SAR going out to contract.
“Not even the most inept tabloid journalist would believe any organisation would be happy with 12.5% equipment serviceability”
Not only do certain parts of the MoD condone ZERO % serviceability (and availability) they positively encourage it by promoting those who allow it and denigrating those who fight it.
And while I’d like to think 12.5 SK3/3As were available on any given day is the norm, I have personally known 7 to be acceptable to the powers that be; but when it became 6 they made a polite enquiry. As ever, the problem was predictable, predicted and ignored. A week later it was back up to 19. Cost? Less than £200 travel expenses for two of us. (And, we dropped £50 on the Mess bandit at Finningly that night).
Not only do certain parts of the MoD condone ZERO % serviceability (and availability) they positively encourage it by promoting those who allow it and denigrating those who fight it.
And while I’d like to think 12.5 SK3/3As were available on any given day is the norm, I have personally known 7 to be acceptable to the powers that be; but when it became 6 they made a polite enquiry. As ever, the problem was predictable, predicted and ignored. A week later it was back up to 19. Cost? Less than £200 travel expenses for two of us. (And, we dropped £50 on the Mess bandit at Finningly that night).
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We have pilot and rearcrew instructors on each flight, a squadron trg team for assessment and a SARF standards unit for checking the overall effectiveness on the ground and in the air.
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"and that is probably why you will never be cost effective. In the big, grown-up world, professional avaitors are expected to survive on one base check and one line check a year. "
RAFLOO
Looking at the comparative usage as opposed to overall frame hours, the services appear to be consuming at a higher rate. If this is the case, it goes someway to explaining why you believe the cabs are overmaintained.
At a higher usage rate, you will pay the penalty of additional increased routine maintenance, hence more rects manhours per fg hr. To ascertain if your aircraft have a higher maintenance penalty you have to conduct your estimates on a comparative usage case.
Regards
Retard
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"and that is probably why you will never be cost effective. In the big, grown-up world, professional avaitors are expected to survive on one base check and one line check a year. "
RAFLOO
Looking at the comparative usage as opposed to overall frame hours, the services appear to be consuming at a higher rate. If this is the case, it goes someway to explaining why you believe the cabs are overmaintained.
At a higher usage rate, you will pay the penalty of additional increased routine maintenance, hence more rects manhours per fg hr. To ascertain if your aircraft have a higher maintenance penalty you have to conduct your estimates on a comparative usage case.
Regards
Retard
rafloo
Once again your logic is inconsistant. Please can you explain why overmaintaining aircraft makes them u/s?
We do service our aircraft more than the civil world but we always seem to have a shortage of spares. This is something that the profit driven civil world would not accept. AOG spares often get priority over all other freight, because the airline demands a spare - NOW. Overmaintaining our aircraft does not make them unserviceable, lack of spares does.
Once again your logic is inconsistant. Please can you explain why overmaintaining aircraft makes them u/s?
We do service our aircraft more than the civil world but we always seem to have a shortage of spares. This is something that the profit driven civil world would not accept. AOG spares often get priority over all other freight, because the airline demands a spare - NOW. Overmaintaining our aircraft does not make them unserviceable, lack of spares does.
VitaminG - if I misheard the bloke from the IPT and it was 12.5 airframes per day that still only equates to 50% serviceability from a fleet of 25 Mk3 and 3As - still seems pretty crappy to me.
Freeride - we do not do unnecessary GH - 95% of our training is in role maintaining skills using radar/FCS/FLIR, NVG, PLB homings, cliff, wet and deck winching, mountain flying, navigation, search management and IF (procedural and non-procedural). This is so that when we go out on a job, we provide the best service possible in any conditions. Can you say that you train as hard? When was the last time you flew a night mountains sortie for training?
Our pilots have an annual check with the Trg team for their operational category, an IRT once a year for their IR and a standards check by the trappers once every 2 years - that doesn't sound too much more than your base and line check.
Our dilution level is higher at the front line than we would like but when you see the capabilities of even our inexperienced pilots you cannot fail to be impressed - part of this capability is achieved through lots of training.
Freeride - we do not do unnecessary GH - 95% of our training is in role maintaining skills using radar/FCS/FLIR, NVG, PLB homings, cliff, wet and deck winching, mountain flying, navigation, search management and IF (procedural and non-procedural). This is so that when we go out on a job, we provide the best service possible in any conditions. Can you say that you train as hard? When was the last time you flew a night mountains sortie for training?
Our pilots have an annual check with the Trg team for their operational category, an IRT once a year for their IR and a standards check by the trappers once every 2 years - that doesn't sound too much more than your base and line check.
Our dilution level is higher at the front line than we would like but when you see the capabilities of even our inexperienced pilots you cannot fail to be impressed - part of this capability is achieved through lots of training.
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Crab,
We do flight as well as ground audits. Each individual pilot will do 2 checks each year... (VFR and IFR). One of those will be in the sim.
They also do a line check with a training captain. The auditors (IAA and IRCG) do sample line checks aswell.
As far as having instructors on board every flight... If I do a poor job on a deck or drum or whatever I wont need any one to tell me. The day I do I'm in trouble. If by chance I do fail to notice I can assure you that the rearcrew will advise me on the debrief!!!
I dont want to jinx the maintenance guys but our servicability levels amaze me. I think the 61 loves the life of low MAUW(most of the time), relatively low hours, constant hangarage and good maintenance.
Our primary role is marine based SAR. We do mountain work as a secondary role. We are not provided with NVG so our night mountain capabilty is limited. If they ask us to, then of course we will. If they ask us to go to 500 miles offshore and pay for the equipment we will go there too.
We dont rest on our laurels and continue to re evaluate the service we provide. However the service we provide is very good....as Im sure is yours. Many of the jobs we do are in conditions no one would routinely train in. So even if we did twice the training I'm not sure it would help all that much.
Most of the pilots here come with lots of experience previously (SAR and otherwise) so that helps. But like I said, In my experience both the duds and good ones come in all colours. Whether the service is provided by the military or a civil operator is irrelevant. The money still comes from the taxpayer. And while I would love a bigger budget, 120 hours of training per month at a ten pilot SAR base sounds OTT to me.
We do flight as well as ground audits. Each individual pilot will do 2 checks each year... (VFR and IFR). One of those will be in the sim.
They also do a line check with a training captain. The auditors (IAA and IRCG) do sample line checks aswell.
As far as having instructors on board every flight... If I do a poor job on a deck or drum or whatever I wont need any one to tell me. The day I do I'm in trouble. If by chance I do fail to notice I can assure you that the rearcrew will advise me on the debrief!!!
I dont want to jinx the maintenance guys but our servicability levels amaze me. I think the 61 loves the life of low MAUW(most of the time), relatively low hours, constant hangarage and good maintenance.
Our primary role is marine based SAR. We do mountain work as a secondary role. We are not provided with NVG so our night mountain capabilty is limited. If they ask us to, then of course we will. If they ask us to go to 500 miles offshore and pay for the equipment we will go there too.
We dont rest on our laurels and continue to re evaluate the service we provide. However the service we provide is very good....as Im sure is yours. Many of the jobs we do are in conditions no one would routinely train in. So even if we did twice the training I'm not sure it would help all that much.
Most of the pilots here come with lots of experience previously (SAR and otherwise) so that helps. But like I said, In my experience both the duds and good ones come in all colours. Whether the service is provided by the military or a civil operator is irrelevant. The money still comes from the taxpayer. And while I would love a bigger budget, 120 hours of training per month at a ten pilot SAR base sounds OTT to me.
Last edited by Decks; 19th May 2005 at 13:24.
Blame My Parrot
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Tanewha,
".......We have a check ride at least twice a year. We all love flying with QHI's and all, but please."........
Only twice? You were looky!! When I were a lad we 'ad an annual QHI check, annual IRT (more if you include upgrades or re-tests!), 6 monthly night FCS checks, a trappers visit, back-in-the-saddle checks (after main leave periods) and, if on a single engine a/c (Wx III), six monthly engine-off checks - phew!! (and I daren't think about the simulator!)
Questionably on the plus side, at least the squadron wheels knew enough about you to write a fair and accurate CR!!
".......We have a check ride at least twice a year. We all love flying with QHI's and all, but please."........
Only twice? You were looky!! When I were a lad we 'ad an annual QHI check, annual IRT (more if you include upgrades or re-tests!), 6 monthly night FCS checks, a trappers visit, back-in-the-saddle checks (after main leave periods) and, if on a single engine a/c (Wx III), six monthly engine-off checks - phew!! (and I daren't think about the simulator!)
Questionably on the plus side, at least the squadron wheels knew enough about you to write a fair and accurate CR!!
Last edited by VitaminGee; 19th May 2005 at 13:08.
-re “over maintaining”
While engineers generally don’t carry out maintenance for the sake of it, I think I know what rafloo’s referring to.
The example I cited (RAF down to 6 cabs) was caused entirely by poor (non-existent) training leading to engineers removing a complete 13-LRU system every time the observers thought there was a fault. The instructors hadn’t been trained on the system so they were passing on duff gen to the observers. What the observers thought was a fault was a design feature of the system. The engineers weren’t trained to recognise / diagnose this so simply pulled the whole system (the over maintaining bit, if you like). Result? 99.5% No Fault Found Rate at 3rd line workshops. That is, almost 100% serviceability, but low availability. And as any engineer will tell you, thinking an LRU is serviceable is different from verifying it to QA standards, so there was a huge bottleneck at 3rd line while literally hundreds of serviceable LRUs (in fact, over 1000 on the day in question) had to be fully tested, which took months and diverted staff from other tasks.
In the end, a 5 minute teach-in with the Obs Instructor and a Chief Tech saved a fortune by reducing unnecessary maintenance, the NFF rate and 3rd line costs / overtime; and increased availability and operational effectiveness.
We also found out that the RAF didn’t routinely employ people to troubleshoot cases like this (and nowadays neither do IPTs) but they knew the RN had a specialist team doing just that. (Disbanded when the RAF took over RN support). Sounds like we need a return to a similar system. If such a level of efficiency savings could be achieved (again) without impinging on OE, it would throw into doubt the calculations underpinning the cost-effectiveness of SKIOS (which is the original subject of the thread).
While engineers generally don’t carry out maintenance for the sake of it, I think I know what rafloo’s referring to.
The example I cited (RAF down to 6 cabs) was caused entirely by poor (non-existent) training leading to engineers removing a complete 13-LRU system every time the observers thought there was a fault. The instructors hadn’t been trained on the system so they were passing on duff gen to the observers. What the observers thought was a fault was a design feature of the system. The engineers weren’t trained to recognise / diagnose this so simply pulled the whole system (the over maintaining bit, if you like). Result? 99.5% No Fault Found Rate at 3rd line workshops. That is, almost 100% serviceability, but low availability. And as any engineer will tell you, thinking an LRU is serviceable is different from verifying it to QA standards, so there was a huge bottleneck at 3rd line while literally hundreds of serviceable LRUs (in fact, over 1000 on the day in question) had to be fully tested, which took months and diverted staff from other tasks.
In the end, a 5 minute teach-in with the Obs Instructor and a Chief Tech saved a fortune by reducing unnecessary maintenance, the NFF rate and 3rd line costs / overtime; and increased availability and operational effectiveness.
We also found out that the RAF didn’t routinely employ people to troubleshoot cases like this (and nowadays neither do IPTs) but they knew the RN had a specialist team doing just that. (Disbanded when the RAF took over RN support). Sounds like we need a return to a similar system. If such a level of efficiency savings could be achieved (again) without impinging on OE, it would throw into doubt the calculations underpinning the cost-effectiveness of SKIOS (which is the original subject of the thread).
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"We also found out that the RAF didn’t routinely employ people to troubleshoot cases like this (and nowadays neither do IPTs) "
Tuc
That is not correct, the AEDITs were set up for this type of work. Of course, the IPT has to spot there is a problem in the first place and task the AEDIT to investigate.
Regards
Retard
Tuc
That is not correct, the AEDITs were set up for this type of work. Of course, the IPT has to spot there is a problem in the first place and task the AEDIT to investigate.
Regards
Retard
Eng(retard) - we regularly highlight problems to the IPT so spotting them isn't the problem - getting the IPT to acknowledge the problem and then do something about it is the tricky bit. Even when we highlight a Flight Safety problem, backed up with incident signals and historic evidence, they still won't accept that a.the problem is of real concern and b. that it is their job to find the money to do something about it.
Now scrapping the IPT might be the way to generate funding for a few essential mods..........
Now scrapping the IPT might be the way to generate funding for a few essential mods..........
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[Not Mil Aircrew, but spent 7 yrs at Warton as an apprentoid / avionics devpt on Tonkas]
From my experience, there is scope for over-maintaining aircraft.
On avionics LRUs, repeatedly removing them to put them through 3rd line testing causes wear and tear on the connectors (which are frequently lifed for 500 mate / break cycles), causing a potential issue with over maintenance. At the time of design, 500 cycles probably seemed excessive for something with a 10,000 hr MTBF!
On mechanical items, all the opening / closing of Dzus fasteners on panels causes wear. These then have to be de-riveted and replaced, which often means having to over-drill and use larger rivets. Once that's happened a few times, then the whole panel needs changing.
Borescoping engines means lots of access panels to remove, causing increased wear and tear (plus the risk of damage to the turbines).
Engine replacement based on mag chip sampling - maybe safer to do this based on the cost of not doing so, but are engines replaced with an excessive safety margin??
Just a few ideas - ignore them if you will!!
From my experience, there is scope for over-maintaining aircraft.
On avionics LRUs, repeatedly removing them to put them through 3rd line testing causes wear and tear on the connectors (which are frequently lifed for 500 mate / break cycles), causing a potential issue with over maintenance. At the time of design, 500 cycles probably seemed excessive for something with a 10,000 hr MTBF!
On mechanical items, all the opening / closing of Dzus fasteners on panels causes wear. These then have to be de-riveted and replaced, which often means having to over-drill and use larger rivets. Once that's happened a few times, then the whole panel needs changing.
Borescoping engines means lots of access panels to remove, causing increased wear and tear (plus the risk of damage to the turbines).
Engine replacement based on mag chip sampling - maybe safer to do this based on the cost of not doing so, but are engines replaced with an excessive safety margin??
Just a few ideas - ignore them if you will!!
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Crab
Not sure how things are now with the DLO IPTs but through the 90s we were taking 20% cuts in budget year on year and we were not allowed line items for contingency. If a problem was immediate money had to be taken from the equipment support budget. Scrapping the IPT might raise funds but then who will let the mods contract.
Circuit Basher
There is some sense in what you say but in my experience avionic LRUs are rarely lifed items, they normally have to come out to get access to other equipment that is lifed, or has a higher failure rate. Have to ask the aircraft designers about improving the design
Mag chips do not show up blade damage again maybe the aircraft designers could reduce the number of panels to come off.
Regards Retard
Not sure how things are now with the DLO IPTs but through the 90s we were taking 20% cuts in budget year on year and we were not allowed line items for contingency. If a problem was immediate money had to be taken from the equipment support budget. Scrapping the IPT might raise funds but then who will let the mods contract.
Circuit Basher
There is some sense in what you say but in my experience avionic LRUs are rarely lifed items, they normally have to come out to get access to other equipment that is lifed, or has a higher failure rate. Have to ask the aircraft designers about improving the design
Mag chips do not show up blade damage again maybe the aircraft designers could reduce the number of panels to come off.
Regards Retard
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Crab
As per usual you want to drag this down to "we're better than you" but you make many assumptions. Yes, we (that's the royal we as I didn't say I was SAR) don't do night mountains on NVG as we don't have them or the mountains! As far as I am aware only two RAF flights have what you could call mountains anyway. In my experience those that hark on about NVG mountains are those that have done the least of it.
As for the amount of checks, yes it does seem like the same amount but bear in mind that commercially the check will be done in the most expeditious manner and the IRT does not consist of unnecessary GH at 40 kts with SAS out! A base check is one trip, not a day sortie, night sortie and GH trip followed by a ground inquisition.
I fully agree that you provide a very good service but so do the civilian SAR operators and given the same resources would do more with less. You are no longer part of Tony's expeditionary forces, the Falklands could easily be done by Brintel and there you have it!
As per usual you want to drag this down to "we're better than you" but you make many assumptions. Yes, we (that's the royal we as I didn't say I was SAR) don't do night mountains on NVG as we don't have them or the mountains! As far as I am aware only two RAF flights have what you could call mountains anyway. In my experience those that hark on about NVG mountains are those that have done the least of it.
As for the amount of checks, yes it does seem like the same amount but bear in mind that commercially the check will be done in the most expeditious manner and the IRT does not consist of unnecessary GH at 40 kts with SAS out! A base check is one trip, not a day sortie, night sortie and GH trip followed by a ground inquisition.
I fully agree that you provide a very good service but so do the civilian SAR operators and given the same resources would do more with less. You are no longer part of Tony's expeditionary forces, the Falklands could easily be done by Brintel and there you have it!
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I heard a very good and robust rumour that the RN detachment at Prestwick is due to disband within the next few years. Starting with the introduction od civil mainenance and following with the introduction of civil aircrew shortly after. A friend who works with Bristows stated that Bristows are formulating a business case to take over the unit as of 1 April 2008.
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Why would you need rescuing off the side of Mt Usborne at night? Who is going to be there unless they have decided to walk down from somewhere. As I said, given the same resources the civvie crews could do it but a reasonable balance of probabilities also has to be taken into account.
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rafloo,
Re Prestwick. Checked with my serving mates in the know and they state there is no intention to offer PWK SAR to commercial operators, now or in the future. Something to do with ugly black things not too far from Glasgow.
Re Prestwick. Checked with my serving mates in the know and they state there is no intention to offer PWK SAR to commercial operators, now or in the future. Something to do with ugly black things not too far from Glasgow.