Some savings eh?
New command structure has UASs working under College pillar at Cranwell, in fact under 2 newly-established wg cdr posts in OASC. Full costs of those posts? Who knows, but nothing short of £150K per year possibly.
Old system has (say) 40 pilots out of (say) 80 UAS students, thus needing 40 lots of helmets, flying suits, boots, socks, gloves, green roll-necks, long johns etc. New system has 80 flyers needing, therefore, twice as much kit! Not to mention it will possibly need another SE Fitter on each base. Has anybody authorised the issue of flying kit to non-aircrew branches? You know what stores are like --- “sorry, you can’t have those, I don’t have the authority to issue them”.
As a UAS cannot exist without an AEF now, there is a need to establish 2 new AEFs at Glasgow and St Athan, which will require the provision of Alpha helmets, flying suits, gloves, parachutes and seat cushions for cadet flying. Will they also need another SE Fitter? I wonder if Glasgow and St Athan will mind aircraft flying on Saturdays and Sundays every week? Is there a restriction on numbers of days flying allowed each week? Will the current “owners” of the airfields be prepared to change their working week if there is such a restriction? How much will it cost to persuade them to do so, if – indeed – you are able to?
I wonder what it would cost to keep the UAS structure exactly as it was, but just have a sqn ldr OC plus one other (or possibly 2 in some cases) full-time QFI(s) on each (thus removing any problems of flying supervision on any UASs/AEFs that are not on proper flying bases), and have the OC AEF, where there is one, (explains my “possibly 2 in some cases” above) as a QFI to help out as needed with UAS student flying. I wonder if that would give more flexibility than the proposed system of OC AEF plus one other full-time QFI teaching the UAS students. It would certainly help when one or other of the 2 full-time QFIs under the proposed scheme is on leave or off sick, especially as one of them already has a full time job running the AEF. This proposal would – of course – mean that you would not have to form AEFs at Glasgow and St Athan, thereby saving on the costs of kit and personnel, and removing the problems of convincing the 2 bases to operate weekends.
For planning purposes, you would have to discount the plan to have some AEF pilots C to I to instruct some aspects of the UAS flying, as they are all part-timers and thus could not be totally relied on to be available – WITHOUT FAIL - when UAS students want to fly, although these C to I AEF pilots would – naturally – be available on occasions to help out as required. However, they would (of course) all need to attend a course of unknown duration in terms of hours and days to, upgrade their C to I to enable them to instruct UAS students. I wonder how long it will take to upgrade these C to Is and how much it will cost? I wonder how much of a commitment (hours/days per year) they will be required to give once the money and time has been spent upgrading them? I wonder if they will be paid when they instruct? I wonder if their instructional hours would count against the CAA maximum number of hours per year for airline pilots? I wonder if their companies would be prepared for them to say “sorry – can’t do that Frankfurt shuttle – I’ve used my hours instructing on a UAS”? Would that mean that airline pilots would not be able to take part in the scheme, leaving only the fully retired AEF pilots? Would all of these C to Is have to do CFS Examiners rides and EFT Standards rides every year? What would be the minimum number of instructional hours per year to retain their ability to continue instructing UAS students?
I seem to recall that in “the old days”, questions like this were raised during the study phase of any proposed change, and they were addressed and answered before the new system was introduced, rather than having masses of people scrabbling round like blue-ar$ed flies after the event, trying to fire-fight problems that have been caused by pi$$-poor staffing processes.