Old Duffer
An interesting post which doesn’t actually contradict anything I’ve said.
The evidence presented to, and accepted by, Haddon-Cave demonstrated how the adverse effects of RAF policy (not MoD) to curtail spending on maintaining airworthiness was progressive. The problem I have is that he ignored the known start date and inexplicably set his own – 1998. That start date is not something I made up – it is contained in the evidence presented to an inquiry which reported direct to PUS. This evidence was first collated in 1994 and later published in 1996. The report made the point that one Fast Jet project had largely escaped the failings, emphasising what many here say – that it is people who are most important in this. There is another, more detailed reason why RW suffered more, and more quickly, than RAF FJ; but I won’t bother you with detail.
Your 2 Star sounds a sensible man. Most I know are. He cannot be the same as mine at that time – a man who told anyone who would listen that he was fed up with engineers spending money on airworthiness. You will appreciate the structure of MoD means that it only took that one man’s attitude to adversely affect his entire equipment range. Even if the aircraft that used his equipment managed airworthiness well (as you say, many did) the affects of the equipment not being maintained would, over time, creep up on them. I know from experience that aircraft offices do not necessarily get into the detail of ensuring all the equipment is up to scratch, especially when it is common to other types. Platform offices depend on equipment offices to do their job, and assume they will. Likewise, equipment offices (at the time) depended on component offices. MoD runs on such dependencies. For example, the Chinook office clearly didn’t understand the background to the multiple equipment faults and defects noted by the BoI and I would not have expected them to. They relied on my 2 Star. He let them down.
If I asked if you were content that something simple like the RIMs for your Fast Jet’s avionic equipment were valid and up to date I’m sure you wouldn’t know. Your cunning Plan of 1990 would tell you that was a dependency and you relied on (my boss) who, unknown to you, was actively chopping our funding. In 1990-94, I’d say with 100% certainty that they were gradually going out of date. That meant your Safety Case was being progressively invalidated and your RTS audit trail was evaporating. That doesn’t mean you had immediate problems, but I can assure you they crept up on your successors. This happened to some more quickly than others. That it hit Chinook in 1993 is not merely my opinion – it is clearly stated in the evidence of the BoI Report and Boscombe correspondence of the day. But they (the BoI) didn’t explore the problems; perhaps because they didn’t understand the information in front of them.
Sometimes the “hit” wasn’t serious and was taken as a gentle warning. When it hit Lynx the “only” problem was aircrew with short term breathing difficulties (something your opposite number on Lynx took very seriously, but my boss dismissed with “Let them ground the fleet if they want, I’m not paying to fix a (critical) safety problem this year”. I ignored him and made safe – the people aspect I mentioned. On other occasions, the “hit” manifested itself as a catastrophic loss, such as Hercules and Nimrod. But, sooner or later, it hit everyone; to a greater or lesser degree. That is beyond any doubt. And that is what the Haddon-Cave report is all about and why a pan-MoD Military Aviation Authority was established, not a Nimrod MAA.