To all PPruners reading this thread:
May I urge you all to take a look at the book that Tuc mentioned in his previous post - it's required reading for anyone who wants to understand just how far off track the MoD has been as far as airworthiness is concerned. Profits from sales also go to a damn fine charity (MSF).
Tuc's point about poor practice going unnoticed is, as he so correctly says, a damnable lie. The poor practice has happened and is still happening at many levels, from various MoD departments down to the front line, and this has been admitted following a series of reviews going back to the early 90s right through to 2011. Now we've got another 'occurrence' dated somewhere between 1995 and 2014.
If I might, I'd like to try to briefly explain what Tuc is so bothered about (as well as Chug), and why they post about this stuff so repeatedly. It's this - the systems for producing airworthy (and hence safe) and operationally suitable aircraft, especially in the RAF, went badly off track in the late 1980s, mainly due to massive cuts in admin and support budgets. These have led directly (read the book and you'll see what I mean) to accidents. And loss of life. Avoidable loss of life.
Haddon-Cave identified the symptoms, but got the root causes wrong because he was fed a series of lies, including about when the cuts happened. These lies were designed to protect senior officers and civil servants. As a direct result, the solutions Haddon-Cave came up with were aimed at the wrong target - organisation and regulations. Yes, by 2008 the regs were in a mess, and yes, the lines of accountability had got badly tangled. But they weren't the core problem. Nor were the people he publicly fingered the real culprits.
The real problem was that existing, perfectly good mandated regulations weren't being followed. The real culprits were the people who had made conscious decisions not to do so.
Why bother with this stuff on the 'Air Cadets grounded' thread? Because what has happened to the ATC fleet is just another manifestation of the core problem - MoD and the RAF still aren't doing 'airworthiness' correctly. The Hawk XX179 fatality proved it (again) and the ATC glider scandal is just another ''data point' on a VERY ugly graph.
What to do? Here's my starters for ten (hat tip to Tuc for most of this).Restore the key features of the airworthiness management systems that used to work - such as Modification Committees staffed with technically qualified people, Configuration Control Boards that actually control configuration. Make Critical Design Reviews actually critically review the design. Restore proper 555 acceptance conferences. Reintroduce 'Requirements Scrutiny', using people who know how to do it. Introduce proper technical oversight of MoD projects to avoid some of the nonsenses happening right now in a PT near you.
But most of all, read the book - it's a cracker.
Best Regards as ever to all those who want to sort this lot out,
Engines
Last edited by Engines; 2nd Aug 2016 at 19:46.