Oil Can makes an interesting point. Hickman told the Inquest that they are working towards ALARP by the end of the year. I have done a lot of digging since Friday and I very much doubt that ALARP will be reached by the end of the year-WHAT THEN?. Had a chat with a senior officer at Kinloss, he suggested that the new maintenance regime regarding seals could make things worse. I sought the engineering opinion of someone I trust;
"This is generally true. But if you asked a design engineer how to mitigate this whole risk (leaking fuel lines) he’d say “fit mainplanes which are not of small modular/section construction”. This is what MRA4 will do. The many sections need joined together – the more joints the more fuel and hydraulic joints to match section joints (obviously). And if they use the wrong bolts and the joints flex in the wrong way – read the report. If you make the mainplane out of larger sections, then you reduce the risk. Fine, but the situation is compounded by MRA4 being 10 years late. The MR2 design, especially this mainplane/pipe area, is well past it’s sell by date (far end of the bathtub curve). MRA4 has a dependency on MR2 for build standard, MR2 in turn had a dependency on MRA4 to deliver on time, as they don’t have the wherewithal to SUSTAIN safety and airworthiness. The regs say you carry out an ageing aircraft review, which I believe they did. But that is not the same as having funding to implement recommendations. Did they carry out the review in the knowledge MRA4 would be 10 years late? Perhaps they did it when slippage was 3 years, and said they could cope. That is why every MRA4 slippage MUST force a comprehensive review of MR2. I’ll guarantee it didn’t. Not just physical ageing, but the cumulative effect of ageing, obsolescence, loss of expertise, reducing funding etc. Remember, for the past decades few engineers will have practical experience of dealing with and managing a 60 year old mainplane design. (NOT 1969 – the basic mainplane design dates to the 40s). They’re taught about modern large section designs, where leaks are rare and more easily managed. Again, a basic airworthiness requirement – corporate knowledge, competence, experience
There’s another way of looking at all this. Some may think that MoD is taking a huge gamble continuing to fly. My view is that they have already taken a long series of gambles."
Have to agree with you OilCan; this aircraft is effectively life-exed, but the replacement is not ready. Ainsworth declared the aircraft airworthy and safe to fly on Friday, without even consulting his Chiefs of Staff on the Inquest summation. That is some gamble.
Ed Set Have you had a chance to look at my points regarding the whistle test?
With regard to SW's management point, the following;
"I think the IPT will be very selective (only addressing 20 or so recommendations) and may indeed implement them this year. But many are process changes and easily done. The recommendations from the March 06 report are a different matter, and there is no way they can be done in quick time. (And even then, the report is diluted. You read the damning narrative expecting to see a raft of recommendations mapped to the criticism, but they are watered down. THAT'S the problem with the report. The single most important recommendations "Implement airworthiness regs" isn't there, yet it jumps out at you throughout the report). I think they'd find it difficult to work out the scope of any contract, never mind tender, negotiate and implement. They are concentrating on ALARP in the context of Safety risks, but missing he bigger picture of the overarching Airworthiness risk. If you like, they're bottom-up, not top-down. You need both. If there is no top down (higher policies which Nimrod IPT can't influence) then they will hit their ceiling, perhaps mitigate most Nimrod risks, but wider aviation is still at risk. Then the cycle begins again - they're not doing it, so we don't have to, and Nimrod degrades again."