Air Transport Mounting Arrangements
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 345
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Air Transport Mounting Arrangements
Why is it not possible for Air Transport to collect frieght (primarily helicopters) from the many airfields that are AT capable (i.e. Wattisham)?
There seems to be an aversion to this as a capability.
Is it realised how much engineering effort is required to 'fix' helicopters once they have flown as frieght in order to then fly them to where they live and vice versa. This process involves amazing amounts of man hours and engineering effort for what appears little benefit.
I do understand the strains that AT are under but fail to see the 'huge' impact on an aircraft being loaded or unloaded at a different airfield, is it truly that difficult and given the percieved level of difficulty has it been assessed in a manner that balances the needs of all, not just AT?
Dons body armour,
HEDP
There seems to be an aversion to this as a capability.
Is it realised how much engineering effort is required to 'fix' helicopters once they have flown as frieght in order to then fly them to where they live and vice versa. This process involves amazing amounts of man hours and engineering effort for what appears little benefit.
I do understand the strains that AT are under but fail to see the 'huge' impact on an aircraft being loaded or unloaded at a different airfield, is it truly that difficult and given the percieved level of difficulty has it been assessed in a manner that balances the needs of all, not just AT?
Dons body armour,
HEDP
Join Date: May 2001
Location: uk
Posts: 215
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
HEDP
Perfectly reasonable question.
I can supply a few 'reasons' why this is not done as often as it should be to make the user units a bit happier.
There is still a willingness from the operators to do this and it has been done recently, but overall the perceived impact on theatre ops is often a risk that the command chain is unwilling to take.
Sometimes, the user units won't open the airfields for an AT move or don't have the crash cat required. Additionally, especially the C17, doesn't have the flex in terms of availability to pre-position at a hub airfield. This would inevitably waste time when the ac could be doing something more valuable.
Sadly, the days of us being able to do as you suggest are gone. Lack of frames/crews/time makes it a non-starter on a regular basis.
Perfectly reasonable question.
I can supply a few 'reasons' why this is not done as often as it should be to make the user units a bit happier.
There is still a willingness from the operators to do this and it has been done recently, but overall the perceived impact on theatre ops is often a risk that the command chain is unwilling to take.
Sometimes, the user units won't open the airfields for an AT move or don't have the crash cat required. Additionally, especially the C17, doesn't have the flex in terms of availability to pre-position at a hub airfield. This would inevitably waste time when the ac could be doing something more valuable.
Sadly, the days of us being able to do as you suggest are gone. Lack of frames/crews/time makes it a non-starter on a regular basis.
Appreciate you probably can't say for good OPSEC reasons but what "Crash Cat" arrangements are put in place for tactical landing strips? Theoretically speaking, if it is ok to fly an aircraft with pax and freight on-board onto a strip in the middle of nowhere with no ambulance / fire truck etc can't you just use the same thinking for putting an aircraft into, say, Wattisham (assuming it's in support of current ops). If the risk management is acceptable in theatre surely if its in support of ops its acceptable out of theatre? Or is it UK H&S intruding again?
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Wilts
Age: 53
Posts: 92
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Having been involved in tasking AT assets in the UK and overseas I know that the decision to operate onto strips without CAA/FAA crash cover is not taken lightly.
Even if a task is in support of Ops whilst mounting out of a UK airfield, you can't use operational crash cover exemptions, unless you needed to move someone otherwise they would die (Aeromed?), but then I think the crew would also be on very thin ice if things went wrong.
I think that in the event of an accident where people died due to a lack of fire cover the coroner wouldn't be too pleased if the only reason that the cover wasn't in place was because the MOD didn't have enough money for fire cover at that specific airfield.
It all boils down to not enough money, crews, aircraft, equipment....the list goes on.
Even if a task is in support of Ops whilst mounting out of a UK airfield, you can't use operational crash cover exemptions, unless you needed to move someone otherwise they would die (Aeromed?), but then I think the crew would also be on very thin ice if things went wrong.
I think that in the event of an accident where people died due to a lack of fire cover the coroner wouldn't be too pleased if the only reason that the cover wasn't in place was because the MOD didn't have enough money for fire cover at that specific airfield.
It all boils down to not enough money, crews, aircraft, equipment....the list goes on.
One point worth bearing in mind is that former fighter/bomber fields may not have the ACN (Airfield Classification number) i.e load bearing strength (not forgetting runway length) to take large AT aircraft, particularly with a load and lots of fuel to go somewhere half decent.
Sure you may have seen AT aircraft, once upon a time, operating from e.g.Coltishall or similar, but that was usually for a Families day type scenario - very light loads and little fuel. Similar for aircraft arriving at such bases to offload, say troops from a nearby army base - the vast majority of the fuel and, therefore, weight, is gone.
Sure you may have seen AT aircraft, once upon a time, operating from e.g.Coltishall or similar, but that was usually for a Families day type scenario - very light loads and little fuel. Similar for aircraft arriving at such bases to offload, say troops from a nearby army base - the vast majority of the fuel and, therefore, weight, is gone.
Guest
Posts: n/a
Wrathmonk
My thoughts exactly! Surely bouncing a Herc etc off the bondu in the back of beyond with no fire cover etc has got to be more risky than a normal approach to thousand's of feet of black stuff, probably with some basic approach aids too. And if, heaven forbid, something did happen then the local civvy emergency could be called (admittedly, not as quick as on site teams).
My thoughts exactly! Surely bouncing a Herc etc off the bondu in the back of beyond with no fire cover etc has got to be more risky than a normal approach to thousand's of feet of black stuff, probably with some basic approach aids too. And if, heaven forbid, something did happen then the local civvy emergency could be called (admittedly, not as quick as on site teams).
Last edited by Green Flash; 12th Mar 2007 at 11:23. Reason: Edited to add - to acknowledge Been T and Mr B's posts
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Wiltshire
Posts: 7
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Not entirely related but I remember when I was an apprentice at RAE Farnborough many years ago. 3 AN124s airlifted the Land Rover Camel Trophy teams out to Siberia I think. The sun came out and the aircraft started sinking into the taxi ways. Even forced cooling with water only meant that they had to be moved ever hour to prevent damage. We had seen these aircraft many times at Farnborough but they were ‘show weight’. When the aircraft left they conducted their familiar engine checks on the runway. It was only then that we realised that the aircraft were really heavy and used maximum take off power to depart. Amazing the size of the bits of turf from the edge on the runway that were lifted and hurled at cars.
Aircraft at air shows are very light indeed.
Aircraft at air shows are very light indeed.
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: firmly on dry land
Age: 81
Posts: 1,541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Seems to be two things here not just one:
Here we seem to be talking about collection for deployment.
Here we seem to be talking about aircraft returned from deployment.
The aircraft have to be prepared somewhere. Presumably easier to do this at Wattisham rather than fly them to Brize and prepare them there. Similarly on return it would be easier to recover them at Wattisham.
The nub of the question thus seems to be, 'why do we have to transport our helicopters (by road) when they could be delivered to Wattisham direct.' In other words very little to do with engineering effort, or am I missing a trick?
The point about crash cat for a fully loaded C17 departing Wattisham has been made. There is also the additional 'out of service' time of the additional turn-round at Wattisham and the recovery leg to Brize, not to mention the possiblity of the crew being out of duty time.
Making the same argument for troop moved however I would argue that delivering 200 squaddies direct to home would go someway to improve morale rather than a convoy of buses from Brize.
Why is it not possible for Air Transport to collect frieght (primarily helicopters) from the many airfields that are AT capable (i.e. Wattisham)?
Is it realised how much engineering effort is required to 'fix' helicopters once they have flown as frieght in order to then fly them to where they live and vice versa.
This process involves amazing amounts of man hours and engineering effort for what appears little benefit.
The nub of the question thus seems to be, 'why do we have to transport our helicopters (by road) when they could be delivered to Wattisham direct.' In other words very little to do with engineering effort, or am I missing a trick?
The point about crash cat for a fully loaded C17 departing Wattisham has been made. There is also the additional 'out of service' time of the additional turn-round at Wattisham and the recovery leg to Brize, not to mention the possiblity of the crew being out of duty time.
Making the same argument for troop moved however I would argue that delivering 200 squaddies direct to home would go someway to improve morale rather than a convoy of buses from Brize.
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: in my combat underpants
Age: 53
Posts: 1,065
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
It is far more efficient to run your AT from central hubs and use lower priority / cheaper / more plentiful modes of transport to serve the hubs. We have so few frames that it does not make sense to use up all those hrs/takeoffs/landings to pootle up country and pick up a frame or freight. On the engineering front - you'd have to do that work after the frame had been freight anyway. If it is too difficult to put a team at the hub for a week or two, get it moved by road to a better facility. Just a thought.
Wattisham:
7,500 ft Runway.
Full ATC Radar Unit with PAR recovery.
Cx Cat MOD 3A (Can be upped to 4A by prior arrangement, has been up to 5A with a bit more notice for special tasks).
Existing Medical Cover.
C17s and A300s have operated there before. No parking for them mind, but you just go runway BLACK for a couple of hours while you offload on the ORP.
Lot less fuss than driving 6 hours to / from Brize!
LXGB
7,500 ft Runway.
Full ATC Radar Unit with PAR recovery.
Cx Cat MOD 3A (Can be upped to 4A by prior arrangement, has been up to 5A with a bit more notice for special tasks).
Existing Medical Cover.
C17s and A300s have operated there before. No parking for them mind, but you just go runway BLACK for a couple of hours while you offload on the ORP.
Lot less fuss than driving 6 hours to / from Brize!
LXGB
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Wilts
Age: 53
Posts: 92
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Are medics, firecover etc detached to places like, for example, Keevil, when AT are practising? (Opsec to be considered, naturally.)
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 769
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Why not put your request to DTMA at Andover? As the joint organisation (with a distinctly green shade) responsible for tasking all AT flights, I'm sure they would be happy to task as you wish if they were able to.
Remind me again please - why is there no parking available for large aircraft at Wattisham? The taxyways were perfectly usable by large aircraft when Wattisham was an RAF base!
Remind me again please - why is there no parking available for large aircraft at Wattisham? The taxyways were perfectly usable by large aircraft when Wattisham was an RAF base!
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Wilts
Age: 53
Posts: 92
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Because it costs money to keep an airfield open for large aircraft operations eg taxiways have to be repaired and kept FOD clear.
There are many parts to the jigsaw, some of which prevent large aircraft movements from taking place at smaller airfields despite the user unit wanting it
Movements teams, ac handling equipment for loading/unloading pallets, pax processing, catering, customs, crew duty outbound (pre-positioning ac to load at start of 14hr day) and inbound (use of aircraft the following day, in the event of a delay).
I am not saying that they are not achievable, just that with the very limited manpower and assets we have these days spread so thinly, keeping your aircraft operations from one large base does make sense, espeically when the C-17 (or other large ac) movement isn't the only one going on.
In my previous job there was a suggestion to reduce the length of the runway to 3000ft as this was all the Apache needed thereby reducing costs at Wattisham. Fortunately this was thrown out!
There are many parts to the jigsaw, some of which prevent large aircraft movements from taking place at smaller airfields despite the user unit wanting it
Movements teams, ac handling equipment for loading/unloading pallets, pax processing, catering, customs, crew duty outbound (pre-positioning ac to load at start of 14hr day) and inbound (use of aircraft the following day, in the event of a delay).
I am not saying that they are not achievable, just that with the very limited manpower and assets we have these days spread so thinly, keeping your aircraft operations from one large base does make sense, espeically when the C-17 (or other large ac) movement isn't the only one going on.
In my previous job there was a suggestion to reduce the length of the runway to 3000ft as this was all the Apache needed thereby reducing costs at Wattisham. Fortunately this was thrown out!
I've certainly flown in and out of Wattisham in a VC10! Although it is a bit tight east of the old Q access, for sure.
We also used to be able to bring back as many folks as we could squeeze in to the VC10K when we were trailing jets home from APC etc - because we were under the OpCon of the AAR people at Gp, not the leaden hand of Ascot Ops who ran the shiny fleet.
So we took peeps to Leeming (div to Tesside due to cross winds), Marham, Wittering, Leuchars etc whenever we could. BUT that was also because the aircraft and crew weren't subject to DTMA tasking - and because we could!
Having been on the other side of the fence myself and enjoyed waiting for a coach trip from Brize to Suffolk, I was always keen to try to fly the guys direct to their own bases if chums at Gp could be persuaded.
With crew manning and tasking being the way I'm told it is these days, the necessary slack in the system just isn't there to provide door-to-door trooping, very regrettably.
We also used to be able to bring back as many folks as we could squeeze in to the VC10K when we were trailing jets home from APC etc - because we were under the OpCon of the AAR people at Gp, not the leaden hand of Ascot Ops who ran the shiny fleet.
So we took peeps to Leeming (div to Tesside due to cross winds), Marham, Wittering, Leuchars etc whenever we could. BUT that was also because the aircraft and crew weren't subject to DTMA tasking - and because we could!
Having been on the other side of the fence myself and enjoyed waiting for a coach trip from Brize to Suffolk, I was always keen to try to fly the guys direct to their own bases if chums at Gp could be persuaded.
With crew manning and tasking being the way I'm told it is these days, the necessary slack in the system just isn't there to provide door-to-door trooping, very regrettably.
There's a blast from the past!! Believe it or not, a small morsel of money has been spent since Condec and the movers have moved on, past TREPEL to ATLAS 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Hampshire
Age: 68
Posts: 140
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
OK so Condecs are now called Atlases but the question remains are there enough (servicable) of them to be positioned around the country?
I remeber it was a major logistical operation to get a loader deployed to West Freugh and that was between GW1 and GW2 when things were quiet
I remeber it was a major logistical operation to get a loader deployed to West Freugh and that was between GW1 and GW2 when things were quiet
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: In the State of Denial
Posts: 1,078
Likes: 0
Received 146 Likes
on
28 Posts
We used to collect & deliver loads to/from deployments around all the major bases in the UK - few of the airfields in the UK are a challenge to a C130, even if we want to carry fuel for, say, Akrotiri. My understanding is that it is simply policy that the load comes to Lyn/ Bzn, presumeably because it is cheaper to move by road that it is by air. One of the last times I 'picked up' was from Warton, taking Typhoons away - we were on the ground for 2 1/2 days to allow time for loading, not exactly a good use of an AT asset.
It used to be the norm to leave Lyn very early to get to Wittering or wherever at opening time, to then sit around for hours while they squeezed in the load (how long does it take to get a helicopter on board?) & then if we were lucky we had enough crew duty left to reach our destination. From an AT point of view it makes more sense to get the loading done at home base, while the crew are still asleep.
As for doing strips with no firecover, it's usually there, certainly in the UK even when we're doing landings on beaches, & whenever possible on operations too. Chances of being allowed to land at an airfield in the UK without it? Zero.
It used to be the norm to leave Lyn very early to get to Wittering or wherever at opening time, to then sit around for hours while they squeezed in the load (how long does it take to get a helicopter on board?) & then if we were lucky we had enough crew duty left to reach our destination. From an AT point of view it makes more sense to get the loading done at home base, while the crew are still asleep.
As for doing strips with no firecover, it's usually there, certainly in the UK even when we're doing landings on beaches, & whenever possible on operations too. Chances of being allowed to land at an airfield in the UK without it? Zero.