Originally Posted by
Foghorn Leghorn
We all know that you can’t replace 5000 hours with synthetics. Unfortunately, the hierarchy will not back down even though everything tells them its wrong. Sure, use synthetics to supplement, but not replace. I’m chuckling at the mess that’s going to unfold in terms of aggressor provision when the Ton folds. 9 Sqn is on its knees and has been for some time. I suppose the only chance of a sane, rational decision to be made would be a COCO aggressor option - and quickly.
I wish them all the luck in the world. We can only assume they, Air Cap, might actually engage with industry, assuming they have any money, and come up with a viable requirement set to meet training effects that holistically provides a course of action that is feasible, acceptable, distinguishable and complete! Assuming they aimed at just the fast jet requirement of legacy programmes then they need somewhere around 3,350 per year, even then you lose a bucket of hours, but that can be offset with synthetics, if technologically mature and able to interact with adjacent programmes!
Did we mention airworthiness and certification? If they default to the UK MAR for the air system and organisations having to obtain UK MAA organisational approvals you may as well add 12-18 months to the schedule as a minimum, assuming there's any resource. Standby for all sorts of wacky ideas as to how not to have to go down this route, it can and has been done quite successfully in Europe!