Originally Posted by
HOODED
Chugalug2, agreed however, to get back on track and on just as serious a note is it really true that aircraft availability is actually falling due to lean etc? Is Robbing, or should that be canibalisation, now endemic due to a lack of even basic spares? Is the huge numbers of engineers recently made redundant not having a positive effect on ac availability as it was stated it would? Time between maintenance increases surely means more jets for the two winged master race to play with and not more knackered jets grounded due to lack of spares and experienced engineers to fix them? Discuss!
HOODED, agreed however.....! How much of the above is driven by policy, and how much by its unforeseen effects? Not having a Babel fish handy, and not doing "Newspeak", I've no idea what "Lean" is, unless it be a new boy band? Would the gentlemen of the press please take a note of that question? I suspect it is all part of the bean counters vocab, and like the rest of their inventory, it is merely gobbledygook for cuts!
It seems from a distance as though the RAF, and for that matter the Armed Forces as a whole, are caught in a chain reaction of reductio ad absurdum. It reminds me of a friend who passed his annual medical year after year, with a well done each time from the MO for the steady weight loss he had achieved . It was only after other symptoms kicked in that the MO realised that what he was enthusing over was some wasting disease!
So indeed all the points noted on this thread are symtomatic of such a disease, or as its title so aptly puts it "meltdown". Spares and other shortages can be made good in fairly short order if the "MO" admits that he got it wrong, but trained experienced people who have PVR'd, etc, are a completely different scenario. That is why when they are almost goaded into it by incompetent leadership at whatever level it is unforgivable. Everyone in authority, from Cpl to ACM, should be aware of their responsibilities to their subordinates. Many posts on this forum would suggest that a high proportion are more concerned with the way the system has failed them rather than vice-versa. Perhaps it's the same problem, but from a different perspective?