Pobjoy
The biggest problem is that those at the top of the RAF have very little internal glider maintenance knowlage to turn to and only one supplier of glider CAMO services.
It matters not who you get to fix the gliders when you need to fly them the people who have to sign off the final release to service are the same people who had the rug pulled out from under them by the MAA for maintenance failures.
About a year back these people's support contract ran out and they have been on three month renewals and very recently have had the support contract renewed for a year, it follows that the support contract is up for grabs in a year.
If another company gets the glider recovery contract we are going to see a conflict of interest ? It would be in the CAMO,s interest to make as much trouble for the recovery company in terms of rejecting work on the smallest of grounds and being generally obstructive to prove that the other main player in the game is not fit to run the support contract.
This support contract is a long one and is the big prize in a commercial sence, the MoD will have to be very astute in who they chose, I expect to see the gloves come off in the new year when the support contract bidding starts for real.
If the inter company mud slinging starts losers in this will be the air cadets who's flying curtailed and the tax payer who is not getting the flying they have paid for, the RAF need to be on top of this situation.
My advice to any high ranking officer who has this crock of poo land in his lap would be to get a few reliable members of the RAF GSA to help bring a little specialist advice to the table and safeguard the interests of the people in this who really matter.......... The cadets !