Guys,
Following up another aspect raised in this thread, that of the issues arising when the GR3s arrived on Hermes - which wasn't until 18th May, by which time quite a bit of stuff had gone on.
It's my conclusion that the GR3 force was not ready to embark in a warship for ops in early April, when they were tasked. This despite the fact that they were declared in this role, and the annual 'Hardy Crab' exercises were supposed to prove that they were. In the event, they needed not only the I Band transponders Tuc mentions, but a rack of other mods. There was also a rapid effort to develop the 'Finrae' trolley to allow their nav platforms to be aligned on board. On top of that, it was decided that they should be able to carry out an air to air role, which required a rapid Sidewinder mod. The fact that they got to the ship by 18th May having done that lot is quite amazing. The inherent genius and flexibility of the Harrier was a major part of making it work at all.
But.....Tuc makes a good point with regard to the reception the GR3 team got when he says that CO Hermes had quite a few things on his plate. I'm guessing, but having had the GR3s embark to be told that they now needed to consume considerable radio traffic capacity to resolve issues with the LGB capability must have not been welcome. He would have expected that they wouldn't have been sent unless they were fully ready to do the job. (By the way, everybody had to work around very limited comms back then down there - we were under amazingly strict EMCON all the time, and we were required to make decisions with the data we had). I'm not having a go at 1(F) - I've made it clear many times that I had a great respect for them. But try looking at it from another viewpoint.
The extract from the obituary gives a hint of how some viewed the situation. Yes, 1(F) were 'uncomfortably quartered'. Everybody on that ship was. Get over it. I would take a bet that the CO in his tiny sea cabin was not much better 'quartered' than anyone else. My younger brother was a Sea Harrier pilot on 800 and was sleeping on a camp bed in the wardroom bar area. 1(F) were using 'old fashioned map and stopwatch navigation methods' only because nobody in the RAF had seriously considered how their aircraft's navigation systems might operate from a moving ship. They were declared in the role - why hadn't they done that?
Sadly, lessons weren't learned in some quarters. Fast forward to 2001. JFH was trying to 'do its thing' - one day I was told that Strike HQ was 'requiring' that the next GR7 detachment be supported by a 'portable' RAF satellite terminal to allow them to plug directly into the RAF air stores system and not to have to use the RN's ship's stores system interface. My RAF manned GR7 staff said it was a stupid idea, I agreed, but we were overridden by the HQ loggies. So... the 'portable' stores satcom station arrives at the jetty, and requires a crane to lift it on to the flight deck. It's about the size of a large American fridge. Much angst as to where it's going to be located as the RAF team realise that: (a) there's not much spare deck space anywhere, and: (b) there are one or two high power transmitting systems on the ship. The ship helps as much as it can, giving the RAF guys a full list of the ship's systems, and working out when the RAF system can transmit and receive. A location is selected, and power supplies are arranged.
The RAF system is switched on, and after a short time establishes a good link. Celebrations ensue. The ship then sails, and soon afterwards the link is lost. The reason is discovered - the RAF system is designed for land use, and the antenna is manually aligned and set up on fixed angles. As soon as the ship made its first turn, the system was f****d. It was switched off and landed at the first chance.
A few days later, I got an email from the Strike HQ logs staff deploring the fact that we hadn't told them that ships change course frequently (I honestly got this email) and requesting that in future the carriers commit to spending a minimum of 10 minutes per hour on an agreed course so that the system could be used. I didn't even bother responding. By that time, I had a quite excellent RAF Sqn Ldr on my team who had a strong logs background - he worked out how the GR7 detachments could use the RN onboard stores system (actually pretty much like the RN had been doing) , documented it, and briefed it out to the GR7 teams.
I understand that people don't get that operating aircraft from ships is a challenge. I understand that people still refer to aircraft carriers as 'floating airfields', when they are plainly not. I understand that for many aviators, this doesn't really matter. But what is essential now is that everyone involved in getting the nation's new strike capability to sea takes the time and effort to learn what naval aviation involves and to make sure we're properly ready next time. Encouragingly, it looks as if the new generation are doing a much better job than we ever did.
Best regards as ever to everyone, of all services, doing their best at to fly safely at sea today.
Engines
Last edited by Engines; 24th Apr 2020 at 15:42.