting someone to COMMIT to a reduced capability when the industry glossy sales brochure promises so much.

[O-P]

Wow whisperer! How to make friends! I hope some of the 'ballast' will educate you later.

Your points are, how should I say this politely..boollocks!

If we had traded some of the capability of the blue circle (which was a very reliable lump of concrete) what would we have gained?

As the F3 matured (and I'm only talking about the weapon system here), it got vastly MORE capable, complex AND reliable. In the early days in was extremely fragile. As time progressed it become more and more robust.

When you next buy a car, ask them to take out the ABS, TRAC, Airbags, Electric windows, DSG, Radio, GPS and the AC as you just want something reliable...There are a couple of 1980's Lada's on ebay if you're interested?

[O-P]

Deliverence,

Just wondering if, when you were lucky enough to be offered an exchange tour, they'd asked "Well your choice F-18C, F-18E or F-22"? Would you have plumped for the less capable jet?

I know which one I would have picked. Sadly, I never got the opportunity for either.

[whisperer]

O-P,
If you know me (if you were F3 crew `90 to`05, our paths have probably crossed) you would know the relationship between aircrew & us "gingers" along with the banter and affection that flew both ways between us!

In the early days (w,z etc) anything that could have increased reliability would have resulted in a lot less DNCO or lead noses! remember in those early days there was a failure of some kind in the weapon system on most trips, and i am well aware of exactly what it matured into.

What I was trying to suggest was that in the combat environment it is better to have 80% 99% of the time over 100% some of the time.

Your anology to cars is quite interesting, most of the systems you mention are not essential(the gold standard if you like) but are the fancy electic bits that cause no end of problems!

At the risk of outing myself I did once own a lada, good solid reliable engineering, never let me down. I did take some stick about it untill, after a long det somewhere, I was jumpstarting much newer more modern motors with flat batteries.

[O-P]

Whisperer,

I joined in 1982 as a Brat then served on 29, flew the F3 from '88-05. (229, 25, 111, 1435, 56, 5, 56, 25, 1435, 25). Yep, I know the banter from both sides!

I have never flown any aircraft, RAF or Foreign, Military or Civil, that didn't have some "Red or Green"...and known reliability problems.

I accept your point that in peace-time it was extremely frustrating to DNCO so many training missions due to weapon system failures. However, I flew 47 missions "sausage side" without an air abort. We both know that on operations the spares support, sortie rates and general standard/preparation of the jets led to higher reliability. That's basically saying that Sqns operating in the UK were left scratching around for spares, or the spares didn't work because they were the wrong MOD state. (Fleets within fleets)

The basic problem is that idiots pay for junk that doesn't meet the spec in the 'glossy brochure', then spend another fortune paying the same company to put it right. This normally takes several attempts.

I thought my car analogy was quite good thanks! As it happens I have just returned my new car to the dealership under my States 'Lemon' law and been given a full refund. The car wouldn't come out of "limp home mode" Don't buy an Audi! Off to buy an F-Type on Tuesday!

Would you buy another Lada?

[engineer(retard)]

Keep it simple! Less capability and more reliability please because when it fails I have ZERO capability.

E-scan should improve reliability as you do not have the single point of failure in the high power components of a traditional radar.

[whisperer]

O-P,

Cool, glad we were on the same side of the fence once, I have met a few ex brats that crossed the devide, and to a man they were outstanding, I see you served with some of the best F3 units there were but how did you escape the greatness of 11 & 23!

You have seen the best of the worst transform into something really quite good, despite what the naysayers think!

You have hit the nail on the head and I could not agree more when you say "The basic problem is that idiots pay for junk that doesn't meet the spec in the 'glossy brochure', then spend another fortune paying the same company to put it right. This normally takes several attempts. " but thats MOD procurement, and none of us have enough lifetime left to solve that problem.

Deliverance , in his post, has explained point that I was trying to make in far more elegant terms, and probably prooves the old saying "should have tried harder at school"

Sounds like you had a good run on ops, however in them situations I often found the weapons log in ops was a greater indication of serviceability than the 700, you know what i mean!

And yes, IF LADA`s were still available, and not banned because of silly EU rules, I would have another today. I think that over the time I ran it the cost, including DIY servicing, was about £300/year, not bad for a motor that cost less than the 3 year depreciation on a "mainstream" motor.

Good luck with the F-type fella, be thankfull that the lemon law exists as it sounds like you dodged a bullet there.

[t43562]

Bearing in mind that I really have no right to comment (so please discount this to 0 if you like) but my experience in other technical areas is that if a product "works well eventually" then it's just because the real price of getting it right wasn't factored in at the beginning.

In fact, the work would never have happened at all without that initial dishonesty in which the customer demands, in effect, that the supplier fools them by only selecting suppliers who actually do so. It's the "something for nothing" attitude. e.g. world-beating radar for 2p but in my case - software that was promoted as being ready in 6 months that actually took us 4 years because the customer had to have "the ultimate solution" but had no intention of facing up to how much work was required.

[O-P]

Deliverence,

You didn't answer my question.

If you'd had the choice would it have been a legacy F18 or the F22?

You may only wish to track what you want to shoot. I however, was far more interested in the other little buggers that wanted to shoot me. Perhaps you'd have been happier in a Hawk T1a?

[tucumseh]

Eng

Not a fair comparison given they were generations apart in technology and decades apart in terms of service. The Parrot update was primarily to one LRU; the rest of the system was on the upward leg of the bath tub curve. That said, Parrot reliability went up after 3rd line was given to Industry.

To be fair, I did accept the need to compare like with like. :ok: The more important point to make is that we (PE at the time) weren't too happy about the casual acceptance of a system MTBF far below the minima laid down in permanent LTC Instructions (500 hours per LRU, but averaged across the system), which in turn is what governed funding.

This is a ludicrous rule. Most avionics meet it, but radars seldom do; especially, as you say, the Transmitter chain. But, the beauty of the "old" LTC system was that the Service Owner and PE project manager had the authority to juggle funding between projects to better target its use.

Once these posts were cut, if a given kit needed a cash injection, but was always using up its funding quickly, then tough luck; yet other kit would be awash and never spend its allocation. The 500 hour rule was daft; but easily managed until the posts were cut. I couldn't begin to guess who does this now. I suspect no-one. It's meant to be the Requirements Manager.


The "but averaged across the system" bit only applied to the RN. The RAF generally assumed all LRUs had the same reliability when buying them. A too simplistic "AE + 50%". It was a subtlety of interpretation that meant the RN would have more spares of less reliable LRUs (born of some experience supporting aircraft during a 6 month deployment at sea), whereas the RAF would have unopened boxes of more reliable LRUs decades after the ISD. In turn this bred a laziness when applying the Maintenance Policy which, in my own experience, came to a head one day in 1989 when not a single Sea King HAR Mk3 had a radar, with most of the stock at Fleetlands categorised as No Fault Found. That is a huge disconnect. This perhaps explains some of the comments made by others here.


Interesting comment from Deliverance about tracking targets. I do recall that, in this respect, the RN's SHAR2 requirement was to track more targets than EFA/Typhoon, which the Ferranti Chief Designer found quite strange. It meant having to regress to a slightly older design. (Both were under development at the same time, BV leading). That was about 1986/7 so may have changed after that. What these discussions always bring home to me is the differing views on what kit should do. Please have sympathy for the poor old project manager who has to make sense of it! :{

[glad rag]

OP,

Given the choice between two U.S. aircraft then I'd take the one that works. It took a while for the F-22 to become reliable too. But if you throw in Tornado or Typhoon I'd rather take an F-18C into combat right now thanks. And probably for the foreseeable future.

I didn't mean I didn't want to detect them, just not waste processing power tracking all those I'm not targeting.

I can assure you that I would not be happy in a T1A as effectively that is what I am flying every time the radar fails, which is all far too often for my liking. Perhaps I'm the only one that has these failures and actually everything is fine. I doubt it though. And as for the F3 being so servicable on ops, why then for a 2 ship mission would 4 jets need to be started with the best 3 getting airborne and then once at the border the air spare would go home? Great servicability indeed.

On the face of it a valid argument however when lives could be on the line the phrase "that's never caused a mission abort before" just doesn't cut it.

gr-proud to be one of the many unsung heroes.

[Courtney Mil]

Del,

I think he said your arguemt is valid. I think (forgive me if I'm second-guessing) the point is that failures CAN happen in any op. Backups can mitigate that AND (I think this is the point), by making the raid more complete, make it safer.

That said, I do not disagree with your main point that British Forces have been pushed into the expectation that our kit will have way more failures that it should.

[engineer(retard)]

The more important point to make is that we (PE at the time) weren't too happy about the casual acceptance of a system MTBF far below the minima laid down in permanent LTC Instructions (500 hours per LRU, but averaged across the system), which in turn is what governed funding.

The way the decision was flowed down to us worker bees was that it was the cheapest option, I understand that a new radar was another option. The truth of the matter was that the system was way past its reliable life. We routinely repaired to component level at 2nd line, sometimes even at 1st line. That said lack of spares wasn't the option but the Parrot was not an easily maintainable system. We fault found to component level because it was quicker than setting up a new board. In contrast, I understand that the F4 was misused by being kept in the air to air role, it seemed to have a lot more transmitter failures than the other radars we had at the time.