Originally Posted by
Engines
I'll contribute here, but I guess I'm saying what many reading this thread are thinking. If HQAC were so risk averse, what were they doing with their own fleet of aircraft as they deteriorated into a non-airworthy condition? If they were so risk averse, why were they flying civilian schoolchildren in non-airworthy aircraft?
And if the answer to those two questions is 'they didn't know that their aircraft were non-airworthy', that just makes matters worse. Where were HQAC's 'standards'? Who was setting them? Who was doing the monitoring? To repeat - this is another major airworthiness scandal for the RAF, and it's high time it was properly (and publicly) investigated. All that's happened so far is a nice cosy internal admin process to jump over a few MAA hoops and a long drawn out (and no doubt costly) rectification programme.
Best Regards as ever to all those now having to fix the issues
Engines
Engines, I totally agree with every bit of what you have said.
The GRP Grob fleet was purchased in the days of HQAC having full control over the fleet and essentially the post holder of Wg Cdr Logs appeared to be responsible for the Eng side of the fleet as far as I recall. Any Eng Audit visits to VGS units was undertaken by an NCO under his command. From my recollections, if the paper audit on F 700's and any other Eng problems wasn't completed by lunchtime latest, then it would have been unusual ! Cursory would have been a good description.
It was only in much later and more recent times that the Fleet and all VGS units came under the command of what is now 2 FTS as a part of 22 Group, and the appointment of a Full time J Reserve post Group Captain. Whilst they didn't turn the ship round, with any "superior" knowledge ( because they didn't have any !) they just happened to be the hapless crew holding the already screwed up Duty Holder ticket at the material time when MAA found them in the toilet with their trousers down.
Therefore, from a simplistic viewpoint, as the deplorable state of affairs started in the days of HQAC having command and control of VGS Units including the Aircraft assets, then simply the people who should be in the dock are the various Wg Cdrs and Commandants HQAC covering all periods from the inception of the Grob Fleet.
In fairness to them, the procurement brought into the RAF a type of aircraft hitherto unknown, i.e., GRP, and there were NO technician trades and/or people with ANY knowledge of structural repair and routine maintenance. Add to that, the paucity of Engines trade personnel experienced in light piston engine maintenance, plus low level supervision of the central maintenance workshops at RAF ACCGS Syerston by a JENGO of limited background, and you start to see how they got into the complete utter mess that they did.
I suppose one could argue that when introducing a "new" type of aircraft - i.e., a new GRP fleet, the more senior ranks should have reasonably foreseen that the expertise was simply just not there within the HQAC structure, nor anywhere else for that matter.
Where does that leave us ? No Inquiry into the negligence whatsoever. all cracks papered over, lots of taxpayer money spent, and the result will be a fraction of what was in existence before. Additionally of course, on paper, myself and many others like me, have probably been risking our own lives and those of our young innocent civilian children simply because the parent service failed miserably in their duty of care in every possible sense of the word.