Maybe I was a bit harsh in my assessment of the advice given to AOC. However, I do understand that it is a lengthy process to fit foam to the Hercules. I do not know in which order the aircraft are being fitted. Contrary to some of the opinions on this thread I understood that promises to fit foam would not necessarily materialise. I decided to do something about it. After the first article in Jan, the MoD party line was that foam was expensive, time consuming to fit and not really required. (lucky shot scenario). Soon after the second article it became clear that some of the K models were going to get foam. As the pressure increased so did the confirmed numbers of Ks. The contract to fit the J was only confirmed very recently and I still do not know the numbers. I am not sure all this was factored in when the AOC was told that Lyneham could cope with this new deployment. My argument is that the decision to fit foam to the Hercules should have been taken last year. I am sure that the planning process for the deployment to Afghanistan has taken many months. I am also sure that at no time was there a plan to send Herc crews to Afg with the protection of foam. I believe this is a mistake and I question the priority placed on safety. This is a narco-deployment to a country which has been virtually ignored for more than 3 years. (with the exception of Kabul). It may have been wiser for the Chiefs to have said no to the deployment, rested/trained the crews and fixed up the frames ready for a push to Afg at a later time. I understand that there is a shortage of frames and as a result I am concerned that safety will once again take a back seat due to the high levels of tasking. Every week that goes by is a week without foam. It is easy to say yes and much more difficult to say no. I just hope I am wrong about the decision to deploy Hercules into another theatre at this time.
If this narco-deployment is so important, could one of our NATO partners not have stepped forward to help out? Or is there another agenda here?
Last edited by nigegilb; 20th Apr 2006 at 17:53.