We'll take the blame for you Mr Jervis
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Fly-Friendly
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Of course it's the crews and stations fault for being overstretched!! It couldn't possibly be because the incompetant RAF PR department are a bunch of chimps who couldn't organise a 
up in a brewery, but dont worry check out the next OBE/MBEs to be announced and they will probably be on it.
Pay peanuts get monkeys!
up in a brewery, but dont worry check out the next OBE/MBEs to be announced and they will probably be on it.Pay peanuts get monkeys!
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And it's nothing to do with the appalling marketing, choice of date, location or "product" is it?
The SoA website (which was itself sh!te) pre-Abingdon was full of superlatives, and whilst the weather was against them on day two, the results of day one spoke for themselves.
Jervis (whose website is also cr@p) clearly is not the man for the job, and that's the be all and end all. Pity no-one has had the balls to admit it.
Prior planning prevents etc.
The SoA website (which was itself sh!te) pre-Abingdon was full of superlatives, and whilst the weather was against them on day two, the results of day one spoke for themselves.
Jervis (whose website is also cr@p) clearly is not the man for the job, and that's the be all and end all. Pity no-one has had the balls to admit it.
Prior planning prevents etc.
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Lie after lie after lie....
1 Wing Commander Rick ("Gobi") Wakeman told the BBC Scotland news website: "We wanted to tell a story and put into context the RAF's operational capability alongside a big film."
Big film? What big film? That Jervis fiasco? The one he failed to deliver in anything like an acceptable length and was padded out with old RAF films by DDefPubs staff? That was a big film was it? Rumours close to the centre state a six figure with a two at the beginning price tag for that joke. Has Jervis returned the money and has his contract been revoked? I think not. After all, he is a freind of the SecDef's isn't he, at least, according to his website he is, I doubt the exalted one remembers him.
2 "In between each section of the film we would have had live flying to show what we are doing for real in a conflict theatre."
So, the good Wg Cdr has witnessed operations with E-3Ds at 4,000 ft, Tornados making attacks in straight lines one after the other at 300 ft and F-3s and Hawks making lazy circles at 1,500 to 2,000 ft has he? At least the Herc and Chinook elements of the RAF's role demo bore a little resemblance to reality. This is what has ruined many a supposed role demo, their being planned by non-operational types to impress their equally ill-qualified reporting officer.
3 "Some units and key individuals that formed the operational theatre are being deployed."
Bollocks. They were already there in May and that didn't stop the Abingdon horror did it?
4 "Because some units are unavailable, we couldn't mount a detailed display and link operational flying into the ground pieces as originally envisaged."
Since at Abingdon the RAF Regt unit involved seemed to play a very tacked-on and solitary role, how were they linked to the aircraft? And how was any of it linked to Jervis and Turner interviewing each other on film? What utter rubbish.
5 "It meant we couldn't effectively tell the story."
Good thing too! The megalomaniac attacking Britain with a submersible aircraft carrier to steal a new power source was second rate Dr Who of the seventies standard anyway. The words RAF and laughing stock didn't need any more credence for use in a single sentence.
6 "It is about routine unavailability of resources. It is a scheduling issue, not an overstretch issue."
Resources are routinely unavaliable. Yes, well, with a Typhoon simulator complex that still doesn't work, a civvie contracted Sea King engineering support that regularly fails to provide engines that actually work, the Merlin and HEMS fiasco still ongoing, operational overstretch, support undermanning, etc etc etc, I suppose they are.
I mention the above list because I am aware that far more money than the Spirit of Adventure is wasted on a regular basis. What I object to is that the perpetrators, Turner, Wakeman and Jervis, have been clearly identified as wastrels, shysters and idiots. They have brought the service into disrepute, and have been allowed to get away with it.
PVRs at an all time high, credibility falling to zero, eject, eject, eject......
Big film? What big film? That Jervis fiasco? The one he failed to deliver in anything like an acceptable length and was padded out with old RAF films by DDefPubs staff? That was a big film was it? Rumours close to the centre state a six figure with a two at the beginning price tag for that joke. Has Jervis returned the money and has his contract been revoked? I think not. After all, he is a freind of the SecDef's isn't he, at least, according to his website he is, I doubt the exalted one remembers him.
2 "In between each section of the film we would have had live flying to show what we are doing for real in a conflict theatre."
So, the good Wg Cdr has witnessed operations with E-3Ds at 4,000 ft, Tornados making attacks in straight lines one after the other at 300 ft and F-3s and Hawks making lazy circles at 1,500 to 2,000 ft has he? At least the Herc and Chinook elements of the RAF's role demo bore a little resemblance to reality. This is what has ruined many a supposed role demo, their being planned by non-operational types to impress their equally ill-qualified reporting officer.
3 "Some units and key individuals that formed the operational theatre are being deployed."
Bollocks. They were already there in May and that didn't stop the Abingdon horror did it?
4 "Because some units are unavailable, we couldn't mount a detailed display and link operational flying into the ground pieces as originally envisaged."
Since at Abingdon the RAF Regt unit involved seemed to play a very tacked-on and solitary role, how were they linked to the aircraft? And how was any of it linked to Jervis and Turner interviewing each other on film? What utter rubbish.
5 "It meant we couldn't effectively tell the story."
Good thing too! The megalomaniac attacking Britain with a submersible aircraft carrier to steal a new power source was second rate Dr Who of the seventies standard anyway. The words RAF and laughing stock didn't need any more credence for use in a single sentence.
6 "It is about routine unavailability of resources. It is a scheduling issue, not an overstretch issue."
Resources are routinely unavaliable. Yes, well, with a Typhoon simulator complex that still doesn't work, a civvie contracted Sea King engineering support that regularly fails to provide engines that actually work, the Merlin and HEMS fiasco still ongoing, operational overstretch, support undermanning, etc etc etc, I suppose they are.
I mention the above list because I am aware that far more money than the Spirit of Adventure is wasted on a regular basis. What I object to is that the perpetrators, Turner, Wakeman and Jervis, have been clearly identified as wastrels, shysters and idiots. They have brought the service into disrepute, and have been allowed to get away with it.
PVRs at an all time high, credibility falling to zero, eject, eject, eject......
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Anyone know what happened to the wonderful Jervis "RAF" magazine?
Having looked at the Jervis website, I have to agree with a_a; how on earth could you give a contract to a media company with a website that looks like that?
Having looked at the Jervis website, I have to agree with a_a; how on earth could you give a contract to a media company with a website that looks like that?
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still i did enjoy this video(hope link works)
http://www.raf.mod.uk/raftoday.cfm
the second part means that the PR people have finally learnt that you need lots of aircraft and people and some vaguely punchy music.
Nearly recinded my PVR - not.
http://www.raf.mod.uk/raftoday.cfm
the second part means that the PR people have finally learnt that you need lots of aircraft and people and some vaguely punchy music.
Nearly recinded my PVR - not.
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Hot Charlie, the RAF magazine went west more than a year ago; didnot sell too well, I understand, and hardly sold any advertising, hence proved too expensive to produce and adios!
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Gobi is a bloody nice bloke. I'm sure he's just been handed a crock of $hit and is doing his best to deal with it. I don't know many MoD Wg Cdrs that are allowed to have their own ideas. I suggest we don't shoot the messenger.
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Magazines you mean?
Hot Charlie,
The RAF Magazine was an interesting case in point. Titane publishing was the partner, under Jervis's direction. The RAF were supporting its production on a sliding scale, as the revenue from sales and advertising increased, the RAF's fiscal input was to decrease over a 12 month period. At the end of month 10, Titane announced the project a failure, it could not sustain itself financially, and withdrew. Several other publishers were approached, and in the words of one of them, "not with a ten foot pole".
Another Jervis concept was the Eagle Moss 106 part history of the RAF, to be sold weely, you know the sort of thing, collect to put in your binders for a complete encyclopeadic history. This was produced up as far as issue 6, and trialled in the North-East. It is common practice to trial these projects in an area where it is considered they will not do well. Then if the thing is a winner, you spend the money on national TV advertising and all the rest of the ballyhoo. The results of the trial were so bad that the publisher convened a team to see what had happened! The results were it was seen as irrelevant, unpopular and elitist. I found the last particularly interesting.
Since that's two failed magazines, when you add the trainers, the appalling clothing range, the rubbish "yoof" websites, last years Spirit of Adventure cancellation, and this year's two SoA failures, I find it amazing Jervis has a single contractual right remaining.
As to Gobi being a nice chap, I am sure he is. However, he was not handed a crock of s**t as another contributor put it, but along with Turner and several ambitious but ignorant subordinates, he actually built the crock and filled it in these cases.
It is the flagrant waste of vast amounts of money these people are responsible for that I object to. The fact that it is wasted not on one ridiculous project but many means they are incredibly gullible or singularly unfit for any kind of PR role or project budget responsibility.
Why a review of these actions has not been forthcoming at a higher level I am at a loss to explain.
The RAF Magazine was an interesting case in point. Titane publishing was the partner, under Jervis's direction. The RAF were supporting its production on a sliding scale, as the revenue from sales and advertising increased, the RAF's fiscal input was to decrease over a 12 month period. At the end of month 10, Titane announced the project a failure, it could not sustain itself financially, and withdrew. Several other publishers were approached, and in the words of one of them, "not with a ten foot pole".
Another Jervis concept was the Eagle Moss 106 part history of the RAF, to be sold weely, you know the sort of thing, collect to put in your binders for a complete encyclopeadic history. This was produced up as far as issue 6, and trialled in the North-East. It is common practice to trial these projects in an area where it is considered they will not do well. Then if the thing is a winner, you spend the money on national TV advertising and all the rest of the ballyhoo. The results of the trial were so bad that the publisher convened a team to see what had happened! The results were it was seen as irrelevant, unpopular and elitist. I found the last particularly interesting.
Since that's two failed magazines, when you add the trainers, the appalling clothing range, the rubbish "yoof" websites, last years Spirit of Adventure cancellation, and this year's two SoA failures, I find it amazing Jervis has a single contractual right remaining.
As to Gobi being a nice chap, I am sure he is. However, he was not handed a crock of s**t as another contributor put it, but along with Turner and several ambitious but ignorant subordinates, he actually built the crock and filled it in these cases.
It is the flagrant waste of vast amounts of money these people are responsible for that I object to. The fact that it is wasted not on one ridiculous project but many means they are incredibly gullible or singularly unfit for any kind of PR role or project budget responsibility.
Why a review of these actions has not been forthcoming at a higher level I am at a loss to explain.
Champagne anyone...?
Sorry but our PR is just garbage.
People want vidoes of exciting stuff - jets, explosions etc etc. You've only got look at the USAF website and the videos/TV ads that are on there. F16 cockpit video, EOD, HALO jumps etc etc. These can't be expensive to produce. 30 seconds filming some airforce dude at work, doing something interesting. Why the fook can't we just get "back to basics" and churn out some decent bloody PR like this stuff? No need for daft "concept" airshows and appalling clothing ranges. Just go film real people doing their job - a lot of what we take for granted on a daily basis joe public would find interesting and/or exciting.
It really isn't rocket science. Or am I missing something?
People want vidoes of exciting stuff - jets, explosions etc etc. You've only got look at the USAF website and the videos/TV ads that are on there. F16 cockpit video, EOD, HALO jumps etc etc. These can't be expensive to produce. 30 seconds filming some airforce dude at work, doing something interesting. Why the fook can't we just get "back to basics" and churn out some decent bloody PR like this stuff? No need for daft "concept" airshows and appalling clothing ranges. Just go film real people doing their job - a lot of what we take for granted on a daily basis joe public would find interesting and/or exciting.
It really isn't rocket science. Or am I missing something?
Hear hear!
I went to an excellent little air show last week - the Wyton families' day and ULAS Ex-Members reunion (where were you, Stoppers?).
We had:
Static Chinook and Puma
Flying displays of:
Tutor solo aeros, Tucano solo aeros, Hawk solo aeros
Harrier x 2 fly through
Tornado F3 display
Typhoon x 2 fly through, hard turn and depart (LOTS of NOISE!!)
Spitfire display (I think it was the OFMC Mk 9)
DC3 display
B17 display
Chipmunk and Cherokee synchronised formation (surprising and well flown)
4 x Tutor formation display
19 static civvy aircraft which had flown in to the ex-Members' Association, including Chipmunk, Tiger Moth, SF 260 and some rare types.
All in all, a well-organised show put on with very limited funding. In the distance it sounded as though there were other crowd-pleasing displays going on as well.
Best displays? Superb Spitfire and the Typhoon pair (amazing what an effect thunderous afterburners have on the crowd!).
BIG thanks to all concerned - and so much better than crap such as Spiwwit of Dewwing-doom...... Thanks also to the delightful young ladies of ULAS who chatted to us old codgers!
I went to an excellent little air show last week - the Wyton families' day and ULAS Ex-Members reunion (where were you, Stoppers?).
We had:
Static Chinook and Puma
Flying displays of:
Tutor solo aeros, Tucano solo aeros, Hawk solo aeros
Harrier x 2 fly through
Tornado F3 display
Typhoon x 2 fly through, hard turn and depart (LOTS of NOISE!!)
Spitfire display (I think it was the OFMC Mk 9)
DC3 display
B17 display
Chipmunk and Cherokee synchronised formation (surprising and well flown)
4 x Tutor formation display
19 static civvy aircraft which had flown in to the ex-Members' Association, including Chipmunk, Tiger Moth, SF 260 and some rare types.
All in all, a well-organised show put on with very limited funding. In the distance it sounded as though there were other crowd-pleasing displays going on as well.
Best displays? Superb Spitfire and the Typhoon pair (amazing what an effect thunderous afterburners have on the crowd!).
BIG thanks to all concerned - and so much better than crap such as Spiwwit of Dewwing-doom...... Thanks also to the delightful young ladies of ULAS who chatted to us old codgers!
