I’ve been asked to expand on my comment on the 2 and 4 Stars saying airworthiness is optional. Gladly.
The ruling was that a dependent project (for example, one which is delivering a pre-requisite kit to the main aircraft programme, and which is required to demonstrate the aircraft is airworthy and safe before transferring responsibility) can;
- Refuse to carry out systems integration, leaving the system of systems functionally unsafe
- Pay off the contract in full despite the important part being ignored
- Not modify the simulator, provide spares or tech pubs etc (any one of which should prevent MAR)
- The main aircraft programme shall pay the same company again to do the work they should have done in the first place (and find the money from their existing budget, so something else must give)
- When the company fail (again) pay yet another company to do the job properly.
Now, clearly, if this was blanket policy no aircraft would fly. In practice, the ruling was confined to staffs that had been earmarked for greater things and needed the box ticked to say they’d (mis)managed a project. (Whether they were successful or not is immaterial – MoD don’t measure project management competencies in terms of achieving time, cost or performance). In my opinion this is actually worse, because the aircraft programme manager (as opposed to equipment) who ends up having to fix it doesn’t know where he stands. If it was blanket policy you’d just assume equipment offices weren’t going to do their job (in the same way you always assume support offices won’t) and make sufficient provision in terms of money and time. But what you have to do is assess your dependencies and the people you are dependent on, find out their background and ask what they will actually deliver. Those I refer to usually don’t have a clue so you must engage their contractors – or in the above example, the contractors who SHOULD be under contract to integrate, but weren’t even told what was happening. This then becomes the first contract of your programme – Risk Reduction. The 4 Star got his airworthiness delegation direct from Secretary of State.
All the above is open source obtained under FoI, from my MP and in personal letters from the 4 Star. Like I always say, start at the top. I hope you didn’t get bored.