DARA St. Athan to be sold off
Suspicion breeds confidence
Thread Starter
DARA St. Athan to be sold off
Yet more rumours here, but I can't say I'm surprised. The cutbacks on FJ numbers in the recent White Paper make it an easy target for the bean counters.
From the beeb
From the beeb
At this rate this wretched stupid bunch of lefty to$$ers will have no armed forces left.
Stop cutting the forces and have a good look at Immigration and single mothers who cost this country billions. Bloody benifits are crippling this country. Single mothers...ever heard of the pill?? Close the borders and MAKE those dole sponging idiots WORK for money. If not let them starve. Un-lucky.
The forces of this country fight for our people and great nation but increasingly I'm begining to wonder if its worth it.
Rant over.
Stop cutting the forces and have a good look at Immigration and single mothers who cost this country billions. Bloody benifits are crippling this country. Single mothers...ever heard of the pill?? Close the borders and MAKE those dole sponging idiots WORK for money. If not let them starve. Un-lucky.
The forces of this country fight for our people and great nation but increasingly I'm begining to wonder if its worth it.
Rant over.
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Over there, behind that tree.
Posts: 581
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
GW
Don't be reticent, tell us, in your own time, what you really think.
Anyway, it says the idea is to move the workload back into the RAF! Just who do the bean-counters think will do it now that they are simultaneously cutting the numbers?
Here we are at the beginning of Century 21 and the same old idiotic lack of planned direction that was extant in the 60s/70s still prevails. The thing about centralised servicing (another thread) is a case in point. It has been tried and found wanting.
It must be so frustrating in today's mob, and you can't even let off steam without a H&SW certificate
Don't be reticent, tell us, in your own time, what you really think.
Anyway, it says the idea is to move the workload back into the RAF! Just who do the bean-counters think will do it now that they are simultaneously cutting the numbers?
Here we are at the beginning of Century 21 and the same old idiotic lack of planned direction that was extant in the 60s/70s still prevails. The thing about centralised servicing (another thread) is a case in point. It has been tried and found wanting.
It must be so frustrating in today's mob, and you can't even let off steam without a H&SW certificate
Tend to agree with you all, but can't help recalling this conversation...
"Do you want 18000 manhours work?" (on an equipment they'd declared a capability on).
"No, we don't regard MoD as a customer"
BAe got the work. Never looked back. It only takes one to let the whole workforce down.
"Do you want 18000 manhours work?" (on an equipment they'd declared a capability on).
"No, we don't regard MoD as a customer"
BAe got the work. Never looked back. It only takes one to let the whole workforce down.
Grimweasel,
LEFTY to$$ers? How do you work that one out then? This is hardly a Socialist regime is it?
These Lefty to$$ers who keep on increasing the defence budget ARE a real pain, fancy them planning to order rotten socialist lefty nonsense like two 60,000 ton aircraft carriers, and continuing with the 2nd tranche of Typhoon at £4.3billion for another 89, after all we’ve already got 55 on order, why do they think we need ANOTHER 89? Why on earth do these left wing socialist idiots think we need to invest in this F-35 thingy with those right wing religious zealots in the Pentagon? Good God man they’ve even gone and joined them as development partners with a share of the largest fighter programme on this planet, who needs all those nasty defence jobs making the damm things for the world?
On top of all this they are only presiding over the largest proportion of the UK population who have been employed in history, lefty sods!
Fact:
The UK is a declining population, without immigration we won’t have enough
Doctors, dentists, nurses, taxi drivers and fruit pickers to name a few diverse past times where we benefit hugely from immigration. Take a closer look at the asylum seekers and the skills they bring, and try living the existence of an asylum seeker, I can assure it is NOT pleasant and rather different from the sensationalist nonsense in some of the more ludicrous DAILY papers, this is an area I am very familiar with and the urban myths out there are just beyond belief compared to reality.
As to dole sponging idiots, man are you living in the 70’s! YOU try sponging off the “dole” these days and see how difficult it is! This ‘ lefty bunch of to$$ers’ have made it rather hard to sponge and not work, and a damm good thing too.
As to single mothers, well, you really do need help don’t you?
BTW,
Exactly WHO started all this privatisation and selling off of defence assets, I think you’ll find it was one Margaret Thatcher!
There is a world outside of the Daily Mail you know!
Pr00ne
LEFTY to$$ers? How do you work that one out then? This is hardly a Socialist regime is it?
These Lefty to$$ers who keep on increasing the defence budget ARE a real pain, fancy them planning to order rotten socialist lefty nonsense like two 60,000 ton aircraft carriers, and continuing with the 2nd tranche of Typhoon at £4.3billion for another 89, after all we’ve already got 55 on order, why do they think we need ANOTHER 89? Why on earth do these left wing socialist idiots think we need to invest in this F-35 thingy with those right wing religious zealots in the Pentagon? Good God man they’ve even gone and joined them as development partners with a share of the largest fighter programme on this planet, who needs all those nasty defence jobs making the damm things for the world?
On top of all this they are only presiding over the largest proportion of the UK population who have been employed in history, lefty sods!
Fact:
The UK is a declining population, without immigration we won’t have enough
Doctors, dentists, nurses, taxi drivers and fruit pickers to name a few diverse past times where we benefit hugely from immigration. Take a closer look at the asylum seekers and the skills they bring, and try living the existence of an asylum seeker, I can assure it is NOT pleasant and rather different from the sensationalist nonsense in some of the more ludicrous DAILY papers, this is an area I am very familiar with and the urban myths out there are just beyond belief compared to reality.
As to dole sponging idiots, man are you living in the 70’s! YOU try sponging off the “dole” these days and see how difficult it is! This ‘ lefty bunch of to$$ers’ have made it rather hard to sponge and not work, and a damm good thing too.
As to single mothers, well, you really do need help don’t you?
BTW,
Exactly WHO started all this privatisation and selling off of defence assets, I think you’ll find it was one Margaret Thatcher!
There is a world outside of the Daily Mail you know!
Pr00ne
"As to dole sponging idiots, man are you living in the 70’s! YOU try sponging off the “dole” these days and see how difficult it is!"
Ah, there's the problem, we've all paid into the system through income tax, so we'll get nothing. Don't bother working after leaving school at 15 and you'll be sorted.
Especially if you're a single mum of 16 or a druggie.
Come to Kings Lynn Pr00ne and have your eyes prised slightly apart.
Ah, there's the problem, we've all paid into the system through income tax, so we'll get nothing. Don't bother working after leaving school at 15 and you'll be sorted.
Especially if you're a single mum of 16 or a druggie.
Come to Kings Lynn Pr00ne and have your eyes prised slightly apart.
Jobza,
..."Don't bother working after leaving school at 15 and you'll be sorted...."
There you are, another urban myth, it is rather difficult for most people to get any state benefit at 16, and in the current employment employment environment that is quite right, jobs are about.
As to single mothers at 16, fine, attack one of the most vulnerable groups in society, you really think a council flat and a pittance a week is a cool and cushy life for someone who had their entire life before them and now has a huge problem for the next 18 years.
I'v 'e been to Kings Lynne, and Ramsgate, and Dover and lots of other places where these people need representing and protecting, their lives are on a knife edge, it's not the cushy number you think.
My eyes are wide open and I see more of this sort of thing than you possibly can unless you ARE an expectant 16 year old who has just been deserted by the guy she thought her future lay with and now has no prospect of a decent income until she is nearly 40.
Pr00ne
..."Don't bother working after leaving school at 15 and you'll be sorted...."
There you are, another urban myth, it is rather difficult for most people to get any state benefit at 16, and in the current employment employment environment that is quite right, jobs are about.
As to single mothers at 16, fine, attack one of the most vulnerable groups in society, you really think a council flat and a pittance a week is a cool and cushy life for someone who had their entire life before them and now has a huge problem for the next 18 years.
I'v 'e been to Kings Lynne, and Ramsgate, and Dover and lots of other places where these people need representing and protecting, their lives are on a knife edge, it's not the cushy number you think.
My eyes are wide open and I see more of this sort of thing than you possibly can unless you ARE an expectant 16 year old who has just been deserted by the guy she thought her future lay with and now has no prospect of a decent income until she is nearly 40.
Pr00ne
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Madrid
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Let's be realistic, the country is full of inappropriate immigrants and work-shy soap dodgers but they are not living the life of riley off the state. We are talking min disposable income.
St Athan is sitting there with a 'real estate' (to coin our US cousins) badge, they're going to cut and run......
St Athan is sitting there with a 'real estate' (to coin our US cousins) badge, they're going to cut and run......
Gentleman Aviator
Is there any chance of talking about DARA at Saints rather than dole scroungers or single mothers????
The study is really looking at St Athan's future beyond 2009, up to which point current contracts would sustain the viability of the site. And what commercial organisation these days (or, in some people's opinions, the RAF) has a guaranteed future beyond 5 years in the future.
Of course E2E was not the best news for DARA, certainly not for DARA St Athan, but it could have been worse, even for Saints. There is extra VC10 work going there, and the fast and pointed stuff ain't going away tomorrow. And as Beeayeate notes (in the last on-thread post!), the RAF is not going to have an easy time taking over Tonka deep servicing; personally I'd hate to be OC Eng at Marham right now (or any time for that matter.....)
Who would be surprised if OSDs (eg F3 and Jag) slipped to the right - my first operational type had an OSD of 1983 when I started flying it - it made 2002 in the end! And will the current Hawk really go out of service in 2010? I wouldn't bet on it. And even if it does, who is best placed to service the replacement? Might just be a "centre of areospace excellence" in the Vale of Glamorgan.
And of course other bits of DARA, notably DARA Fleetlands, stand to benefit from the rotary roll-back flowing from E2E.
And anyway, are we not talking privatisation rather than "binning"?; was DERA (pronounced by regulation Dare-err rather than Dearer) any better/worse when it sort of became Kwinticue - I don't think so. Discuss.
The study is really looking at St Athan's future beyond 2009, up to which point current contracts would sustain the viability of the site. And what commercial organisation these days (or, in some people's opinions, the RAF) has a guaranteed future beyond 5 years in the future.
Of course E2E was not the best news for DARA, certainly not for DARA St Athan, but it could have been worse, even for Saints. There is extra VC10 work going there, and the fast and pointed stuff ain't going away tomorrow. And as Beeayeate notes (in the last on-thread post!), the RAF is not going to have an easy time taking over Tonka deep servicing; personally I'd hate to be OC Eng at Marham right now (or any time for that matter.....)
Who would be surprised if OSDs (eg F3 and Jag) slipped to the right - my first operational type had an OSD of 1983 when I started flying it - it made 2002 in the end! And will the current Hawk really go out of service in 2010? I wouldn't bet on it. And even if it does, who is best placed to service the replacement? Might just be a "centre of areospace excellence" in the Vale of Glamorgan.
And of course other bits of DARA, notably DARA Fleetlands, stand to benefit from the rotary roll-back flowing from E2E.
And anyway, are we not talking privatisation rather than "binning"?; was DERA (pronounced by regulation Dare-err rather than Dearer) any better/worse when it sort of became Kwinticue - I don't think so. Discuss.
Probably the worst imagineable place from which to conduct a full air test in a VC10 with its narrow taxiways and short runways, lack of de-icing.......and dismal weather factor. The odd night or 2 in the Bovvy Castle was OK though!
But (apart from the horrid journey in the wetched white van man LVT) it was always fun going down to Scrapheap Challenge to watch them rebuilding our ancient VC10s for me to air test. They always flew nicely; it was only the electrics, avionics and the odd incidence of smoke on the flight deck which caused the odd moment. Loss of no 1 and 3 busbars in a VC10K once - that was most thought provoking as any VC10K aircrew would know...
Can't see the local MP giving up RAF St Athan without a fight!
But (apart from the horrid journey in the wetched white van man LVT) it was always fun going down to Scrapheap Challenge to watch them rebuilding our ancient VC10s for me to air test. They always flew nicely; it was only the electrics, avionics and the odd incidence of smoke on the flight deck which caused the odd moment. Loss of no 1 and 3 busbars in a VC10K once - that was most thought provoking as any VC10K aircrew would know...
Can't see the local MP giving up RAF St Athan without a fight!
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: earth
Posts: 1,397
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Looks like the sell-off rumoured for St Athan is yet another example of disposing of the family silver – will we ever regain the capabilities we are selling off?
And once again these threads elicit from Pr00ne the assertion that Bliar and his lying mates are increasing our defence spending. In that case why are we going to have less squadrons, less people and less capability?
As for presiding over full employment, how many of those jobs are real ones? Lots of people round here are only working 16 hours a week so that they can keep their family credits and this lot have created so many non-jobs in the public sector that they have surely created enough labour-dependant workers to breeze through the next election. If employment is that strong why is the total income tax collected not enough to avoid the excessive government borrowing likely in the next quarter?
It’s no good shouting the praises of your mates in power, Pr00ne. We can all see how they have turned around the best economy any government this century inherited when they came to power and we will all see their indecent rush into the next election to avoid the consequences. In the meantime, our defence assets are going under the hammer while Bliar struts the World stage with less and less forces to put where his mouth is.
And once again these threads elicit from Pr00ne the assertion that Bliar and his lying mates are increasing our defence spending. In that case why are we going to have less squadrons, less people and less capability?
As for presiding over full employment, how many of those jobs are real ones? Lots of people round here are only working 16 hours a week so that they can keep their family credits and this lot have created so many non-jobs in the public sector that they have surely created enough labour-dependant workers to breeze through the next election. If employment is that strong why is the total income tax collected not enough to avoid the excessive government borrowing likely in the next quarter?
It’s no good shouting the praises of your mates in power, Pr00ne. We can all see how they have turned around the best economy any government this century inherited when they came to power and we will all see their indecent rush into the next election to avoid the consequences. In the meantime, our defence assets are going under the hammer while Bliar struts the World stage with less and less forces to put where his mouth is.
Soddim,
Ho hum…………………
….”And once again these threads elicit from Pr00ne the assertion that Bliar and his lying mates are increasing our defence spending. In that case why are we going to have less squadrons, less people and less capability?....”
Yawn, because they HAVE increased the defence budget, by 1.4% in REAL terms and increased the Iraq fund, fact! Is it enough? No, I don’t think it is and the farce of reducing the programmed spend on SH and CVF are cases in point. MoD traditionally mismanages its budget and all procurements, especially the larger ones, once again this is coming home to roost.
Less squadrons and less people, why? Because the folk that run the air farce say that is the way to get more capability in the expeditionary environment with kit like Typhoon, F-35 and NEC, do I believe that? No, not for a second, I just don’t like people spouting on about expenditure cuts when the opposite is happening.
As for the economy, well, I suppose that is a matter of opinion, if what you say is right then labour will get kicked out in the next election and the Tories returned to power, do you really see that happening?
As to insufficient income tax collected, sorry, but you are just plain wrong, we have the highest ever income through income tax thanks to the highest ever level of employment in modern times and the lowest level of national debt since World War One, Government borrowing, do you remember Lamont and Lawson? This lot are spending a fortune on Education, Health and infrastructure, like it or not that is where the ELECTORATE want the national purse spent and not on defence, that is a shame and I wish it were not so, but who ever said life was fair?
Just to stay on topic, I think DARA was a dead duck from the day it was created. BAES and other OEM's can do the work and in todays software driven world if you ain't got access to software source codes you are dead. Lockheed-Martin won't release these to a soul on the C-130J so I don't expect Eurofighter to on the Typhoon.
AMRAAM is an example of the future of military 3rd/4th line maintenance, even break the seal on the thing and you invalidate the guarantee, if you want it fixed ship it back to the plant. Raytheon support it and do ALL maintenance. That will be the way of the F-35 and thus there is no use for DARA once current legacy platforms are retired.
Ho hum…………………
….”And once again these threads elicit from Pr00ne the assertion that Bliar and his lying mates are increasing our defence spending. In that case why are we going to have less squadrons, less people and less capability?....”
Yawn, because they HAVE increased the defence budget, by 1.4% in REAL terms and increased the Iraq fund, fact! Is it enough? No, I don’t think it is and the farce of reducing the programmed spend on SH and CVF are cases in point. MoD traditionally mismanages its budget and all procurements, especially the larger ones, once again this is coming home to roost.
Less squadrons and less people, why? Because the folk that run the air farce say that is the way to get more capability in the expeditionary environment with kit like Typhoon, F-35 and NEC, do I believe that? No, not for a second, I just don’t like people spouting on about expenditure cuts when the opposite is happening.
As for the economy, well, I suppose that is a matter of opinion, if what you say is right then labour will get kicked out in the next election and the Tories returned to power, do you really see that happening?
As to insufficient income tax collected, sorry, but you are just plain wrong, we have the highest ever income through income tax thanks to the highest ever level of employment in modern times and the lowest level of national debt since World War One, Government borrowing, do you remember Lamont and Lawson? This lot are spending a fortune on Education, Health and infrastructure, like it or not that is where the ELECTORATE want the national purse spent and not on defence, that is a shame and I wish it were not so, but who ever said life was fair?
Just to stay on topic, I think DARA was a dead duck from the day it was created. BAES and other OEM's can do the work and in todays software driven world if you ain't got access to software source codes you are dead. Lockheed-Martin won't release these to a soul on the C-130J so I don't expect Eurofighter to on the Typhoon.
AMRAAM is an example of the future of military 3rd/4th line maintenance, even break the seal on the thing and you invalidate the guarantee, if you want it fixed ship it back to the plant. Raytheon support it and do ALL maintenance. That will be the way of the F-35 and thus there is no use for DARA once current legacy platforms are retired.
Gentleman Aviator
there is no use for DARA once current legacy platforms are retired.
It's always difficult to say when OSDs will really be - none have ever moved to the left...... and despite recent adverts, I still believe Marham will struggle to get on line on time and within budget (whatever the latter may be!)
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Oxon
Posts: 33
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Sorry - can't let this one go. While the defence budget might be increasing in real terms compared with the overall economy, it's shrinking (rapidly) when compared with inflation in the defence sector - I've heard estimates ranging from 12% to 20% in the last 12 months. So while Buff can quite happily claim to be increasing spending 'in real terms', in proper real terms the amount of stuff that money can buy is shrinking considerably. Not all the problems with project budgets are created by MOD mismanagement - a lot of the problem is actually industry's inability to control inflation in the defence sector.