Decision to axe Harrier is "bonkers".

[WE Branch Fanatic]

S41

The cost of maintaining a fleet has two elements:

- Variable cost based on the number of aircraft, aircrews, amount of flying, number of bases (including CVS)

- Fixed cost based on the cost of support (design, commercial, training, tactics, certification and engineering), and at least one base, at least one simulator

The cost per flight hour is the (Variable cost + Fixed Cost) / (Total Number of hours per year).

You can drive down the variable costs by reducing numbers and flying hours, but the Fixed costs remain, um, fixed. So if you were to cut Harriers one airframe at a time, the most expensive one would be the last one, because Fixed costs are an increasingly large percentage of the overall cost.

I don't mean to be a clever dick, but since the support contracts that were signed contained cancellation clauses the fixed cost will never be zero, so dividing this non zero figure by zero gives an infinite cost. Is cost per flying hour the most useful measure?

Also, I wonder if the fixed costs are as fixed as they might appear...

Engineering Support: Apart from the fact less aircraft need less maintenance, would BAES and RR charge the same to support a smaller number of aircraft? Ignoring the cancellation fees, I would imagine that the costs of say an avionics upgrade consists of the non recurrent engineering costs (design, development etc) and the cost per aircraft. Given a reduced role, would as much support be needed anyway? Therefore - money is saved.

Bases: The proposal to use Reservists to support Harrier (remember this was suggested elsewhere) included the idea of moving to Yeovilton, therefore the base closures are unaffected (and Yeovilton already exists). Therefore - money is saved.

Simulator: Assuming that it isn't possible to move the simulator, can it be retained in its current location, kept as a MOD owned enclave? This has been done on other MOD sites? Could Spanish or Italian simulators be used? What proportion of simulator costs are down to people? Ex WAFU Reservists are used as simulator instructors at Yeovilton and Culdrose, could they be employed for this? If so then - money is saved.

I have no knowledge of what proposals or representations have been, or will be, made to the defence board. However, the retention of Illustrious until 2014 suggests that some lobbying has taken place, and this is a time for thinking outside of the box if we want to reduce the risk of a strategic shock this decade and to retain basic competence in fixed wing flying at sea.