Originally Posted by
Bob Viking
Hello Mr/Mrs Scrimshankers. That’s a hell of a first post. Well written, erudite and grammatically correct.
What it doesn’t say is who are you and why do you care?
You’re asking a bunch of people you’ve never met who are naturally suspicious to give you quite a lot of detailed information.
Good luck with that.
BV
Good afternoon BV. Thank you for your reply and feedback.
I appreciate the reticence regarding new posters. (I have replied to you already - but this has disappeared in the ether.)
However there was nothing in my post which isn't in the public domain and/or a hypothesis which many people in the sector couldn't make (without access to sensitive or proprietary information). I'd also highlight that I didn't seek any information regarding my 4 posited contributing factors and I fully recognise the sensitivity around security and training realism. If the headline themes are accepted as accurate then no further discussion is needed. It would be interesting however to know if there are other factors which compound the trend.
I alluded to the root of my interest but am happy to expand. I work for a large aerospace company (not the BIG one) and am a plane geek - so nothing would please me more than lots of military planes flying around the skies. However my current task is to look at sustainment of future programmes and identify possible changes to the current business model. Today, Industry develops an item, sells the asset and then enjoys 25+ years of aftermarket revenue as the assets are flown, consumed and upgraded. This revenue is significant, fairly predictable and supports the maintenance of the design capability until the next new programme.
So what happens if assets are flown at a fraction of the previous rate? How do you get in-service data to improve and refine your reliability forecasts/maintenance planning? What happens to industry's revenue stream? Who pays for the design capability to be maintained? How do you keep supply chains alive with lower demand? All these are significant challenges to industry, but also to the customer. Yet few people on either side want to have this conversation.
Hence my question isn't about the technical reasons behind the trend, certainly does not seek any 'inside' knowledge regarding the risks/benefits/cons of synthetic training and (assuming the premise is accepted) requires no further comment regarding the hypothesis that 'real flying' may neither be desirable nor valuable in many instances.
But the difference between a future where assets fly 10-30 hours a year (compared to 250+ currently ) has profound contractual, financial and industrial consequences. This is the reason for my interest.
I hope on the basis of this clarification many of the experts on this forum will feel able to provide their thoughts.