Red Dragon Doubts?

[BEagle]

According to the Beeb at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3075463.stm , it seems that the plan to centralise aircraft maintenance at RAF, sorry, 'DARA' St Athan may be under review.....

Well, no matter how hard the folk at Scrapheap Challenge worked to get our jets out on time, the aerodrome itself with its short runway, narrow taxiways, few navaids and poor weather factor didn't exactly make things easy.

[Mr C Hinecap]

The aerodrome itself might be pants, but there is something else there we haven't got at our main bases - the skilled workforce! We (well - the 'management') have chiselled the RAF down so much, relying upon skilled civillian labour to cover gaps & cracks. A major part of this was by using St Athan and what is now DARA. We have created a system it'll be hard to break out of.

Any of our Eng bretheren out there with views to share? Can't see the customer being happy.

[HOODED]

Can't believe this I'm afraid. Just exactly where is the work going to be done? RAF engineers are allready fully streched with the latest plot to reduce manpower further, multiskilling, allready hitting squadrons experienced/trained manpower availability. Second line maintenance at units is struggling to cope with the extra hours flown during Gulf War 2, resulting in ac with large extensions waiting for servicings with some ac being grounded. Can't see the work going to Baron Waseofspace as he charges significantly more than DARA charge! Looks like the powers that be at MOD have finally lost the plot, unless they've found another way of saving money, maybe they've decided to do away with maintenance alltogether. It's probably cheaper to keep flying them till they drop, or until we run out of LIM log sheets 'cos the Forms store budgets been slashed! Call me cynical but we now rely on the Civilian firms for our heavy maintenance, like it or not, we no longer have the uniformed manpower to take on this task anymore, years of defence reviews have seen to that!

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It's dificult to soar with eagles when you work for turkeys!:ugh:

[newswatcher]

....and of course very convenient to raise this on the day that Parliament shuts down for the summer break!

[Jackonicko]

Nimrod servicing at Kinloss, Tornado spares support, Eurofighter integrated spares and servicing support are all well and good, but DARA is THE cherry which BAE Customer Solutions and Support was formed to pick.

It would effectively give BAE the foothold it needs to (virtually) completely replace all uniformed engineering staff on all types, without the fuss and bother of having to bid for each.

You know such an idea is 'pants'. I know it's a potential disaster. Even the politicians have some distrust of BAE. But listening to senior officers congratulating the company on the outstanding success of the GR4 upgrade (in terms of timely delivery of cost effective capability) and in view of the unwillingness by a ridiculously risk-averse DLO to follow more innovative and cost-effective approaches, I think that BAE's dominance is set to increase.

[Vectoredthrust]

Maybe my shares will go up then.

[Roland sizzers]

Without the fun of flying 'cut and shut' tornado's what would there be left to do? That would be four hundred kwik fit technicians and their rivet guns out of a job for a start. :oh:

Let's re-open Chivenor and then even the Hawks won't need to go there. Can't say I'd miss it but then I'm sure somebody knows better.....

Whilst I think of it has anybody out there got a copy of the Tornado F3/GR4/ECR Haynes Manual front cover, first published in MDMITI - circa 1994?:confused: