Originally Posted by
POBJOY
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This facility/operation MUST be back in order by 2016 Period.
AFAIK there are over 100 Vikings (pure gliders), which is an awful lot of gliders. G-INFO lists 74 K21s, 98 K13s, 29 G103s and 28 Puchatz. There are a few other gliders used for training - the odd DG505, DG1000, Duo, a few other types - but these 229 are the bulk of the civilian training fleet. Maybe the whole civilian training fleet is ~250 gliders.
In that context the cadets have a massive fleet - maybe 1/3 of the civilian fleet. The supply of skilled people who can do and sign off an annual check on a G-reg glider (e.g. BGA inspectors) more or less matches the demand, so finding spare people to check etc. 100+ gliders in 6 months (by May 2016) is not going to happen.
They might all be done in 2 years IF whoever is doing the checking can average 1 per week. However where issues other than paperwork that need addressing that airframe will take longer, and if they start needing lots of parts that could be the wrong sort of 'entertaining'.
I reckon 4 years to get every single Viking either airworthy, though I also think it possible some will get condemned if those airframes have a lot of undocumented repairs.
In that light I also think it possible the ATC gliding will reshape what it does to offer less gliding per cadet. BGA clubs could take up some of the gliding, but if the ATC insist on Full Cat instructors (as the one we are talking to has) that will make it very hard for much gliding to be provided.