VC10 Question

[Skipness One Echo]

Can anyone confirm whether the two expected VC10 K4 retirals have taken place and if the aircraft are indeed parked up at St Athan?

[forget]

I happened to be in Cardiff last Friday and a VC-10 was setting up for an approach somewhere to the west. Are you telling me I was, possibly, watching its last flight!

[Skipness One Echo]

Possibly. Two of the ex BA 'K4s are being stripped for spares to keep the rest of the fleet serviceable. They should have been delivered to St Athan but I am looking for confirmation.

Anyone?

[Truck2005]

Yup, 2 K4s are due retirement, (doesn't sound so harsh). 1 has already gone and another will start in the next few months. One C1K is just about to start.

It has been very busy with the aircraft type just recently but I think you probably saw the C1K on Friday. (Although the 10s do practise ILS and overshoots at Cardiff from time to time).

[Roguedent]

It was the C1K on Friday, shame to lose an aircraft with not that may hours on, but I suppose the powers that be think it will have the most serviceable spares...ha....On the plus side, one less C1K, means one less to go the southern Iraqi holiday camp..:{ :{

[MrBernoulli]

VC10 retirements proceeding apace ....... and still no tanker/transport replacement confirmed. The incompetents at the top still have the reins , then?

[Engineer]

MrBernoulli

Have you forgotten the military formula

Rank attained is directly proportional to the level of incompetence

edited with the help of jindabyne :{

[jindabyne]

For heaven's sake Engineer - incompetence, are you incompetent, or what?

[speeddial]

Calling BEagle...what is the latest on the tanker replacement?

[BEagle]

The Future Large Aircraft (FLA) was originally supposed to replace all the RAF’s large a/c. That proved unfeasible, so the tanker/transport requirement became Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) and another fight arose between A400M and C130J as the Future Transport Aircraft (FTA). FSTA then became a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) project; the preferred platform became the A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) rather than the B767 offered by the rival TTSC. Meanwhile, A400M which had been the FLA was given the go-ahead to be the FTA; however, to fill the gap, a Short Term Strategic Airlifter, STSA, was needed and that became a fight between the An124 and the C-17. The RAF decided upon leased C-17s as STSA to fill the gap before FTA became reality; however, the C-17s will now be bought and the STSA will become another FTA, but not the sole FTA as that will still be the A400M. Which, of course had once been FLA and rejected as FSTA. Nevertheless, the Common Standard Aircraft (CSA) A400M does have a requirement to have an AAR role, but not as a strategic tanker as that will be the job of the FSTA, presumably the A330 MRTT – which also has immense AT capability as well as its AAR capability but is seemingly not considered to be a FTA even though it would be.... Although there is, of course, the A310 MRTT in service with other countries but not offered by any of the FSTA bidders even though it had been studied under an earlier project by MoD Department of Future Systems (DFS) as it then was when a Multi Role Tanker Transport rather than a Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft was under consideration.

So:

C-17 which was the STSA but wasn't an FSTA will be an FTA.
A400M which was FLA, then rejected as FSTA will become the 'official' FTA.
A330 MRTT will probably be the FSTA under PFI but not a FTA .


But WTF is currently going on with FSTA I have no idea. Ask DPA...

Except that the price seems to keep going up...

[Data-Lynx]

Beags. Do you find it scary that you understand the Sir Humphrey monologues in Yes Minister? Thanks for the precis and don't ask DPA. Just crawled out of a meeting for a different project where the contractor proposed to modify the CONUSE document because, while it stated the original user requirement, it did not reflect the compromise in cost and content that was about to be delivered. Bother.

[MrBernoulli]

W-I-B-B-L-E!!!!!!!

Shee-it Mr. Sherrif! Ah ain't sure ah unda-sturd eeny ov thayt!

[Zoom]

That's all well and good, BEagle, but what the $&#* is a TTSC?

[Duncan McCoughina]

Indeed, the first of the K4s (z***0) has completed the spares recovery part of the exercise and is now considered a 'hulk'. It is a very sad sight to see it's skeletal remains at St Athan.

A C1K (*v**9) has been moved the the same 'Vet's Table' where it too waits to be put down.

As for the final process which turns the hulk into smaller manageable (road transportable) pieces, we wait and see.

Dunc

[Art Field]

Zoom,

TTSC was Tanker and Transport Service Corporation, set up as the other contender for the FSTA contract. It was a combine of BAE, Boeing, SERCO and a finance company and offered B767s as the aircraft. They lost out as preffered bidders but I think they might have been the lucky ones.

The initial Invitation to Tender was a hotchpotch mixture of requirements. It was difficult to decide whether, in spite of the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft title, the requirement was for a Tanker which Trucked or a Truck which Tanked or even a Bucket and Spader which could be spared for the RAF. The AAR requirement was laid out totally differently from the transport requirement and it was obvious that nobody had tried to co-ordinate the two. The world has changed a lot since 2001 and I suspect the FSTA requirement has too further delaying the decision.

[BEagle]

How much did the K4 fleet cost?

And for how many years did they serve?

Which makes a cost of how many mi££ion per annum?

I remember collecting ZD230 from Filton. 15 Dec 1994 - we had fish and chips in the canteen whilst they fixed a minor leak.

Did the taxpayer really get his money's worth? At least we got a cheap lunch out of it!

[Zoom]

Thank you, BEagle and Art. I've learnt more on this subject from your 2 posts than in pages of stuff elsewhere.

[brit bus driver]

Ball park figures, but I believe we could have had an A310 MRTT for the price of the K4 in the mid-90s. but what good would that have been. It only has 200 seats. It only burns 4 tonnes an hour. It only carries approx 73 tonnes of gas - some similarity to the K4 then!

:ok:

[BEagle]

You forgot to mention that the A310 is also a true wide-body with the same fuselage cross-section as an A330!

4 tonne per hour is a bit optimistic in the AAR role with both hoses trailed down in the low 20s. We reckon on about 90 kg/min. Which is a tad pessimistic.

How do the various multi-hose tankers compare? Ballpark available offload figures for 90 minutes on an AARA 1 hr from the tanker base, landing with the equivalent of an hour's fuel to tanks dry:

VC10K3: 47.3 tonne
VC10K4 or C1K: 36.3 tonne
A310MRTT: 47.0 tonne
B767 (as offered by TTSC): 48.7 tonne
A330MRTT (as offered by AirTanker): 84.0 tonne
A400M with 2 cargo bay tanks: 41.0 tonne


And just for you, Arters:

Victor K2: 33.9 tonne

[Dan Winterland]

WRTO the Victor K2 figure, I think your ball park is the wrong size. A quick check of my Victor K2 'Howgozit' (yes, I kept it - sad I know!) shows that a three and a half hour sortie landing with typical min fuel of 11K (no self respecting Victor pilot would ever land with as much as a hour's worth) gives an offload of 26K (11.8T) at the max peacetime take off fuel load of 109K and an offload of 40K (18T) at the wartime 123K limit.

This expalins why Victor sorties were so short, unless we did some AAR which was often.

[BEagle]

Thanks Dan - that'll teach me to listen to a navigator :bored:

Just shows how inadequate the Victor was as a tanker.

[Art Field]

Dan,

I am loath to rush in re your figures for the Victor2, my howgozit was cut up for bits of flat plastic many years ago, but I am sure we were able to do better than 26k for a 1.5 hr task, about 40k maybe? Might stop Beags being quite so insulting.

[jindabyne]

Chaps,

OK, hear what you say about the Victor, but at the time it served us well. Over the Iceland/ Faroes gap the damn thing was always there, in the right place, at the right time, and got us home. Don't care what it's K offload was - did the job. Not perhaps good enough today, but it was then.

[BEagle]

Sorry Arters - that was deliberate fishing! I'd hoped you would challenge the figures!

The Victor acquitted itself well during the Cold War and it was the only because of the AAR force that the UK AD force had any real credibility.

The Victor force also did an astounding job during the Malvinas war - without them the Vulcan could never have done what it did. And augmentation of the Harrier force could never have taken place without the Victors.

The figures I was given assumed 123K (55.9 tonne) max fuel. The flight time (1 hour each way, 1.5 on the AARA, land with 1 hour to empty) corresponds to 4.5 x av burn. So, if my 33.9 tonne was correct, then the av. burn would have to be (55.9-33.9)/4.5 = 4.89 tonne per hour. Or 10.75K per hour.

So what was the average hourly burn?

[Dan Winterland]

Oops, sorry chaps, I misled you. A more accurate check shows that an offload of 46k (20.9T) for a max peacetime load of 109k. I think I misread the weight scale dividing the scale by 2, but it is 16 years since I last used the 'howgozit' so perhaps I could be let off just this once

I tried to scan the plot to post it here, but the scanner light reflects off the shiny plastic making it unreadable.

A quick logbook check shows a JMC sortie in 1990 with an offload of 42K for 3 hours 40 minutes. I seem to remember we thought about diverting into Waddington on the way back to Marham as the fuel was getting low, so this is a representative sortie.

The average burn seems to be about 11K from the 'howgozit'.

Perhaps I should say sorry to the old Girl as well. A great aeroplane :ok:

[The Helpful Stacker]

...during the Malvinas war

Errr, slightly insulting to those who died keeping the Falkland Islands (their internationally recognised name) British.



:mad:

[Art Field]

Hidden in a Flight International article about the provision of PFI style flying training for the RAF is a comment that the FSTA contract is held up as Air Tanker try to obtain 2.5 Billion private finance. Best dip into your pockets chaps.

[West Coast]

"during the Malvinas war"

I thought to myself, why can Beag's use that term yet when I do I 'm labled as a Brit hater.

then:


"slightly insulting to those who died keeping the Falkland Islands"

Looks like Beag's will have to take his lumps as well. I grew up knowing the islands as the Malvinas. I guess we're not all Euro-centric. That said, the battle for the Malvinas was proper for the Brits to fight.

[Safety_Helmut]

Art

The subject of financing FSTA came up a couple of times at ESAS 05 at AW recently. I got the impression the financial backers are quite concerned with the risks invoved in this programme.

Safety_Helmut

[The Helpful Stacker]

The Falkland Islands have always been known as such (since the Spanish left them anyway), the UN have recognised them as so and recently the EU ratified their position as a British Overseas Protectorate. Its only the Argentinians with their mis-founded claim on the islands that insist on calling them 'La Malvinas'. A claim based on the fact their country rose from the ashes of the former Spanish empire, which ignores the historical evidence that places British sovereignty on the islands during the Spanish occupation of the lands now known as Argentina.

Obviously though, being as the US has a long history of trying to 'influence' South American countries it wouldn't surprise me if the text books you grew up reading were a little sympathetic to the Argentinians.

BTW West Coast this isn't a pop at the US or US policy, just trying to rationalise why you would have grown up with that belief.

[BEagle]

The place is referred to as 'Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)' in the CIA Factbook, amongst other publications.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fk.html

And as an 'overseas territory of the UK; also claimed by Argentina'. Which is fact, not emotion. Argentina, which claims the islands in its constitution and briefly occupied the islands by force in 1982, agreed in 1995 no longer to seek settlement by force. The UK continues to reject Argentine requests for sovereignty talks.

A widely held view is that the dispute began in 1833, when British military forces invaded and occupied the Islands by force, expelling the original Argentine authorities and inhabitants. Since then, it is held, Argentina has never consented to that violation of what she considers to be her territorial integrity. In an age when colonialism is being eliminated and mutual respect between nations being consolidated, the question of why the United Kingdom persists in maintaining its occupation of the Falklands/Malvinas in detriment to its relations with a friendly State must be answered by diplomacy, not by bigoted jingoism.

Of course no disrespect is intended to those of either side who fell in 1982. All of whom shall be remembered tomorrow at 1100 UK time.

The ruling junta in Argentina attempted in 1982 to divert the attention of its subjects from serious internal issues by attempting to rally the nation to the cause of so-called liberation. They failed on both counts.

Back to FSTA - hardly surprising that the risk is a worry. Not the A330 air platform, of course, as that programme is already under way for Australia. But more the weird Public-Private Partnership which MoD hopes for...

One thing is for sure. Whereas the US has a large fleet of KC10s and upgraded 135Rs which can keep going for decades - and hence doesn't really need the KC767 or KC30 just yet - the RAF's ancient VC10s and slightly less ancient TriStars will have to be replaced within a very few years indeed.

It was once quoted that the absolute minimum time from MoD saying "Want that one" to getting the first one in service would be 4 years. So an ISD (50% fleet in service) of even 2010 is looking pretty dubious.

But heck, by then it'll be someone else's problem as all the current players will have moved on.......:rolleyes:

[West Coast]

"it wouldn't surprise me if the text books you grew up reading were a little sympathetic to the Argentinians"

No, they were simply called the Malvinas with no bias shown one way or another. Twenty miles to the south of me and for another odd thousand and a half miles or so the predominant language in Spanish. Spanish will be spoken in the house today between my wife and myself so my daughter doesn't know what we are saying. She is already learning it, so that tact has a finite life. I live in a Spanish style house in a Spanish named town and going to have enchiladas for dinner (honest) I may even have a Corona with dinner. The influences here are huge. Because of this I learned it as the Malvinas, not because there is some bias towards the argies and against the Brits.

[teeteringhead]

Hey Stacker, lighten up a bit!

"Baldrick!! Don't you understand irony??"

"Yessir ......... it's like goldy .... only made of iron......" ;)

[Dan Winterland]

A factoid: The name 'Malvinas' is a derivation of the name 'Les Maloiennes', the name given to the islands by the first people to sail there - seal hunters from St Malo. Seems the French got there fist and decided not to stay. Sensible chaps!

[BEagle]

A British sailor sailed between the two principal islands in 1690, and called the passage "Falkland Channel" (now Falkland Sound), after Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland (1659-1694), who as Commissioner of the Admiralty had financed the expedition, and who later became First Lord of the Admiralty. From this body of water the island group later took the collective name used by the British.

The first settlement was founded by France in 1764 at Port Louis, on Berkeley Sound on the eastern island. The French name Îles Malouines was given to the islands by early 18th century French mariners from the Breton port of Saint-Malo, "malouin" being the adjective derived from "Malo". The Spanish name Islas Malvinas is derived from the French name.

So - although some passing sailor (who must have been a sycophantic git) named a stretch of water after someone in the Admirality, the first settlers named them the Îles Malouines. In 1766 Spain acquired the French colony on the eastern island and the British also settled the western island. But although Spain took over control in 1767, ownership has been disputed ever since!

The islands were called the 'Sebald Islands' in 1600 by a Dutch explorer; perhaps this would be a better, neutral name than the emotive Malvinas or Falkland names?

Though many of us who've served time there could doubtless offer an alternative selection of names...:(

[MrBernoulli]

Dan Winterland,

How is the 'Harbour' treating you?

With reference to your Victor K2 howgozit, I think you'll find that I gave it to you when you were still at a secret airbase somewhere in Oxfordshire. You told me you had mislaid your original and I had a small supply of new ones (rescued before being consigned to a skip when we were wrapping up the Victor force at Marham). I've still got a couple more somewhere. Unused. Anybody else want one? BEagle?

[Squirrel 41]

Two quick questions if I may:

Does anyone know what the score is with FSTA / PFI-thingy in 2006? Indeed, are we any closer to signing anything that looks remotely like a contract? If so, when may it deliver? :hmm:

And does can anyone (BEADWINDOW understood) tell me whether western probed aricraft could refuel off the UPAZ pods on a Il-78? If not, how are the Indians proposing to use theirs with a mix of eastern and western kit?

Cheers

S41

[BEagle]

That flypast was 11 years almost to the day after I collected ZD230 from Filton on 15 Dec 1994 - the day before the infamous 'Trail from Hell' to Akrotiri, Dhahran, Akrotiri and back to Brize. 6 days just to swap over one in theatre VC10C1K and a couple of Tornados......:rolleyes:

Hardly a particularly good investment for a mere 11 years in service.

[Tim McLelland]

I'm not entirely sure that the USAF's KC-135's are capable of staying active for "decades" as they're by no means spring chickens either!
Our VC10's have been a mixed bunch - the original fleet of transports have been good value for money by anyone's standards, but whether many of the former VC10 airliners were really worth converting (when they were probably better suited to the scrap yard) is open to question.
As for the Victor, it was an excellent aircraft, when one considers what was available at the time, and that they were unlikely to be of much use for anything else, once withdrawn from bomber ops. The same applies to the Valiant which, as we all know, was merely a victim of misuse rather than any design flaw.
These days it's very easy to pluck a widebody off the proverbial shelf and fit it out in just about any role you like (even our beloved MoD seems to be thinking about the notion of hanging stand-off missiles under the 330, on the assumption that an intelligent missile can be hung under pretty much any aircraft that can lift it) but the VC10, Victor and Valiant were the right aircraft at the right time. One wonders if (had there been sufficient HDU's available to equip the VC10 conversions) whether the Vulcan tankers might still have been lumbering around even to this day?!

[Mike Reheat]

Quite new to this forum..., but BEagle's mention earlier in the string..... The Victor acquitted itself well during the Cold War and it was the only because of the AAR force that the UK AD force had any real credibility..... brings back long forgotten memories of Op Dragonflys....,

Last thing on a Friday at an east coast Scottish unit ..., end of a busy week....., usual haar rolling in from the North Sea...., Mk6's all tucked up ...., with the exception of QRA.., hangars all closed down for the week-end..., hand-over to duty week-end staff/ controllers /crews..., ready to wind ones way to HH..., then the call would come in..., and out of the gloom would appear one..., two... three and sometimes more Victors joining, the circuit. Numbers of aircratf would usually reflect the number of Soviets expected through the gap that week-end. Victors...., all looking for ground support and hungry for fuel. Now where did I leave the call out notes....?, anyone know if the brake chute bay has prepositioned chutes....?, and just how much fuel is there in our BFI this week-end? Used to keep us on out toes in those days...., happy memories.

[BEagle]

You mean back when we had a credible foe? Rather than nowadays when that utter ar$e Bliar is hell bent on blowing the UK's defence budget in support of licking GDubya Bush's bum in yet more overseas adventurism?

[Kitsune]

...and as crew on one of the Fat Alberts involved in the Falklands...seeing a Victor at 12 o'clock with the drogue out was a very very beautiful sight ;)

[Mike Reheat]

Yes Kitsune...., I appreciate the feeling...., in the early days enjoyed sharing experience of crew during re-fuel...., sweaty hands all round managed some first rate photos A to A refuels on Albert to Albert and Victor to Albert en route FI out of ASI...., mind you...., this was long before MPA, and numb b*m for all after 19 hours. Re-visited FI last year on the civilian run airbridge..., or thought is was until the movers decided to put the 747 out of business at Fairford...., :mad: but that as they say is another story for another thread sometime.

[Dan Winterland]

I think that subject has already been covered at length!

Mr B, you did give me a howgozit, but that was for the chap who bought the sim and managed to get it up and running better than the RAF ever did even to the point of installing a reasonable visual system. My howgozit was found in a box during a move with my last trip's fuel plan still on it.

How's the new job?

[charliegolf]

Very quick hijack.....

Back in the 80's, I was told a story that (All 4 front end crew?) the crew overlooked the climb power setting at top of climb with the result that the funbus went super.

Surely bollocks? But a great story if true. More likely, it's partly true.

Any thoughts BEags.

CG

[BEagle]

Never heard that one before.

During air tests I was permitted to take the ac to speeds in excess of M0.9. Not possible in level flight and the racket from both IMN warning horns, the air flow noise, buffet and general drama would have woken even the clinically dead old truckie fossils on One-oh-Nothing squadron! Without a doubt.

[charliegolf]

Yeah, too good to be true (like the Puma being barrel-rolled). Ever try it in the sim though?

CG

[sangiovese.]

Ah the .925 run. The mach 1 incident IIRC was the K2 with a Boscombe crew not understanding the speedbrake/spoilers retracting in excess of 350kts (?). The resulting nose down pitch made the ac exceed mach 1, they recovered using the TPI for pitch as the elevator pfcu's had all given up under the airload. Seem to remember they broke a spar in the fin. Think it was the K2 being flight tested before service entry.

[Brain Potter]

The C1K will get to .91 in level flight without much effort. The old C1 without the drag of AAR equipment would happily cruise at such speeds - as long as it was "rigged for silent running" ie Mach Horns isolated - and the crew knew what the high speed buffet bug actually meant. It is just the poor old K's that have to dive a bit to reach airtest limits.

[Dan Winterland]

A B Cal VC10 had an upset in turbulence over the Andes and went supersonic sometime in the late 60s/early 70s.

[D-IFF_ident]

345 Kts?

Anyway, crew a few years ago on air test couldn't get to .925IMN - in shallow dive at LP limiting pwr(?) - the result of the test - both Machmeters were U/S...

[Kitsune]

BEagle, as one of the younger generation of ex fossils I remember galloping down the North Sea at .925 in the Shiny Ten. (The reason for this was an excessively zealous beancounter who had changed our schedules so we always arrived after the allowance period in Gutersloh.......). As soon as they put that horrid looking probe on the front, it was time to FOIFP!;)