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Global Aviation Magazine : 60 Years of the Hercules

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Global Aviation Magazine : 60 Years of the Hercules

Old 22nd Apr 2016, 08:18
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Smudge,
I always assumed that Doppler box changes were far too routine an event to rouse the G/E from his hammock.
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Old 22nd Apr 2016, 08:19
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Doug,
looks like detritus from the early reefed mains trials !
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Old 22nd Apr 2016, 08:24
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k3k3,
thanks for the link. Seems to be a lot of 'whistlers' for so few a/c !
They also seem to be dropping from a great height too.
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Old 22nd Apr 2016, 19:57
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Re #4300. I watched the vid though a link someone sent on Farcebook last night. Interesting to see so many, one after the other. In my time I tried to add a bit of science backed up with stats. I can't recall the exact numbers but MSP was not that bad in comparison with our friends over the water. What was missing was the total number of drops both sides of the pond to work out a failure rate. Certainly the trend with MSP was on the up towards the end. Probably through lack of opportunities for training. I guess if the skills are not used they are lost. I do recall a couple of freefall landrovers. One with live mortar rounds was quite spectacular (circa 1995).
Not sure if the JATE team still disappear to the quarterly malfunction conference at Ft Lee.
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Old 22nd Apr 2016, 20:42
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Just seen this posted on The RAF Lyneham group onFB

For those that have been in a few years. my father MALM Clive Moate MSM from 70 and 10 squadrons as well as instructing and many other positions passed away on Tuesday night. I hope a few of you will remember dad. He retired in 1989.
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Old 23rd Apr 2016, 07:43
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Sadly missed Clive. Lots of good times in Rhodesia and Red Flag Las Vegas to remember. RIP
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Old 26th Apr 2016, 09:27
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Slight thread drift gents. The trials team are still at work, free falling from a C17.
First Freefall Parachute Trial Sees RAF C-17 Jump into the Tactical Arena
mmitch.
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Old 9th May 2016, 18:22
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Doppler always brings back memories of going in under the flight deck to the avionics racks and seeing the Doppler boxes glowing quietly in the corner as ,IIRC, they were still valve powered, definetly not state of the art!
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Old 11th May 2016, 15:21
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Gopher
Towards the end of the Ks life the Modgods took pity on the poor Navs, knowing that they would be disposed of with the frames. They introduced SCNS (Self Contained Navigation System) with an Inertial Nav blended with a GPS. Wot larks for Navs. No more gyro steering, no Doppler runaways (therefore no F and C comps under the rack) Tactical drop problems computed (but checked by eyeball) and all sorts of fun button pushing. Pond crossings a piece of p$$$. Routes were loaded in a cassette (about the size of a Filofax). No probs with skywave, the terminator and other nav kit pitfalls. Only snag it had was when the GPS tripped out and the poxy INS went walkabout but by then the sextant had gone too. A good time to leave.


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Old 11th May 2016, 15:49
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Doug ...

A question if I may. That SCNS 'Box' looks remarkably familiar ... Was it the forerunner kit to that installed in the early Puma and Chinook ? I may be wrong but I recall something called TANS ...
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Old 11th May 2016, 17:12
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TANS (Tactical Air Navigation System) was a digital Air Data computer that took a Compass/Gyro feed, a TAS feed and a Doppler feed to produce a calculated air position.

You are right Coff that it was fitted to Helos.

We had it on the pre Mod Dominie for training the baby Navs.

This is what it looked like:


Last edited by ExAscoteer; 11th May 2016 at 19:37.
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Old 11th May 2016, 17:50
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Thanks ExAscoteer ...

Much appreciated ... I now recognise that TANS interface ... Doug's kit looks a bit more sophisticated (to me at least)
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Old 11th May 2016, 19:39
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TANS on the Dominie was a step up from the old cog driven GPI but, because it was designed for Helos operating at 100kts (ish), when fitted to the Dom (doing 210 - 240kts at LL) it did rather have a rather spectacular drift rate!

SCNS on the other hand meant you didn't really need a Nav...





And it wouldn't buy the beers neither!
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Old 11th May 2016, 20:21
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And it wouldn't buy the beers neither!
Clearly down to poor initial specification
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Old 12th May 2016, 06:55
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I remember when with the HEART visiting the civil servant who was 'i/c' the 'K' HINS upgrade. He did not seem bothered that it was two years late ! In MOD fashion the GPS and INS bits had been given to different contractors but no one it appeared had been put in overall charge. So when it did not work each contractor blame the other.
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Old 12th May 2016, 08:39
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I too, from MoD, was involved in the SCNS programme but, unfortunately, not early enough to be useful. There were 3 of us, exHerc - myself from DAirOps, one from Requirements (who had been in at the start) and one from STC. STC and I immediately challenged the control box arrangement which was one strategically placed for the Captain and the other for the Nav station. What we wanted to know was how the Capt would play with the box at low level. The reply was that the Co would do any necessary adjustments. Our plea to move it over to the Co fell on deaf ears despite pointing out it was a stretch over and around the throttles which would be in the Captain's hands with those and his arms further complicating the issue. No change could be contemplated.

Later I visited Cambridge with OR, again, to see if with the advent of SCNS we could do without a Nav. Again it was lack of thought on control boxes which prevented that even with the Nav by then, as DougieM pointed become not much more than a button pusher.

In contrast with that was when we started the Engine Instruments upgrade. We managed to get a large group from Lyneham involved for at least the first meeting and got many good ideas right from the start. I never did see that one through, unfortunately, but did hear flattering comparisons of that programme with the SCNS one because of the involvement. How did that one work out in the end?

But I think Procurement always preferred to work that way - don't involve operators until it is too late and thus avoid letting reality into the equation.
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Old 12th May 2016, 10:17
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Xercules,
we were based at at Wyton for the HEART job and the latest management 'speak' there was 'tainted by experience'. Goes some way to explaining the lack of operator input in these sort of MOD projects. As for the 'J' project !!!
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Old 12th May 2016, 10:20
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Mod States

The Nav on the K was never quite redundant because their Airships never modded the entire fleet with the magic SCNS kit but left a few with the much detested PLGR Litton INS fit. I once watched a Nav plan a Low Level Cat trip on the Electronic Mission Planner (TAMPA,HAMPA,CHAMPS) to the "nth" degree with scores of waypoints. All this was loaded onto the Data Transfer Module (DTM) to be uploaded in the SCNS. When we arrived at the lead frame it was fitted with Litton Plugger. A lot of the Mklll SKE equipped a/c were so kitted. His little face was crestfallen. "Pick the salient features for the first half hour and free nav between them" was the best advice. We still plotted the 2 minute timing markers along the track and spookily we found out that the trip didn't need the thirty odd waypoints we left left out.
Of course the 2 pilots in the J upload all their data and as I have observed, On a major reroute due to weather, the captain was left on a base heading at low level while the co is heads down in the kit punching buttons like crazy. Navs aren't needed but it's nice to have one around when it all turns to *****.


Mission Planner





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Old 12th May 2016, 10:30
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I am very glad that during my time on the 'K' we had specialist Navs, Engs etc and not just to buy the beer !
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Old 12th May 2016, 11:24
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Iti S not just OR/Procurement either. When we tarted planning for the introduction to service of the J it was supposed to be a one in, one out - the Marshall's delivery crew would fly in a J and an hour or do later depart with the redundant K. There was then supposed to be 14 days for Eng Wg to do whatever Eng Wg did and then the new J went to work. As it was "like for like" the powers that be could not see a problem with that.

I was into Programme Planning/Management and started to produce a GANTT chart to co-ordinate it. We then held a meeting at Boscombe a major part of which was the flight clearance programme and Boscombe had a very strong desire to test everything to death before allowing mortals to use any of it. I demanded at least a plan with timescales to be able to advise the PTB when certain capabilities would be available. I then had to give the Boscombe team a detailed explanation of planning and what a loss of operational capability would mean.

At the next meeting, when asked pertinent questions about clearances etc the Boscombe reply was "Oh, we haven't been able to do that because of all this planning crap!". The mind boggled.
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