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

[Lyneham Lad]

On today's Flight Global site:-

The UK Royal Air Force is so heavily committed to activities in Afghanistan that it would be unable to launch a campaign such as its Operation Telic effort staged during the second Gulf war, one of the service's highest ranking officers has revealed.

"Our ability to do Telic tomorrow just isn't there any more," says assistant chief of the air staff Air Vice Marshal Tim Anderson. "All our high-end systems are out fighting the Taliban."

Anderson has also voiced fears over the threat of possible equipment cuts as a result of a new Strategic Defence Review expected to be launched next year. "Everything that we have we need," he notes.

With the RAF expecting the review process to have "a very financial focus", Anderson says there will be "some really rather painful decisions in terms of the way in which we deliver defence in the future".

Full article

More salami-slicing? From everything I read on this forum, it is difficult to envisage what areas could realistically be cut. However, no doubt there will be some people pointing at the Typhoon and/or the Reds.

[BigX]

Timo was always well known for saying it how it was on 14. Best bollockings of my career came from his direction!

[Mr C Hinecap]

There will be some serious changes to the way we do business and we won't like all of them. Some of them are welcome and do away with some real sacred cows, but we'll have a lot less across all 3 Services.

[Squirrel 41]

Yes we're all going to get a series of nasty choices. But let's cut back to the most important part of this article: Great to see that the Mighty F3 with a visual firing solution on some of those pesky Typhoo-whatsits... BZ, Sarah!

S41

[Lowkey]

Wasn't salami slicing taken as a defence cut some while ago and replaced with the Bleeding Stump Policy?

[Easy Street]

With the RAF expecting the review process to have "a very financial focus"

There will be some serious changes to the way we do business

Less than a week since the Haddon-Cave report pointed the finger at budget-led decision making and modern "management" practices.

I despair!

[Jabba_TG12]

Sadly, my rant of a few months ago of "being devoid of leadership at star level and above" seems to have had some of ring of truth to it.

How the hell did they let it come to this?

More to the point... how much worse is it going to get before it has the remotest chance of getting any better?

[MrBernoulli]

Unfortunately, if reviews and cuts were to continue ad-infinitum, you would be left with an air force (?) that still had the Red Arrows and similar 'nice' stuff. Would probably be the last unit to close! Twas ever thus in the RAF - the Reds are sacrosanct, probably because of all the FJ wallahs that populate the hierarchy ......

[CirrusF]

The UK Royal Air Force is so heavily committed to activities in Afghanistan

They still have the time and money to let the Red Arrows (and Typhoons) fly around and even land wheels-up, so I don't believe things are all that bad..

[[email protected]]

Well you are losing RAFSAR in 2 years so the Reds will be the only PR-positive asset left

A few less glossy brochures might save a few quid but then no thrusters will be able to get promoted!

[The Helpful Stacker]

They still have the time and money to let the Red Arrows (and Typhoons) fly around and even land wheels-up, so I don't believe things are all that bad..

The Red Arrows gain significant funding through sponsorship (remember, they're good for Hawk sales too).

The Typhoons, much like your beloved Rafales, are a new aircraft entering service and as such occasional incidents are bound to happen. That is why aircraft have a phased entry into service, so that any shortcomings in the aircraft design or training regime can be spotted and corrected. As an aside the entry of the Rafale to service has hardy been without incident either.

I must say though, it always makes me a little sad when a non-aircrew type such as myself needs to state the obvious to 'experienced' posters.

[Jig Peter]

Entry into service

At the risk of thread drift, the "stately" entry into service of military aircraft has long baffled me. In the civil world (in which I worked for almost as long as I was an RAF driver airframe), an aircraft is projected, discussed with potential customers, and when (if) enough have been won over, is launched. Some 5 years later, it has flown, been pretty well de-bugged, certificated and first deliveries begin. Once on the line with its customers, it is expected to earn its keep from Day One, with well above 90% availability and flying a full line programme all day every day. Compared with this, the "Military Way" seems dilatory, over-complicated and thoroughly inefficient. (Yes, I know about all the political shilly-shallyings, but apart from those there seem to be too many "heritage" outfits with partial responsibilities and opportunities for "career-progressing" comments, etc).

'Bye now - it's too windy for the day's production at the factory up the road to be committing aviation (the wind's above 110 kph, gusting 130).

[The Helpful Stacker]

Without wishing to play down the complexity of flying civil passenger aircraft (what with me being an ex-stacker and all) surely the ins and outs of learning to operate a complicated flying weapon system is slightly more difficulty than learning how to operate a flying bus, and couldn't the same be said about the technical aspects of servicing/maintaining them?

As I say, not wishing to play down what you do but the competent use of modern fast jets does, at least to my admittedly untrained eyes, seem a little different to operating passenger jets, in fact so different that attempting to draw comparisons is pointless.

[Jig Peter]

"Simply a flying bus "???

While not disagreeing that fast military jets are sophisticated and have their own complexities, it's the complcations of the system that brings them into service that "got" me even while I was driving some of them. The interaction (or not) between manufacturer and all the outfits that stand between builder and operator seemed (seems) to me to be unnecessarily time-wasting - and when suddenly the matter's urgent, you get bodge jobs like the Nimrod, for example.
The cynic I became used to reckon that after an aircraft was declared "Service ready", it would be the Mk.4 or even Mk.6, before the "real" aircraft was truly capable of doing the job. Even the lovely Hunter showed visible signs of "bodgery", with its add-on airbrake, the chain-link collectors, and don't forget the engine problems it had when the first attempts were made to fire its guns ... I just hope, for the crews' sake, that all Typhoon's wonder-systems are "Go" right now !
Haddon-Cave highlighted short-comings, sure enough, but I think there are other problems along the chain from factory to Squadron.
In the civil world, all the quite complex systems on the "simple bus" have to work from EIS - and do.

[VinRouge]

If I hadnt done a DWR in the past 5-6 years due to some ingrowing toenail or some other equally LMF reason not to go to sandy sh*tty places, I would be bricking it right now.

Det-dodgers that have not pulled their weight in the past few years will be part of the dead wood that gets chopped imho...

[CirrusF]

The Red Arrows gain significant funding through sponsorship (remember, they're good for Hawk sales too).

Then privatise them completely, like the Breitling jet aerobatic team. 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. Maybe BAe should pay for them entirely. They could even cut costs by just having one pilot, and let their recently developed multi-aircraft system fly all the other aircraft in close formation to the lead. Computers could do a far better job than RAFAT pilots, and would not land wheels up either.

The Typhoons, much like your beloved Rafales, are a new aircraft entering service and as such occasional incidents are bound to happen.

From what I have discovered from the internet, despite the RAF's best efforts to hush up the China Lake incident, the Typhoon wheels up landing was entirely pilot error. That has nothing at all to do with introduction of a new aircraft.

As I say, not wishing to play down what you do but the competent use of modern fast jets does, at least to my admittedly untrained eyes, seem a little different to operating passenger jets, in fact so different that attempting to draw comparisons is pointless.

All aircraft are the same on final approach - you set them up and do your prelanding checks which (unless you are in a seaplane) involves x greens. Indeed, the workload involved in landing an agile, light jet in VMC with lots of immediately available power and lots of drag hanging under the wings into a low traffic military airfield is arguably a lot less than landing a large, heavy, slippery, bus with long spool up time into a busy civilian airfield.

[Wrathmonk]

Vin

If you're talking redundancies, sadly, if any of the previous two (if not 3) tranches are anything to go by, those who are good volunteer to go and those who are less good keep their heads down. As it is always cheaper, easier, and less "publicity negative" to take a volunteer rather than a pressed-man (or woman) guess who goes. The question was even asked of PMA (as was) whether reverse promotion boards were held to identify suitable individuals to cull but even they led us to believe that, in most trades/branches, they fill the slots with volunteers first (not sure how they allocate bums to seats if (when!) over-subscribed) before looking at compulsory exits. I have also heard banter that under our wonderful European legislation you can not make someone compulsory redundant if you have a volunteer of the same grade/rank and branch/trade. I'm sure I'll be put right if that is hoop!

[Pontius Navigator]

Wrathmonk, the '73 redundancies were well targetted. Can't remember all the criteria but I seem to recall that Canberra crew were in the bracket and the FJ guys were excluded. Sqn Ldr and above could volunteer but there were shed loads of compulsory ones too, even guys promoted into the bracket.

In the 92 round there were lots of wholesale redundancies, SimTech for one, the whole trade went.

[Wrathmonk]

PN

Maybe so but certainly those in the last decade have not been quite so clearly defined - yes there were criteria to meet in terms of rank/age/seniority but we lost an awful lot of good guys (particularly at SNCO rank) without losing the job itself - so someone was then promoted to fill the gap. A true redundancy package will only work if we identify the posts that we truly don't need (standing by for flaming) - you could say that by association the person in that post could be classed as "dead wood" ... (assuming PMA don't assign () the 'good guys' into these posts). Problem with this though has been highlighted in previous threads and the potential 'shooting in the foot' if we make people redundant who are in these posts because of injuries sustained in the line of duty. Or as a respite tour. And if the economy picks up the trawls for potential redundancies will be released just as the job market recovers making it harder to keep the good guys from volunteering .....

Of course, should there be reductions in numbers it may be done by natural wastage through no extensions to service or by 'encouraging' PVRs by making life awkward (less flying hours, higher FQ rent, reduction in allowances, 12 month OOA tours etc etc).

And wasn't it in '73 when they got rid of that years RAF Staff College course en masse ....?

[cazatou]

Was it '73 or was it the '75 scheme? - "Positively the last Redundancy scheme the RAF will ever have"! Within a couple of years they were writing to people asking if they would like to rejoin. I believe the response was quite disappointing!!