More Pain? "RAF threatened by equipment cuts, says senior officer "

[5 Forward 6 Back]

Originally Posted by CirrusF

Whenever I see the RAFAT at airshows, it just sends a message to me that the RAF is obviously not that stretched, and that they don't take the war in Afghanistan as seriously as the portray.

Do you really think that a couple of dozen engineers, 10 pilots, and a dozen or so slightly battered 1970s vintage trainers represent a massive pile of assets that would make a difference in Afghanistan...?

I'm pretty sure that even the public understand that not everyone can serve on the front line constantly. I'm glad there are jobs like the Reds around so pilots in our poor, overstretched Air Force can do something different for 3 years.

[A A Gruntpuddock]

Re the 'aircraft aquisition' process, in one of Neville Shute's novels written over 50 years ago (Round the Bend I think) he has an aircraft designer commenting on the strange way the ministry arranged things compared to the private sector.

Not much change since then as far as I (an outsider) can see.

[Finnpog]

A completely mad thought I know, but...

In my 'wish world', wouldn't it be great to see the Sparrows in Typhoon rather than Hawk.

Using front line combat airframes as opposed to trainers

USAF Thunderbirds...Check
USN (and the odd Marine) Blue Angels...Check
Russian Knights...Check

Yes I know
Patrouille de France
Frecce Tricolori

I also remember seeing the Bundesmarine's (as was) Vikings.

[Pontius Navigator]

Finnpog, ideal world yes.

In early 90s we had some Mirage V (I think) on ACMI at the same time as the Waddo airshow. We asked if they could do a display. Now in the RAF that would almost inevitably have been a NO unless the display pilot was on that deployment.

Anyway, the FAF said yes, and we had two Mirage doing pairs aeros. Now if ever two halves made more than a whole then this was it. Seeing a pair was superb and far better than hi-speed pass L-R, low speed pass R-L, climb, dive, roll by a Tornado.

But reality strikes. We had to give all that up in the 60s. Who can remember the Blue Diamonds or even better Simon's Circus? A 16-ship Hunter formation was airmanship and airpower in one pass; a four Vulcan scramble said loads too.

[RumPunch]

Well if we removed a few of the Air Ranks that are surplus to requirements then that should be enough to keep the Reds going for a few more years , surely they wont miss a few of the 500 odd that are serving at present

Sorry thats not an option as they are all needed.... my bad

[Wrathmonk]

Rum Punch

Well if we removed a few of the Air Ranks ... surely they wont miss a few of the 500 odd that are serving at present

Have a look here. Air Rank starts at OF6 and even I "only" make it 126 in the Air Force.

Now if you were talking the number of 'stars' across the three Services you may be nearer to the truth.

My bad - never let the truth get in the way of a good moan, hey!

[L J R]

Fact - You NEED air defence - full stop....!.


..and I am a mud mover..

[vecvechookattack]

Of course you need Air defence. How on earth would Thales and BAe and EADs survive without it?

[Pontius Navigator]

Wrath, now try and list 126 jobs that need air rank

Maybe they should have a proper air rank pyramid.

CDS retires at 60
CAS retires at 57
CINCAIR retires at 55
etc down the tree unless selected for the next higher appointment.
3* out at 53
2* out at 51
1* out at 49
Gp Capt out at 47
Wg Cdr/Sqn Ldr remain to 55 as staff weenies

That way the top would get a lot thinner a lot quicker.

[Wrathmonk]

Trouble is we are trying to play the joint game. If CINCLAND is a 4* so is CINCAIR and CINCFLEET. And so it filters down. It then means we don't have sufficient people to compete for those important joint appointments (CJO for instance - at least 3 x RAF have held the appointment to my knowledge). If we blink and downgrade key appointments on our own (say, make CINC a 3*, Air Sec a 2*, AOC 1* [which would make sense given ACAS is a 2*]) and the RN and Army don't do similar with their formations then we really will be the junior service in more ways than one! Not saying it's the wrong thing to do, just saying its not something that should be done on our own. And the RN is smaller but have similar numbers of starred officers. Personally, I think the bulge (or deadwood/boarding school handcuffed) in our rank pyramid is at the OF4/OF5 level and that's where we should enforce the 'up or out' policy (perhaps based on potential [as per SJAR] rather than actual in the short term).

[5 Forward 6 Back]

I remember reading somewhere that Air Officers were only guaranteed the one tour in each rank; so if you don't get promoted out of it, then you're likely to retire after 3 years.

Is that true?

[Jumping_Jack]

I don't think that is the case. I know plenty of Air Officers that have done consecutive tours in the same rank. That said, if there isn't a job for them to go to they can be made to retire.

[Blacksheep]

...could be classed as "dead wood"

They've been chopping out the "dead wood" since the fifties. I was hardly out of Brats when they were making all our older Chief Technicians redundant; I mean what use were a bunch of old geezers left over from the 1943 Bomber offensive? Some of them were nearly 45 years old for heaven's sake! Then throughout the 60s and 70s there were scale backs every five years or so, with a huge one just after the withdrawal from east of Suez. During my last tour, a couple of other sergeants signed on for 22 just so that they could benefit from the next redundancy package that they reckoned (correctly as it turned out) would see them out in less than three years with a nice gratuity and pension package.