Some good points Jimlad1/Mach Two, however:
1. A Merlin flight (for example) operating from a Type 23 has considerably less people than a flown blown Merlin Squadron. Although some of this is down them having a parent squadron (829 NAS) there is a certain amount of having
x people per aircraft. I do not follow the argument that says that operating a single aircraft needs almost as many as a whole squadron does.
2. Civilian operators safely operate military aircraft with relatively small numbers of maintainers. Some of them (such as Hawker Hunter Aviation, or Serco who operate the FRADU Hawks) even operate aircraft that are on the military register. Some of them safely operate aircraft that have been out of production and out of service for the best part of two decades or longer. Why can't we do the same, with a
small number of very experienced and highly skilled Engineers and Pilots to maintain a full time core of expertise?
3. With pretty much any type of operation, be it maintaining aircraft or anything else (a manufacturing operation perhaps?), as the number of assets increases there is an increased need for management and supervision - maintaining eight aircraft (or running eight manufacturing operations) requires more than four times the number of personnel than just two does. The relationship is
non linear. Perhaps civilian operators operating a handful of jets, and the Merlin/Lynx flight operating from a frigate, deal with a limited number of assets and people, and this reduces the need for management and supervision. In the case of the former, employing (only) very experienced people must help.
4. A small number of full time people would be required for the RNR/Shar idea to work - but so what? Attaching them to NFSF(FW) would help with infrastructure and organisation. See point 2. Nobody has ever pretended that Reservists could run a squadron at high readiness, the point would be to maintain something which could be expanded if needed.
5. Reservists can and do train other reservists (and regular personnel too) - presumably other ex RN folks will be joining the air branch this decade, including ex Shar/Harrier bods. I would suggest that they could be used intelligently, in the same way other Reservists are heavily involved in supporting certain exercises.
6. The Indian Navy continues to operate the Sea Harrier, additionally Thailand operates a small number of AV-8As. Spares continue to be produced for the Harrier 1 airframe, both by BAE Systems and under licence, and exported. Additionally gate guardian and museum aircraft could be robbed.
7. On the Sea Vixen link I posted in my previous post, you may have noticed the following quote:
XP924 remains fully serviceable here at her home in Bournemouth and is maintained to CAA requirements, including the necessary 'ground run' and 'taxi' activities carried out on a regular basis.
Can anyone think of Sea Harriers that are powered up and taxied? How about the ones at the Dummy Deck at Culdrose?
8. The Sea Harrier was binned by the previous Government, the GR9 by this one. The political embarrassment of a limited Sea Harrier regeneration will be less, in fact it could be an opportunity to appear to be doing something other than inflicting cuts. I remember that during the early stages of the NATO intervention in Libya, when it was still officially enforcing a no fly zone, the Chief of the Air Staff was being interviewed by a news presenter, and was asked about the Harrier question. He replied that since we did not have Sea Harrier a carrier would only have limited value.
He said a similar thing to the
Defence Commitee:
Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton: The other thing to bear in mind on that point is, what was the requirement? The requirement was to establish a no-fly zone over Libya. With all the wishing in the world, the Harrier could not have done that. It doesn’t have a radar. We haven’t operated a Sea Harrier for many years.
9. In a crisis all sorts of things become possible - particularly if the Government sense that their neck is on the line. Even more things might be possible if you planned them first. The MOD is meant to be about dealing with crises surely?
10. As an organisation, how agile is the Ministry of Defence and the UK defence establishment? Is the refusal to study the lessons from Libya until the next defence review a good one? Could lessons be learnt from the private sector? Does the current system make use of things such as the OODA decision making loop or the continuous improvement cycle? What would the late Sir John Harvey Jones
say?
11. A year ago the Arab spring and the intervention in Libya were unforeseen. What surprises does 2012 and the rest of the decade have in store?
12. Is it true that DE&S has had an underspend for the last few years?
Phosgene
Errr... urban myth?
Navaleye
HMG does not learn lessons. Ever!