Are you missing a Tristar?

[Samuel]

Was that an RAF Tristar at Whenuapai yesterday, carrying Michael Hague and the UK CDS and about 50 or so shoe-polishers?

[fergineer]

Wonder how long it will be there? Could go up see if anyone on board knows me.

[D120A]

Samuel, would that be Kiwi shoe polish?:ok:

[Union Jack]

Are you missing a Tristar?

Samuel - And are you extracting the Michael from our Willie?:D

Jack

[Samuel]

Samuel - And are you extracting the Michael from our Willie?



Sorry, it's William ! Perhaps I'm surprised at not one but two Ministers of the Crown managing to find their way down here. Perhaps they've all been a bit embarrassed...perhaps they want to be our bestest friends again after dumping us in 1975!:hmm:

Fergineer. It's or rather they, are only here for 30 hours.

Samuel, would that be Kiwi shoe polish?

Is there any other?:D

[fergineer]

Thanks for that Samuel. Pity I didnt know earlier but thats the way it goes.

[Dan Winterland]

Cherry blossom!

[Samuel]

Thanks for that Samuel. Pity I didnt know earlier but thats the way it goes.

I'm not at all sure it was a Tristar, I only saw a very large engine with lots of blokes in front saluting, and as some of them were RAF...I assumed it was a Tristar. It could have been an RNZAF 757, but as the party in question had flown in from Australia I presume it was on their own aircraft...unless the UK Government had asked us very nicely. They'll be taking boatloads of wine back with them I suppose, Ian Botham took a container full last time he was here!

[Samuel]

No more than yer average 10-year-old I suppose:ok:

[Samuel]

That would be a ten year old who can tell the difference between between a L-1011 and a B757. Do you need clues ?



No thank you. I suspect I have a few [more]. I wasn't at the airfield in question, didn't see the aircraft land , and it wasn't shown on any news item, but yes, I can tell the difference.

[Arty Fufkin]

I can assure you that unless the airfield you refer to is code for Brize, Akrotiri or Kandahar, ..........It was NOT a Tristar.

Global AT, my ar..e!

[Pontius Navigator]

Why when I see a particular ppruner's name to I think of a tin of sweet corn?

It is as good as imagining an interview with no clothes on.

[Unchecked]

To answer the original question,

Yes, I am very much missing a tristar, and have been for 3 days now.:ugh::*

[Jimlad1]

"Are you missing a Tristar? "

Thank heavens you asked - I am indeed missing a Tristar - his name is Archibald, and he is a light grey colour, and enjoys long walks and eating snack food. He's not house trained though...

If you seem him could you let me know and I'll lock him back in the house again...

[cessnapete]

Soon will be apparently! The hot rumour at Cambridge is that the glass cockpit upgrade aircraft, still not in service, is to be scrapped for spares.
After 2+ years and a few £millions at Marshalls it will not be a suitable 'one off' to fit into operations. No sim or training aids, dedicated crew required as cockpit differences preclude two typing, and spares/ maintenance issues.
Any further conversions would be delivered later than the A330 AirTanker which is to replace it.

[Roadster280]

Soon will be, a mate at Brize tells me the glass cockpit upgrade aircraft, still not in service, is to be scrapped for spares.

You ARE joking, right?

If not, then MOD(PE) (or whatever it's called this week), the relevant contractor's staff, the relevant RAF staff, and the relevant Treasury staff need to be clapped in irons for a long time. Pour encourager les autres.

Between the Chinook HC3, the Nimrod MRA4 and now the Tristar, a lot of money has been literally pi$$ed away with nothing to show for it, save a pile of scrap and some 10 year old "new" Chinooks".

While checking the delivery date for the HC3s, I noticed there's a program to put glass cockpits in all existing Chinooks. So for the HC3, they will have had a glass cockpit ripped out for extraordinary reasons, an analog one retrofitted, which 5 minutes later gets ripped out for a glass one?

The UK has the third highest world defence budget, and it is not at all surprising, though not in a good way. Perhaps the officials dealing with these contracts need to be put on some kind of performance related pay so that when they screw it up, it hurts them. Should they do a sterling job, they perhaps ought to be motivated accordingly. And if they REALLY screw it up, such that billions of pounds of equipment has to be reduced to scrap, they should become acquainted with Wormwood Scrubs.

If the RAF is so short of AT (as opposed to tankers), what's wrong with buying a shedload of 767s out of the desert, putting them through their D checks that sent them there in the first place, and a job lot of grey paint. Total cost, slightly less than that of a glass cockpit. No shortage of 767 trained crews or engineers. If one breaks, bin it and buy another. The RAF did exactly that with the F4-Js, and everyone was happy with that.

Thread drift I know, but if this story is true, it is ridiculous.

[LookingNorth]

If the RAF is so short of AT (as opposed to tankers), what's wrong with buying a shedload of 767s out of the desert, putting them through their D checks that sent them there in the first place, and a job lot of grey paint. Total cost, slightly less than that of a glass cockpit. No shortage of 767 trained crews or engineers. If one breaks, bin it and buy another.

My dear chap, such breathtaking ignorance of the Operational Requirement!

The 767 will no doubt cruise 5 knots slower (or faster) than the Requirement; the shade of paint in the cockpit will not be that of the Requirement; the glossiness of the black used on the pipes in the undercarriage bays will be too glossy; and so on.

What point is there in having an elaborately staffed and funded OR and procurement dept if you are suggesting they could all be made redundant by simply buying kit that does more or less exactly what you want it to do without 15 years of fannying about having lunch at Warton, Cambridge, Toulouse, etc.? Would you deny these fine men and women these lunches? Would you deny them their post-RAF career moves into defence equipment sales to, er, their own successors? What kind of cruel and heartless individual are you?

[dallas]

Roadster and LookingNorth :D

Nail - head - hit

If only Defence was looked at with defence actually in mind we'd do a lot better, but that won't happen until [insert unplanned aggressor]'s forces threaten us directly; whereupon it'll be too late. In the mean time Defence means contracts, lunches, backslapping, photo opps, regional jobs, shareholders.....late kit, cost over-runs, expensive outdated rubbish, contradictions, glacial change and our old friend vast needless waste.

We won't get it until we get beat. But that won't happen cos we're British, right?

[F3sRBest]

dallas,

SO you have personal experience of all of those do you? Let's hear it then! Only sensible thing you said in there was regional jobs and shareholders!

[Jabba_TG12]

Roadster...

"You ARE joking, right?"

The thing is, after all this time, after all the things we have seen happen over the last few years, nothing, but absolutely nothing would surprise most of the contributors to this forum any more. This is but one of them. It really would not surprise me in the slightest if Cessnapete is accurate on this.

"If not, then MOD(PE) (or whatever it's called this week), the relevant contractor's staff, the relevant RAF staff, and the relevant Treasury staff need to be clapped in irons for a long time. Pour encourager les autres."

Not to mention, oh, I dunno, about another 3000 offences to be taken into consideration when it comes to sentencing.

It'd probably take the melting down of one of the carriers to provide all the irons necessary to clap said legs into for a long time without adversely affecting the global price of scrap metal.... :E

Looking North:

Exquisitely put. :ok:

[dallas]

SO you have personal experience of all of those do you? Let's hear it then! Only sensible thing you said in there was regional jobs and shareholders!
Oh God yes, 22+ years of being on the receiving end of the resultant expensive mediocre kit. The rest is in Defence News and the history books. I gather you disagree.

[F3sRBest]

Dallas,

Perhaps my tone was a bit harsh for which I aopologise. Whilst I don't disagree with the sentiment of what you posted

In the mean time Defence means contracts, lunches, backslapping, photo opps, regional jobs, shareholders.....late kit, cost over-runs, expensive outdated rubbish, contradictions, glacial change and our old friend vast needless waste

There is an implicit assertion that this is all the big bad wolf Defence Industry's fault/issue.

In my experience the MoD/RAF has to take it very fair share of the blame in all these issues. and I don't now and never have seen much back slapping or lunches (unless you count a butty whilst on the job!) where I sit/have sat. :)

[dallas]

Apology accepted. I don't blame industry very much at all - they're there to make money - I do get annoyed with the politicos and their shifty motives, as well as elements of the MoD for whom it seems to be one extreme or the other: short-termism or 'it'll never come to fruition on my watch so i'll just play along' - which often results in poor value for money, and the MoD stumbling into the same old bear traps along the way.

[billynospares]

Whilst not being able to say to much, I can say that i have heard from a very reliable source that the upgraded Tristar will never fly again :ugh:

[LookingNorth]

One of those lunches was obviously so spectacularly good that somebody forgot to put "must be able to take off" in the specification. Easily done.