QinetiQ report
Given the dearth of answers on the QinetiQ report, and the suggestions that it is irrelevant to the issue under discussion, it might be worth giving a little more detail of the report, laying out some of the issues and asking some more explicit questions.
The Qinetiq team visited Kinloss from 14-15 Feb 2006, at which time XV230 was undergoing special attention from MPI. The QinetiQ team had access to XV230 and the three other aircraft with the EO capability that were then in the UK, indeed these were the aircraft it focussed on. The principal author was Qinetiq’s principal airworthiness engineer.
The report, issued on 17 March, was commissioned by the Nimrod Integrated Project Team. It is true of course that it was asked to look at the problem with leaks in the wings, but a number of problems it uncovered were relevant to all the problems with leaks on the MR2 and indeed appear to my admitted inexpert eye to have much wider implications.
A key concern, and one that clearly had implications beyond the wing leaks, centred around problems caused by the contract for the Nimrod Support Group, which:
* was not required to carry out preventive maintenance
* was working to new instructions it had written up itself because the Air Publications the RAF technicians in the RAMS were using were “of little, if any, value” (but had not told the RAMS that this was the case).
* and was not contracted to relay the full extent of the leak problem to the Integrated Project Team.
With regard to this last point, the QinetiQ report said:
“NSG have compiled important datasets of leak maps from major to major that show recurrent problems. This information is not being disseminated effectively. Neither the Nimrod IPT nor BAE Systems appear to be aware of the detailed information available within these datasets.
“NSG have not been required to supply the IPT and BAE Systems with these fuel leak records.”
"Proper interrogation of the existing data would have highlighted a structural problem that needed to be addressed before it became critical.”
With regard to the out-of-date APs, it recommended that: "A system should be set up in the form of a working group to allow contact between Nimrod repair teams at all locations, eg SNCO level where hands-on experience exists. This would provide a mechanism for exchange of information and good working practices.”
So some questions:
Was the Nimrod repair working group ever set up?
Have the APs in the RAMS been updated to the point where they match up to the procedures in use by the NSG?
How could the IPT make any sensible decision relating to the leak problem, including the decision not to follow the BAE Systems recommendation to fit a fire suppression system in the bomb bay, if it didnt know the full extent of the problem?
Are all contracts across the RAF like this and if so what problems are being stored up with other aircraft?
Finally, not a question, perhaps the most damning quote in the whole report, and one that gets to the nub of a problem that clearly still exists:
"It was also suggested that RAMS cannot detect some of the leaks reported in-theatre when the aircraft return to Kinloss. This is partially explained by fuel load in tanks, climatic conditions, ineffective vacuum in tanks, etc, and Qinetiq were unable to establish a clear impression of how these non-detected leaks are addressed.”