NATO concerned over RAF training
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NATO concerned over RAF training
forargyle.com
"Nato has confirmed that there are very serious concerns about the standard of RAF pilots deployed to Afghanistan.
This is not a question of the basic skills of the pilots but centred on how keen those skills can remain when, for reasons of cost cutting, the RAF has progressively reduced the number of monthly flying hours.
The Nato minimum is that pilots should fly 180 hours per annum. In the RAF, figures obtained from the Ministry of Defence by a national newspaper revealed that at the end of 2008 crews of warplanes like the Tornado F3 fighter, the Tornado GR4 ground attack plane and the Harrier fighter bomber had flown an average of just over 100 hours that year.
Crews of the new Eurofighter Typhoon had done a little more, at 140 hours in the year, but were still below Nato’s minimum standard.
There has evidently been serious concern among crews at a situation where the best pilots in the historically potent RAF are disgraced by their
failure to meet Nato’s minimum.
With some pilots getting no more than 5 hours in the air each month, one pilot has been quoted as saying that there are people who would struggle to remain safe in their car with 5 hrs driving a month.
The RAF are wriggling in response to the public airing of this proof that cost cutting is causing this most basic dereliction. It is saying defensively but vaguely that the MoD figures on flying hours ‘can be misleading’.
The minimum standard of 180 hours per annum is just that – a minimum standard. It cannot create the flying aces of legend but should ensure that pilots deployed to active service are able to deliver ’safe, proficient and capable air power’.
In the ongoing argument, the fatal Tornado crash in Glen Kinglas in 2009 has been cited as evidence of the current situation. 27 year old Flight Lieutenant Kenneth Thompson, a Glaswegian and 43 year old Nigel Morton from Fife wiped themselves out on Binnein an Fhidhleir. They had been unable to complete a tight turn at speed in their Tornado F3, coming through the gap at Rest and be Thankful above Loch Restil to turn sharp left immediately into Glen Kinglas.
The plane was almost but not quite round when it hit the side of the mountain about half way between the A83 and the top of the ridge.
An RAF report into the incident concluded that Flight Lieutenant Thompson’s lack of recent flying hours was probably a contributory factor, saying that pilots from his squadron (43 Squadron) at RAF Leuchas flew as few as ten hours per month. This squadron was disbanded shortly afterwards as the Typhoon progressively takes precedence over the Tornado.
This situation gives rise to serious public as well as military concern. It was nothing more than miraculous that no members of the public were killed when the Tornado which crashed into the hillside not far above the A83 shortly after 11.40am on Thursday 2nd July 2009.
The A83 is the arterial road into Argyll carrying steady commercial and domestic traffic. The impact of the crash was so severe that debris was small and very widely scattered.
Loch Fyne, as with very many glens in the Scottish Highlands, is a regular training area for warplanes. Their passage low overhead at speed is disturbing enough to people and livestock as it is.
Knowing now that those in the driving seat are flying such manoevres with a monthly flying experience equivalent to a pensioner using their car for local shopping trips, is more than worrying.
It is also noted that what little flying has been done for some time down the glen over Loch Fyne – a very welcome diminution – has been at relatively generous heights above ground level.
While this may be all that can safely be done in the current circumstances, it too testifies to the loss of skill levels in our frontline pilots, with cost savings cutting into the living muscle of the armed services.
We are asking Argyll and Bute Council to make contact with the MoD to discuss procedures for training flights in the current regime to be managed to ensure public safety. We have suggested an agreed formula where minimum flying height levels are set for pilots according to the number of hours recently flown. This is now a major public safety issue.
The families of Flight Lieutenants Kenneth Thompson and Nigel Morton will find this dereliction of duty of care by the MoD hard to assimilate."
"Nato has confirmed that there are very serious concerns about the standard of RAF pilots deployed to Afghanistan.
This is not a question of the basic skills of the pilots but centred on how keen those skills can remain when, for reasons of cost cutting, the RAF has progressively reduced the number of monthly flying hours.
The Nato minimum is that pilots should fly 180 hours per annum. In the RAF, figures obtained from the Ministry of Defence by a national newspaper revealed that at the end of 2008 crews of warplanes like the Tornado F3 fighter, the Tornado GR4 ground attack plane and the Harrier fighter bomber had flown an average of just over 100 hours that year.
Crews of the new Eurofighter Typhoon had done a little more, at 140 hours in the year, but were still below Nato’s minimum standard.
There has evidently been serious concern among crews at a situation where the best pilots in the historically potent RAF are disgraced by their
failure to meet Nato’s minimum.
With some pilots getting no more than 5 hours in the air each month, one pilot has been quoted as saying that there are people who would struggle to remain safe in their car with 5 hrs driving a month.
The RAF are wriggling in response to the public airing of this proof that cost cutting is causing this most basic dereliction. It is saying defensively but vaguely that the MoD figures on flying hours ‘can be misleading’.
The minimum standard of 180 hours per annum is just that – a minimum standard. It cannot create the flying aces of legend but should ensure that pilots deployed to active service are able to deliver ’safe, proficient and capable air power’.
In the ongoing argument, the fatal Tornado crash in Glen Kinglas in 2009 has been cited as evidence of the current situation. 27 year old Flight Lieutenant Kenneth Thompson, a Glaswegian and 43 year old Nigel Morton from Fife wiped themselves out on Binnein an Fhidhleir. They had been unable to complete a tight turn at speed in their Tornado F3, coming through the gap at Rest and be Thankful above Loch Restil to turn sharp left immediately into Glen Kinglas.
The plane was almost but not quite round when it hit the side of the mountain about half way between the A83 and the top of the ridge.
An RAF report into the incident concluded that Flight Lieutenant Thompson’s lack of recent flying hours was probably a contributory factor, saying that pilots from his squadron (43 Squadron) at RAF Leuchas flew as few as ten hours per month. This squadron was disbanded shortly afterwards as the Typhoon progressively takes precedence over the Tornado.
This situation gives rise to serious public as well as military concern. It was nothing more than miraculous that no members of the public were killed when the Tornado which crashed into the hillside not far above the A83 shortly after 11.40am on Thursday 2nd July 2009.
The A83 is the arterial road into Argyll carrying steady commercial and domestic traffic. The impact of the crash was so severe that debris was small and very widely scattered.
Loch Fyne, as with very many glens in the Scottish Highlands, is a regular training area for warplanes. Their passage low overhead at speed is disturbing enough to people and livestock as it is.
Knowing now that those in the driving seat are flying such manoevres with a monthly flying experience equivalent to a pensioner using their car for local shopping trips, is more than worrying.
It is also noted that what little flying has been done for some time down the glen over Loch Fyne – a very welcome diminution – has been at relatively generous heights above ground level.
While this may be all that can safely be done in the current circumstances, it too testifies to the loss of skill levels in our frontline pilots, with cost savings cutting into the living muscle of the armed services.
We are asking Argyll and Bute Council to make contact with the MoD to discuss procedures for training flights in the current regime to be managed to ensure public safety. We have suggested an agreed formula where minimum flying height levels are set for pilots according to the number of hours recently flown. This is now a major public safety issue.
The families of Flight Lieutenants Kenneth Thompson and Nigel Morton will find this dereliction of duty of care by the MoD hard to assimilate."
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Low Flying training
A post on another (spotters) website says that RAF low flying throiugh the Mach Loop has been suspended for the next six weeks. Can anyone confirm this?
if so it does support the comments on this thread.
if so it does support the comments on this thread.
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and an even bigger difference between flying and not. - 100 hrs a year = app 2 hrs a week. the RAF then IMPLIES that the number of hours flown is meaningless it is the quality of those hours.....
My argument is that the hours expected by NATO would be high value good quality - not drilling racetracks in the sky turning complex hydrocarbons into the sound of overtime.
But then I'm officially useless today
CS
My argument is that the hours expected by NATO would be high value good quality - not drilling racetracks in the sky turning complex hydrocarbons into the sound of overtime.
But then I'm officially useless today
CS
Do a Hover - it avoids G
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The relationship between flying hours and both competency and currency is not simple, however it can be the stuff of headlines for those interested in such things.
What matters above all else is what the pilot does with the airborne hours. This can range from boring holes in the sky to actually doing something demanding and difficult.
Three points if I may to show the complexity of the issue.
I started flying the P1127 prototype of the Harrier in 1964. The engine had a one hour life in the hover and 25 flying on the wings. You can imagine we did not generate many hours. Over 18 years I progressed through the Kestrel to the Harrier but it was not until my 18th year on the programme that I reached 50 hours in any one year. At the time the quoted minimum hours per month that the MOD(PE) specified to keep your approval for a jet type was 20. I had to repeatedly explain that my sorties were very often less than five minutes but in that time I had climbed into it, started it up, got airborne, done whatever landed and shut it down. In my book it was sorties that mattered not hours.
Today there are really good simulators in which one can realistically practice all the tricky operational systems mode selections and sortie details that are at the heart of an operational sortie today. You just do not have to get airborne to develop and hone all that cockpit management stuff which (take it from me) is the hard part of front line flying today. Of course steering the aircraft is important but once you have learned to do that it has elements of not forgetting how to ride a bicycle.
Finally what about (for example) your airline crews who on a long haul flight might log 10-15 hours but share between two of them five minutes when the autopilot is not engaged.
(sorry some of my points crossed with stormrider as I was typing)
What matters above all else is what the pilot does with the airborne hours. This can range from boring holes in the sky to actually doing something demanding and difficult.
Three points if I may to show the complexity of the issue.
I started flying the P1127 prototype of the Harrier in 1964. The engine had a one hour life in the hover and 25 flying on the wings. You can imagine we did not generate many hours. Over 18 years I progressed through the Kestrel to the Harrier but it was not until my 18th year on the programme that I reached 50 hours in any one year. At the time the quoted minimum hours per month that the MOD(PE) specified to keep your approval for a jet type was 20. I had to repeatedly explain that my sorties were very often less than five minutes but in that time I had climbed into it, started it up, got airborne, done whatever landed and shut it down. In my book it was sorties that mattered not hours.
Today there are really good simulators in which one can realistically practice all the tricky operational systems mode selections and sortie details that are at the heart of an operational sortie today. You just do not have to get airborne to develop and hone all that cockpit management stuff which (take it from me) is the hard part of front line flying today. Of course steering the aircraft is important but once you have learned to do that it has elements of not forgetting how to ride a bicycle.
Finally what about (for example) your airline crews who on a long haul flight might log 10-15 hours but share between two of them five minutes when the autopilot is not engaged.
(sorry some of my points crossed with stormrider as I was typing)
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John - I do humbly bow to your points but....
As I alluded to I think the arrogance (possibly of RAF) in sneering that we can do less hours as they so much better utilised than yours is, IMNVHO, arrogant.
Our allies in NATO all commit to this requirement and we need to put up or resign.
If I was to take a trip to the Loop I really would rather know the chimp driving the pointy thing at me had done more than two hours flying a week.
2 hours a week - thats 5% of your working week in the air. And you bleat that you're nnot over paid
(I am taking the michael here, but I think you will agree with me you need to be spending more time pulling G, hovering, bombing, shooting down russians, etc etc etc.
So stop playing with JPA, don't go on your LBGT trg and find a jet.
As I alluded to I think the arrogance (possibly of RAF) in sneering that we can do less hours as they so much better utilised than yours is, IMNVHO, arrogant.
Our allies in NATO all commit to this requirement and we need to put up or resign.
If I was to take a trip to the Loop I really would rather know the chimp driving the pointy thing at me had done more than two hours flying a week.
2 hours a week - thats 5% of your working week in the air. And you bleat that you're nnot over paid
(I am taking the michael here, but I think you will agree with me you need to be spending more time pulling G, hovering, bombing, shooting down russians, etc etc etc.So stop playing with JPA, don't go on your LBGT trg and find a jet.
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The Nato minimum is that pilots should fly 180 hours per annum.
The 180 hours a year / 15 hours a month figure certainly rings a bell from the distant past, as far back as the very early eighties - night cross country in the F-4 to get the squadron hours up, whilst minimising fuel burn and not using up Fatigue life...all for the Wing Commander's AFC of course ...umm that reminds me of a song.
To be fair JF some of us do try to manage for more than five minutes without electronic assistance 
....old habits and all that.
Finally what about (for example) your airline crews who on a long haul flight might log 10-15 hours but share between two of them five minutes when the autopilot is not engaged.
....old habits and all that.
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It seems to be legit...
I found this regarding the Hungarian Air Force and it states the following:
So it seems NATO do have that figure in mind, where it states the figure, i have no idea but it's obviously in some publications issued to each member country
I found this regarding the Hungarian Air Force and it states the following:
In November 1997, Hungary's defense minister announced his country would not be able to meet NATO's requirements for air readiness (more specific the minimum flying time for pilots set at 180-200 hours per year) unless it got new fighter planes. Hungarian pilots flew MiG-29s and MiG-21s for only 50 to 60 hours per year.
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It rings a dim and distant bell as one of the taceval criteria, 15 hours per month, and one which RAFG achieved in excess but many of our NATO partners did not.
16 hours a month average could equate to 10 sorties per month. Not enough for hours hogs but enough for steady training.
Looking back in my log book I often got more than 100 years per year in a non-flying post.
16 hours a month average could equate to 10 sorties per month. Not enough for hours hogs but enough for steady training.
Looking back in my log book I often got more than 100 years per year in a non-flying post.
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But going by the current minimum of the RAF it is showing that the front line crews are only getting in on average 5 sorties per month.
Not a lot really is it, 5 flights in 30 days especially when training to go to theatre.
Of course this isn't the case for some units. Assuming those on large scale exercises are flying a little more.
They can't all queue up for a ride in a sim can they?
Not a lot really is it, 5 flights in 30 days especially when training to go to theatre.
Of course this isn't the case for some units. Assuming those on large scale exercises are flying a little more.
They can't all queue up for a ride in a sim can they?
Naive question here. But if instead of doing 150 hours in their operational type a pilot did 140 hours in it, plus say 30 odd in something cheaper to operate, maybe Hawk instead of Typhoon or Gazelle instead of Chinook, might it be possible for this to constitute better currency?
I appreciate that if possible at all it would all depend on cost ratios and what could be done in the cheaper type.
I appreciate that if possible at all it would all depend on cost ratios and what could be done in the cheaper type.
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The problem is the "Bean Counters" think "Why should we waste money on fuel/maintenance ,etc. when we've got perfectly good sims that can offer aircrews a similar flying experience ?" They would probably be better off having a day at Alton Towers .
You cannot replace REAL flying in REAL aeroplanes in REAL sky with computer generated scenery and sky .
You cannot replace REAL flying in REAL aeroplanes in REAL sky with computer generated scenery and sky .
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Wiggy
I am sure you do and probably whenever possible.
However I am told by some line mates that in certain circumstances their company requires them to autoland.
I was just trying to explain why in my view simple hours is no way to judge matters.
JF
I am sure you do and probably whenever possible.
However I am told by some line mates that in certain circumstances their company requires them to autoland.
I was just trying to explain why in my view simple hours is no way to judge matters.
JF
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Recently a whole UK C-130 Sqn has been disbanded due to a lack of airframes equating to insufficent trg hrs available to maintain operational output.
Crews were often getting less than 5 hrs per month
The NATO Stanag which stipulates min flying hrs has been withdrawn from UK forces for some time - you try finding reference to minimum fg hrs requirements in any UK military aviation publications.
Crews were often getting less than 5 hrs per month
The NATO Stanag which stipulates min flying hrs has been withdrawn from UK forces for some time - you try finding reference to minimum fg hrs requirements in any UK military aviation publications.
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The NATO Stanag which stipulates min flying hrs has been withdrawn from UK forces for some time - you try finding reference to minimum fg hrs requirements in any UK military aviation publications.