PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - JSF and A400M at risk?
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 09:24
  #331 (permalink)  
tucumseh
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: uk
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My argument is based around what we're going to do to plug the gap. The answer, in my opinion, is a stop-gap of "more of the same". FRES is, frankly, irrelevant in the argument because it is, realistically, as far off as the delayed A400 is.


Agreed. FRES is a much misunderstood programme. It is envisaged to be a suite of vehicles (16 variants at one point), but very often the MoD itself writes as if it is just one vehicle type. About 8 years ago the Initial Operating Capability was deemed to be approx 2007 (for less complex variants) through to 2011; (very) roughly aligning with A400. This has slipped and the HCDC report of Feb 2007 noted 2017/18 as more realistic. I don’t know if this has slipped further in the last 2 years.



In the last couple of years a number of UORs have been delivered in response to the requirement for better protection – Mastiff, Vector, plus the Bulldog programme (enhanced FV430) etc. In the above HCDC report, MoD made it quite clear these were interim solutions and came nowhere near meeting the FRES requirements. But my suspicious mind tells me that, somewhere, a beancounter will be trying to chop FRES funding claiming these programmes form part of the solution.

In my opinion, these delays and machinations make StopStart’s statement valid. As I said in a previous post, someone will be trying to spin the A400 delay as “programme alignment with FRES”, while completely oblivious to the problems the delays are causing. Keep discussing it guys; MoD will be reading pprune to inform future policy!
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