Originally Posted by
Hot 'n' High
airsound, trust me, you are not the first person to accuse us WAFFU's of talking utter nonsense ........ and, sadly, there will be many, many, many after you who will say the same!!!!! All I can say is .......... it's a fair cop, Guv!
But you picked up on the really important bit!!!!!!!!! So "BZ" as we would say!!!
Tuc, forgot all about our convo way back on the Mk. 7 fiasco. I did laugh when I got the GFE list across my desk for the Mk. 2 bits to feed into the Mk. 7 Mods Programme. The 2 was UOR if I recall (hence the hand-to-mouth shuffling of things like pallets) so one would have hoped the endorsed requirement for the replacement would have acknowledged those issues. Seemingly, if you manage to survive on a "beg-steal-borrow" Support Policy long enough ..... why not read that forward for the next Fleet?! Good on you/PE for sorting that out! Was that our certain "do the Mod over the weekend" friend again? And I never realised the Merlin had older kit than the SK 6! Never worked Merlin so always assumed it was a big jump forward. Ah well,
H 'n' H was always one to "look on the bright side of life!" as Eric Idle wrote for Monty Python! Actually, "Monty Python" sums up an awful lot of stuff!!!
Hey ho!
H 'n' H
Lots of issues there Hot'n'High! You'll recall there were 10 Mk2 airframes, but 2 were attrition airframes, not aircraft, and there was no kit for them. The Radar System Upgrade (a small part of the ASaC Mk7 programme) endorsement said 10 fully fitted, but the top-up buy was uneconomical. Not much more to buy an extra 7 or 8. But there was a contradiction on the same page - SOIU said '96 hours continuous coverage from a CVS'. That worked out at 16 cabs. (And was prescient, as that is exactly what the squadron did in 2003). But Main Building doesn't like getting caught out on their arithmetic, so dug their heels in and said 10. But there was tacit approval after a quiet meeting with their boss, and swift support for the extra 3. Depending on who asked, we gave a different reason.
The Pallet Head and Scanner Assy was always a problem. We (you, me) were always loathe to send them back to 4th line, as the Swing Arm was an old piece of North Sea gas pipe and could never be certified. And there was no safety case possible for the 3000 psi accumulator. The poor rep from Thorn, who lived in the portacabin at the 849 hangar door, had his work cut out. He was brilliant.
MoD acquisition is littered with programmes that the end user assumed would be an improvement, but were actually endorsed as a 'replacement'. RMPA for Nimrod. BOWMAN was not required to be any better than Clansman. 'Entryism' to get the job off the ground, hoping your OR successors will manage to swing an upgrade. Merlin avionics was definitely in this category, if only because of the 'on board commonality' mandate for CVSs.
To be fair, the 'convert the fleet over a week-end' chap got on board and helped persuade OR on the 13 cabs business. The basic problem was that 99.9% of the RN thought it was a minor Transmitter power hike, with colour displays. Poor communication. When your AEO sussed his cabs would disappear for a 3 month upgrade, I was asked to do Q&A sessions on what you were getting. I remember the pilot who was always front and centre and eager to learn was Andy Wilson, who was killed in 2003. A lot of the nice to have tweaks came from him.
Oldgrubber
"If only they had looked seriously at the storage cabs for Asac".
Ferranti's Blue Vixen, in a Merlin, won the 'ASaC' radar job hands down in 1993. There was a political overrule, and we were told to give the radar contract to Racal, and upgrade Searchwater LAST. Hence, the honking great list of 3,000+ items handed to Hot'n'High, whose boss had nil resources as everyone 'knew' it was to be Merlin with a new radar. Problem was, Racal had never bid - it was purely a political decision to protect jobs in the Minister's constituency. The programme was frozen for 6 months to allow them to work out what we wanted. (They never did). Retention of Sea King was directed, but it turned out to be a good decision (for the wrong reason) as there was no guarantee Merlin would be ready. There were too many unknowns on Merlin in 1993, and it could have ended up as a Chinook Mk3 or Nimrod cock-up; which were both predicted and notified at the time. You'll recall FOAEW and then MASC worked on the assumption that the Sea King consoles would simply be transferred to whatever platform they chose. Not gonna happen when the consoles are part of the superstructure. What has become Crowsnest was always going to be delayed until the genius who made that assumption was promoted out of the way. Little changes!