A Gloomy day in Cyprus

[YellaRednGrey]

Just playing Devil's Advocate....now that the Republic of Cyprus has formally agreed to accept responsibility for SAR cover of the Nicosia Search & Rescue region I reckon your lucky to get away with keeping the Sqn. I know that BFC maintains responsibility for the SBAs and any British Mil aircraft in the SRR but we've provided SAR cover for donkeys..perhaps its payback time!! As I recall you only get about 25 jobs a year and most of those involve putting out fires in Summer. . .. .As for the SH tasking side of the house, that used to revolve around giving the TA 10 min trips round the WSBA on their Easter and Summer holidays. Don't suppose you'd miss that.. .. .At least some of you are still in a job, but I do feel for the GCs, I recall most used to love it out there. I personally won't miss the lack of aircon in the quarters, the search for an honest car dealer, the smell of the fish counter in Orphanides and, surprisingly, I don't miss the LOA!!

[Red Sikorsky Bruv]

Sven,. .. .I think you too are falling in to the trap of cherry picking from the requirements sheet. I spoke to 84’s Sqn Cdr this morning (he’s not ‘LambJ’ as I thought) and he said they wanted 4-axis to improve safety/accuracy when operating at high hover heights in the slack winds and poor vis Cyprus summer mornings (when most FJ dets operate). He also said that an added value benefit of getting 4-axis would be a night overwater capability – something 84 don’t have with the Wessex as STC are prepared to take that at risk. You rightly pointed out that the King’s performance Hot & High is not good but at sea level, where 84 spend most of their time, it could lift loads of troops and has loads of space to work on stretcher casualties.. .. .As for cost. It appears that COMR costs went through the roof when the contractors realised they wouldn’t be tax free, couldn’t live in the SBA, had to be able to deploy to surrounding countries etc etc. It certainly aint Shawbury.. .. .Yella R&G,. .. .Irrespective of the Republic’s declaration of SAR cover, Akrotiri still host APCs and I don’t think they’ve reached the ‘host nation support’ stage yet. Also, will the Republic’s SAR Force really cover the region – what about going to the north?. .. .LambJ,. .. .Your emotion to your engineers is commendable but you’ve reached a new era as you appear to have recognised. Your COMR will arrive next year and those left on the Sqn will almost certainly enjoy playing with the new toy. And by the way, your Sqn Cdr knows who you are.

[LambJalfraezi]

Red sikorsky dude...let's see them prove it in court! To the others, thank you very much for your opinions so far. I do feel that many of you are unfortunately more interested in budgets and aircraft than people and quality of life. This does not surprise me, I am sorry to say. The point of this thread was that I feel it is a sorry state of affairs when 'we' start giving away such postings...or indeed any postings. We will find out soon what our new aircraft will be, and soon our engineers will get posted. The rest of the station will take up the extra burden on all of the duty rosters. Our guys will tell their colleagues at their new stations how 'good 84 was - but don't bother to put it down...we've given it to the civvies'. And nothing that I have seen written in this thread can convince me that this is a sensible decision.

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

LJ,. . Nice one dude, we keep giving all the good stuff away. Bet your glad your not an "ass kissing", "name dropping", "bubbler" like the bloke above you. . .. .Happy Herc Mate. .. .all spelling mistakes are alcohol induced. . . . <small>[ 11 March 2002, 01:26: Message edited by: Always_broken_in_wilts ]</small>

[FJJP]

The Cyp Government allow only 84 to be permanently based in Cyprus because it is dual-hatted with its UN support role (note the blue UN band round the fuselage). As for going 'oop north', I would imagine they would continue do so in both roles. Witness a couple of years ago they spent a huge amount of time with rainmaker fighting a major fire west of Kyrenia - the Cyp Authorities would be unlikely to refuse help from 84 even if they had a fire-fighting capability of their own.. .. .Also, SAR crosses international boundaries, and additionally 84 enjoys an enviable reputation with the Cypriot authorities for their fire-fighting & SAR work, which have saved many Cypriot lives and many villages, all at no cost to their Government. Therefore, whatever the Cyp Gov put in place to fulfill their commitment, it is likely that the 2 SAR forces will work closely together like all SAR forces worldwide.

[Vortex Ming]

Didn't we just snip the '4th axis' cablework on the 412 to produce the Griffin autopilot? I believe originally it was capable of flying the ILS down to 50' without input from any of the assorted limbs in the cockpit.

[Cabe LeCutter]

It is rare that I am moved to post, but I am driven by the ill informed load of cobblers that have been written on this thread.. .. .FJJP. .84 Sqn lost it's UN role in 1986 and retains it's blue band as a political casevac role which is a bit of a wast of time in reality. The Cyprus government have no say on 84 Sqn's establishment in Cyprus, in fact, under the Treaty of Establishment, I think that you will find that the UK has powers way beyond that which are now considered acceptable.. .. .Yellow & Red. .I agree the Cypriots are a good bunch of guys and want to do their own SAR, but they have one basic snag, they do not train. Whilst they maintain an acceptable standard of capability for certain tasks, when the SAR jobs are beyond them, they call for the RAF. At least they know their limitations.. .. .The Seaking is only marginally younger than Walter, has a better performance than the Wessex at a similar fuel weight, and has the benefit? of being in service with the mainstream SAR Force. The airframe does not exist which meets all of the pipe dreams of the job spec, so lets go for the best of the bad job and stay military. 84 Sqn is probably the most difficult sqn in the Air Force to put a support contract on because of it's most diverse tasking. If you want flexability, stay military, you want cheap, pay the monkeys and go civvy.. .There is not the money to go for a Rolls Royce solution to the problem, so lets ignore the chair bound army staff officers driving the spec, and go for a solution which offers some compatabilitiy (albeit of a museum nature) which at least will maintain some flexability.. .. .All this banter is a waste of time anyway, cause we will get the cheapest solution. Flexability is an excuse for cockups.. .. .Head down, look out for the flack.

[[email protected]]

Cabe Lecutter, well said chap, there is nothing the Wessex does in Cyprus that cannot be done by the Sea King and the SK is capable of a great deal more besides. The only problem is cost and manpower - we have barely enough engineers and crews to maintain UK SAR without having to produce another Sqn as well. Now if they turned the FI into a COMR or contracted it out entirely then the UK SAR force could man 84 Sqn on a detachment basis with no shortage of volunteers.. .Sadly, as you rightly said the cheapest option will prevail regardless of it's operational or motivational impact.

[Sven Sixtoo]

Of course, the Wessex replacement will be required to do. .. . Far more than a Wessex can. . . . Quite a bit more than a SK can. .. .For a great deal less money than either.. .. .So as always in aviation, the solution will be a desperate compromise (the ideal aircraft having infinite payload, infinite speed, infinite range and someone paying you to fly it!). .. .I do not envy the HQ bods the decision on this one.. .. .Sven. . . . <small>[ 17 March 2002, 13:43: Message edited by: Sven Sixtoo ]</small>

[BEagle]

Defence procurement was once explained to me thus:. .. .The RAF wants a Cortina - . .Which has all the bells and whistles and performance of a Granada - . .But costs the same as a Fiesta. .. .(Apologies to younger readers who've never heard of these ancient pieces of motoring poo!)

[FJJP]

.....and a contractor is found who promises to do just that. Great for a while. Then you find out about contract restrictions and can't do the job you want to do. Or the equipment spec submitted by the Procurement Exec is not man enough for the job - but can be fixed at a price.... .. .So the deal ends up costing more <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="mad.gif" />

[LambJalfraezi]

Well.... .. .It's (almost) official. The FBH bid has got the contract (Subject to signing). That is 4x bell 412's. Almost half as good and more expensive than the military option that the Sqn wanted, but there you go. It carries almost half as many troops as a seaking, has no auto-transition (Virtually essential for night SAR), less range, less endurance etc. than the Seaking. BUT it must be better because the HICIPT selected it as the best solution after 2 years of going through the smart procurement process.. .. .Except...they didn't. They selected the Dauphin, bid by another company. The entire RAF process of 'SMART' procurement came up with a solution. The end user then said 'Sorry, but you're wrong - we don't want that, it's crap. Give us the 412 instead.' So they did. . .This proves beyond doubt that the new process quite simply doesn't work. The people who actually use the aircraft know what they want, and after hundreds of thousands of pounds are spent looking for a solution, they are able to ask for (and get!!!) what they wanted all along. Why have the procurement process at all?. .. .I have ALL of the documents pertaining to this, and can assure you that this is true - every word.. .. .What is the point?

[Sven Sixtoo]

I thought you said you wanted Sea Kings?. .. .Now you say you've got an aircraft with a 3-axis autopilot, which I thought you said was as much use as a chocolate kettle for SAR?. .. .And you claim you've got what you wanted all along?. .. .Are you sure the goalposts are fixed down?. .. .Sven. . <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="confused.gif" />

[Smudger]

It's the same old story, happening again and again. A requirement appears, the boys at the front line know what they want, and then many years and millions of wasted pounds later, they get fed with something that doesn't work and they just have to get on with it. It's pathetic, but that's how it has always been done. Just get out, like I did, and watch the whole thing crumble away from the comfort of civvy street.

[Mowgli]

Lamjal makes a valid point when he refers to the impact that contractorisation has on retention. It goes without saying that if you remove the cream postings, you diminish the smooth and have more rough. When I hear people say that it is too expensive to have the RR military option, they cannot tell me how many excellent people will leave at an option point as a result of seeking a better quality of life elsewhere; how much their experience was worth, and how much will be the cost of recruiting and training their replacements.

[Murphy]

Work with COMR unit. It all goes fine. Civvy/Mil interface fine.. .. .Stop Whining!!

[rigid_rotor]

I am left cold by this whole process, particularly if Lambjal's comments are correct. However, I do have a few queries with some of your comments lambjal.. .. .1. If "The end user then said 'Sorry, but you're wrong - we don't want that, it's crap. Give us the 412 instead.". Who is that end user? The Army?, potential survivors? or 84 Sqn? Aircraft selection must not be left to individual units to dictate. If you mean 84 Sqn then I disagree with your line "The people who actually use the aircraft know what they want". They know what they want to do with the cab but unless they have a wide background and have flown a lot of types, how could they offer a balanced opinion on type selection (this is not a dig at 84 so dont take it that way please). The Sqn personnel are the experts on the task, NOT on the selection of a replacement aircraft and they are probably best suited to draft the capability requirement.. .. .2. Onto the IPT. What training / background do they have. If it is broad and balanced, then they, armed with the capability requirement should be the only authority on aircraft selection. If however, the IPT lack the training/background etc to carry out their task (not their fault) I could understand their solution being questioned. Nevertheless, how the IPT decision can be rejected by the "user" leaves me thinking why bother (as Lambjal said). . .. .I will watch the final outcome of this competition with interest. But why a 412 would be selected over a Dauphin, given the lack of a Trans down AFCS function on the 412 seem odd. there must be more to this ??? Any comments from the user unit appreciated. . .. ."Not angry, just curious"

[oldbeefer]

Flew the 412 and Dauphin during the selection for DHFS. Although the D is a great bit of kit to waz around the sky, it's got no room in the back and not much in the front. Wheels also a bit small for Cyprus rocks. OK for Baywatch, but not much else. 412 on the other hand, feels like a 'proper' heli, whatever that is. With glass cockpit a 4 axis AP, I would think it would do fine.

[YellaRednGrey]

Just noticed this topic had 84 posts, quite appropriate to end on really, damn.....I've spoilt it!

Congratulations to your new boss, I hope you'll all make her welcome! Where did that dashing young blade go to?

[StopStart]

Random query, but who's the new boss of 84? Initials will do if we're being all secret.
Ta.