Tristar ZD949

[hunty]

Gents


This former RAF jet, which has been parked up at Cambridge for some time was yesterday cut up and has been leaving by the truck load today. :{

[Arty Fufkin]

Ah yes! Glass cockpit upgrade aircraft. How did that go again?

[Onceapilot]

Well... Successful part of a TriStar fleet enhancement that never happened due to the decision to spend £Billions on the FSTA.

OAP

[Onceapilot]

ZD949. Thankyou for all your great service. Tanked from it and gave from it. A truly Great airframe, like all of its type. :D

OAP

[BEagle]

ZD949 fiasco....


October 2006 - Marshall Aerospace is awarded a £22M contract to upgrade the RAF TriStars' avionics and FMS including a 'glass cockpit' as the 'MMR upgrade'. This should have been a relatively low-risk programme as it used elements of the C-130 cockpit upgrade already underway for the RNAF.

November 2007 - ZD949 arrives at Cambridge for the trial installation with a planned completion date of Q3 2008 at which time the second TriStar would begin conversion.

2008 came and went.

2009 came and went.

January 2010 - ZD949 finally makes its first flight with the MMR upgrade.

October 2010 - SDSR indicates that the TriStar will start to leave RAF service in 2013; TriStar MMR programme is to be discontinued.

December 2010 - After 100 hours of flight test, ZD949 finally passes MoD review and is due to be back in service in Spring 2011.

2011 - Due to the change in out-of-service date now planned for the TriStar and with the A330MRTT due in service by the end of the year, ZD949 remains at Cambridge in a pristine state under 'storage' and is to be 'reduced to spares' - a euphemism for being scrapped - as it would be too expensive to convert it back to its original state.

October 2011 - A330MRTT now 'Voyager' fails to meet release to service date; now expected to be 'sometime in January 2012'.

January 2012 - Voyager still not in service.

February 2012 - Voyager still not in service.

March 2013 - Voyager still not providing an AAR service; 3 x VC10 have to stagger on until Sep 2013.

September 2013 - VC10 retired, but Voyager still not providing a complete AAR service.

March 2014 - TriStar retired, but Voyager still not providing a complete AAR service.

May 2014 - ZD949 finally scrapped having never been returned to RAF service during a wasteful, expensive 7 year programme.

...and Voyager still doesn't have a working AAR Mission System.....:rolleyes:

"Hecha en España = No funciona!"

[Onceapilot]

Beagle is correct. The saga reflects badly on the whole FSTA programme IMO.

OAP

[Arty Fufkin]

It went well and it was successful?

My word.

Seems like if it wasn't for those pesky FSTA types, the RAF would be enjoying the services of an upgraded and reliable Tristar fleet, 9 aircraft on the line , good to go and dispatching with great reliability. Can't believe they didn't go for it......

Pretty aeroplane though.

Beagle, I thought I'd read somewhere that the voyager was now cleared as a 3point tanker, doesn't that make it fully AAR capable now?

[Martin the Martian]

Now don't be pessimistic, BEagle.

That timetable would be seen as a roaring success in some parts of the MoD.

[BEagle]

OAP, the saga reflects badly on MoD planning assumptions and A330MRTT development issues rather than PFI per se. Which I agree is bolleaux, but that's beside the point.

Arty Fufkin, hardly. There are still significant issues concerning the entire Mission Planning System, which simply Does Not Work. So, as I understand it, for in-flight AAR deployment trail re-planning they're having to faff about with the nonsense of 'RAPS', bits of string and whiz-wheels, rather than using the MPS which was supposed to have been supplied 3 years ago......:uhoh:

[Cows getting bigger]

Whiz-wheels!!!! They'll be bringing back navigators next! ;)

[Arty Fufkin]

So it's doing UK AAR, deployed AAR, AT including ETOPS and into theatre. It's also doing trails to the same level of competence as the VC10 and Tristar but with significantly better offloads.

Tough crowd!

[Onceapilot]

Arty, part of the enhancement was a fleet increase to 15 airframes. I personally wonder if anyone has had control of the heavy side of RAF forward thinking since about 1990?:sad:

OAP

[Evanelpus]

Nice one BEagle, summed up to a tee!:ok:

Was at Brunty on Sunday and heard that the Tristars there had been sold in America with the first one due out in the next few weeks. Anyone else?

[Arty Fufkin]

Like I said, it was a lovely aircraft and it would have been great to have a large fleet of updated, serviceable airframes. The jet was largely misunderstood by most of the RAF I'm my opinion, probably because of sniping from the VC10 fraternity (particularly the nav mafia),but not helped by the fact the the Fleet has no young blood on it until the mid 90s.
A very capable aircraft....for it's day, but performance wise, well outclassed by the A330. I really don't see how it could have continued in service, the glass cockpit mod would never have improved fleet availability, and increasing the fleet to 15 would only ever have served to shorten the supply chain to the width of the apron!
The curtain call was the point at which it was deemed too unreliable to conduct any AT tasking that was not Herrick. At that point, it didn't matter how cheap it was in comparison to its replacement, if you're paying not a lot for F£&k all, you're paying well over the odds.
If reliability was a possibility ( and it would need to be a certainty) I'd agree that there should be 15 tri motors at BZZ rather than , what...8? voyagers. I just don't see that that was ever going to be possible.

Stand 'em up!

[Onceapilot]

The trouble is Arty, while you argue about relatively minor improvements (that I would largely dispute), the cost of FSTA is sending the rest of the RAF to hell in a handcart. The truth is, that a well managed enhanced TriStar fleet could have done the job for a fraction of the cost of the FSTA. Maybe, with TriStar, we could have afforded an MPA capability as well!:oh:

OAP

[hunty]

Gents


There is footage of the demise of this jet.:{

[Darkside2]

Better offloads than the TriStar....? Do you mean 'bigger' or 'faster'..... I think the TriStar with fully serviceable belly tanks could carry more fuel.....

[ShotOne]

sigh, yawn, here we go again! "For a fraction of the cost of FSTA..." How much then -do you even have the faintest idea, OAP? I'm as sad as you to see a fine old bird being cut up but you're confusing (again) the low capital cost of very old airframes with the (eye-watering) cost of running them

ps, No, dark side he said offload and I suspect that's what he meant. The tri might theoretically be able to CARRY more, if it wasn't ramp wt limited, which it would be many places but would burn the extra and more, unless the refuelling was to take place above it's base.

[Onceapilot]

Sigh yawn Shottie, you do not have to join in if it bores you! Of course, no one would dispute the cost curve of maintenance. However, TriStar was so cheap, you would not believe! As I have said, I give it 5 years before the FSTA goes off the rails! £££££££££££££££££££££££££££££

OAP

[TheChitterneFlyer]

December 2010 - After 100 hours of flight test, ZD949 finally passes MoD review

You sure about that Beags?

[Alber Ratman]

Yes the Timmys at Brunty will not carry ZD or other military registrations, they are all on the FAA register and will be flying to Texas to begin dropping water on fires.. Biggest loser? the tax payer.. Frames sold by the DSA for thousands have been sold for millions by the next vendor... DSA bring a cost effective return to the tax payer.. Rubbish.

[Onceapilot]

Biggest financial loser is indeed the taxpayer, by £Billions!:eek: Biggest capability loser of the whole deal is...the RAF.:ugh:. How can this unnecessary and hugely expensive replacement of a capability we already had go unremarked by journalists or anybody else?

OAP

[TEEEJ]

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[BEagle]

The National Audit Office was very critical of the PFI method for contracting Voyager, noting that 80% of the annual average $585 million fee that AirTanker will receive over the coming years for the contracted baseline service is for financing, capital cost and profit.

No doubt the MoD was surprised that ATr actually intends to make a profit...:rolleyes:

[Martin the Martian]

Being serious (I know, on this forum?) with the availability of many Tristars stored in hot places on the other side of the Atlantic, the acquisition of another 6-10 airframes for IFR conversion and a huge holding of spares would surely have allowed the refurbishment and modernisation of the existing fleet for another 10-15 years at much less cost than the Voyager programme. The VC10s could have been phased out as they came to the end of their lives and the RAF would still have a 15+ strong fleet of relatively young tankers fitted with glass cockpits, modern avionics and a full DASS suite.

And yes, I agree that the Voyager is (or will be) a very capable airframe, but the Tristar was as well when it was available. And with the outright purchase of new tankers never going to happen, surely it should have been seriously considered?

[Sideshow Bob]

Martin,

Mid to late 2000's (2006-2007 maybe, my memory fails me) this was looked at, we got as far of receiving the quote from Marshalls (£1M per airframe + conversion costs), we even dispacted a team to inspect the 3 proposed frames in the desert. However, if memory serves me right, there was a clause in the AirTanker contract that put a stop to this.

[Arty Fufkin]

Assuming the contact had by that point been signed, I doubt if it was a particular clause that was the problem.

More to do with having signed the contract?

Even the MOD wouldn't be daft enough to sign a contract for replacement tankers then go out and buy replacement tankers.

Then again........

[Sideshow Bob]

Even the MOD wouldn't be daft enough to sign a contract for replacement tankers then go out and by replacement tankers
....or sign a contract giving a single supplier exclusivity.

[Wander00]

Is there a clause in the contract about ownership of the company - ie is it feasible that someone averse to UK interests could end up having control of our sole tanker assets

[ShotOne]

Interesting that that should be an issue when nobody gives two hoots about us relying for transport and trooping flights on overseas owned companies.

[Wander00]

But if push comes to shove, in an emergency we could revert to UK carriers. Might be more difficult if tankers were foreign owned/controlled, unless they were requisitioned, but crews?

[ShotOne]

So it's ok to send our troops on aircraft based in another continent, flown by crews from, well, who knows, but assume that in an emergency we "could revert to uk carriers"..Would you apply such a reckless assumption to any other procurement decision?

[Onceapilot]

IF, (big if), several of the TriStar's at Brunty go to the US, it is also possible they might end up on contract to the US Navy for AAR support.

OAP

[Wander00]

Shot1 - I never said I agreed with it - personally I am against PFI in principle, because the Government is generally so rubbish at setting contractual terms they get taken to the cleaners, and usually cannot get from the contract what they thought they could - generally applies to contractorisation as well - eg catering at RAF stations. Rant button "OFF"!

[ShotOne]

Being against PFI is an entirely valid point of view, wanderoo. Why does it have to be backed up with a pragmatic reason (which I strongly agree with) that the Govt is "rubbish at setting contractual terms?" Would your principles change if it WASN'T rubbish at this? What if we collectively left the rant switch firmly ON and demanded HMG hire clued-up professionals from the private sector to do the negotiating.... rather than let the deals be signed by any old duffer who happens to have been there a while -then hand him a knighthood when it falls flat?

[Roland Pulfrew]

demanded HMG hire clued-up professionals from the private sector to do the negotiating

Do you honestly think they don't????? Have you seen the MOD bill for consultants? The problem with contractorization is 'we' could never possibly list the value added you get from a good service person (or even some of the not so good ones) and cannot capture all of that in a contract. The stuff like we need you to drop everything and go and do this, possibly for weeks and months, guard duty, secondary duties (the things that really add to a unit's sense of community), parades, the FOD plod after a show or event, the doing stuff for the wider station/base even local civilian community because you can and want to, not because it's in the contract. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of PFI or contractorization of the military either; I am struggling to think of one contractor/PFI solution that has provided better than we had before - but then that is a topic for an entirely different thread!

[valveclosed]

Not sure why the maths confuses people
example hot and dusty location, trimotor lifted on average 130k of fuel
lets say 10 hr sortie, burn using worse case 8 k ph div fuel 15 k so thats 95 k available give is oohh 35k
voyager 94k capacity thrrefore max lift same sortie 6k ph average worse case burn div lets drop it a bit say 12 k thats total 72k so avai give is oohhh lets see 22k

pretty clear to me

hey ho it is what it is, thats the decision we have to live with

[Roland Pulfrew]

Valve closed

Not sure of your maths (or the punctuation) but I'm pretty certain the Voyager has a starting lift of 110k which sort of evens things up a bit. Oh and 2 wing pods!!

[Onceapilot]

The official position was stated that the TriStar K/KC and FSTA have a "similar" AAR capability. Both have advantages in different scenario's. However, the TriStar had the advantage of the centreline hose that suits large or small recievers.

OAP

[BEagle]

Excellent spin, OAP, to attempt to find an equivalence for an ageing single hose tanker.....:rolleyes:

Had the TriStar ever been modified to include wing pods, there might have been a reason to keep the old things going for a few years longer. But it was clear that, as soon as Voyager showed that it had at least some AAR capability, MoD was keen to get rid of the TriShaw as soon as it could.

[Roland Pulfrew]

TriStar had the advantage of the centreline hose that suits large or small receivers.

Best spin I've seen in years. You must be Alistair Campbell and I claim my £5. So did the VC10K and so does FSTA (is it cleared for use yet?), but both had/have the major advantage of wing hoses as well!! :=

[Onceapilot]

No need for spin chaps, the RAF has already crashed and burned here! Oh yes, and please, the wing pod fit was available for TriStar but, the RAF did not buy it because we used to cut our cloth. What happens today? We cut out most of the Air Force to rent new shiny jets that we did not need yet! :ugh:

OAP

[Arty Fufkin]

OAP,

The TriStar fleet was knackered! End of!
It had just about kept its head above water on a single AT task line for years, and it's reliability as a tanker was pretty shocking as well.
I am genuinely at a loss as to how you can claim that it did not need replacing. What exactly was your plan to turn back the clock on the fleet from an engineering perspective? Genuinely interested.

[Onceapilot]

Arty, yes the chance was missed/ignored 15-odd years ago. However, the implications and consequences of the chosen path remain open for debate. As for the serviceability of RAF TriStars, if you actually knew anything through working on 216, then I am surprised by your negativity, if not, how can you comment? Strange, how we can go from a totally under-resourced fleet for 25 years, to a massive and hugely expensive replacement doing the same job-and damn the cost! Oh yes, just bin half of the RAF to pay for it!:ugh:

OAP

[vascodegama]

Valveclosed

To achieve a 130k (I guess you mean tonnes) the Tri would need to have a ZFW of 115t (a bit low if I recall). Not only that how many airfields could the Tri take off from at 245T? Voyager on the other hand can lift the 110t of fuel from a range of airfields.

[Onceapilot]

Vasco, RAF TriStar K/KC did not quite lift 130t. What is the true ZFW of the RAF Airbus tanker?

OAP

[BEagle]

OaP wrote:What is the true ZFW of the RAF Airbus tanker?

Are you sure that you really mean ZFW?

[Onceapilot]

Yes. I can only assume that people are working with the wrong figures. The SRD gives a max fuel load of 109,000kg. Of course, this is all tittle-tattle.:)
The Elephant in the room is VFM and the wasting of a perfectly good asset that we already had.:= There must be something that caused such a bad move for the RAF?:eek:

OAP

[Arty Fufkin]

OAP,

I think Beagle was alluding to th edifference between ZFW and APS weight.

Anyways,

"Perfectly good asset"

THEY DIDNT BLOODY WORK YOU LOON!!!!!
:ugh:

Jeezz

Sorry for shouting.

Arty

[Roland Pulfrew]

Arty

THEY DIDNT BLOODY WORK YOU LOON!!!!

I think you are being a tad harsh. There was a period where a lack of spare parts, engineers and investment meant the Tri* was "struggling" - OK broken. But following the J Blunt, "utterly, utterly useless RAF" and that TA MP (forgotten his name) incidents with the Air Bridge much more time and effort was invested in the fleet which meant much better availability towards the end.

Unfortunately the period of availability/unserviceability is symptomatic of the lack of investement in spares (driven by the utter stupidity of RAB and "just too late" spares support) and engineer penchant for "leaning". No-one ever forecast that would happen, did they? Oh. Yes they did, but no-one ever listens!

And of course the Tri* still only had one refuelling point, so it really was time for it to go. :E

[Onceapilot]

....must be some reason ...? What would make VSO's want to support a huge private contract within the core of the RAF? Why would "thrusters" want to be involved with a shiny new project instead of getting VFM with an older one they already had? Why did the RAF a neglect a good asset and then have to spend £15Billion to replace it? Whatever the reason, IMO it is a deal that has cost large chunks of RAF capability.:ugh:

OAP

[Onceapilot]

A cheap shot Roland, regularly regurgitated.

OAP

[Roland Pulfrew]

What would make VSO's want to support a huge private contract within the core of the RAF? Why would "thrusters" want to be involved with a shiny new project instead of getting VFM with an older one they already had? Why did the RAF a neglect a good asset and then have to spend £15Billion to replace it?

OAP - let it go. The Tri* has gone. It is an ex-military aircraft. It is deceased. But to answer your questions:

"They" didn't; they were directed to look at PFI as a potential solution against a traditional procurement; it was government directed solution when "service provision" and PFI were in vogue. This meant that the assets were "off balance sheet" and therefore not subject to the RAB charging idiocy brought in by a certain Chancellor.

Because the Tri* wasn't a very good tanker despite having shed loads of fuel. :E Well actually if you were a thruster would you really want to be involved with a 20+ year old jet rather than a shiny new toy?

Because:

- the Tri* was going out of service;
- it was getting increasingly difficult to maintain;
- the govt directed a RAB charging regime that meant IPTs sold off our stock of spares to avoid capital charges which impacted upon our ability to maintain it;
- we needed a modern tanker;
- the £11 billion (not £15B) could be spread over 25 years (even though I accept buying the jets ourselves and maintaining them ourselves would probably have been the more cost effective solution)
- "we" couldn't afford the £2B up front costs to buy our own (new) fleet (second hand B767s/A310s may have been cheaper).

A cheap shot Roland, regularly regurgitated. Doesn't make it wrong, even if I only meant it as banter.

[Arty Fufkin]

OAP,

In its latter years, a huge amount of effort was put in to ensuring aircraft availability for the airbridge. Pretty much to the exclusion of everything else. The tipping point for the TriStar fleet was when it became too unreliable to be trusted with any AT tasking aside from those handful of trips into theatre each week.
From that point on, the Tristar did not represent VFM by any stretch of the imagination.
What could have been done in the dim and distant past to avert that state of affairs is just conjecture, as is how successful it would have been given that the problem the fleet sufferd wasn't purely spares related.
The fact is, the jet was long overdue for replacement.
The treasury didn't want to or couldn't stump up the cash to purchase the replacement aircraft and support infrastructure outright.
They decided to go out and get them on the never never.
The new tanker is in service, very capable and the nature of the contract is such that the aircraft will be available for the next 25 years. Unlike the Tristar which withered to an available fleet of 1 or 2 in the twighlight of its years.

I assume that you object to the fact that Airtanker makes a profit out of all this. The way I see it, it is only that profit which represents any difference in the overall cost of the PFI versus in house management and ownership by the MOD.
That said, given the MODs track record for managing projects on time and on cost, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the overall cost would have wound up being pretty similar in the long run anyway. You would have just found yourself reading a NAO report slating the procurement for different reasons.

Either way, don't try to persuade me that the Tristar was a usefull, efficient capable fleet of aircraft. Once it was, but not as it started showing its age. It wasn't down to willfull neglect or subterfuge, the jets just got old.
Like the rest of us.

[Onceapilot]

The jets did not "just get old". All points have been previously covered in my posts. Now, maybe you have a message for the USAF, with their 65 years old KC135? Maybe they should indulge in a cull, cut a few jobs and get a replacement that costs so much they have to lose another capability or two? Hey! Those B52's should be replaced with nice new ones as well! Whats that you say? "Hell no! Why replace something you already have Limey?" :D

OAP

[Roland Pulfrew]

Now, maybe you have a message for the USAF, with their 65 years old KC135?

Bzzzz - Irrelevant. There is a huge difference between the 58 year old KC135 fleet of some 350+ aircraft and a fleet of 9, no 8 aircraft. Massive economies of scale involved.

Maybe they should indulge in a cull, cut a few jobs and get a replacement

KC-X (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-X); KC-Y (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-Y); KC-Z (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-Z)????????? :rolleyes: