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Haddon-Cave, Airworthiness, Sea King et al (merged)

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Old 26th Aug 2010, 21:52
  #241 (permalink)  
 
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...you should read his speech made to the ADS Air Interest Group at the RAF Club in June.
Promising words, worthy of a good cause.
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Old 27th Aug 2010, 08:22
  #242 (permalink)  
 
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does anyone have a transcript or even a resumee?
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Old 27th Aug 2010, 15:28
  #243 (permalink)  
 
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flipster
Here is the link to transcript:
Ministry of Defence | About Defence | What we do | Air Safety and Aviation | Military Aviation Authority | Director General Military Aviation Authority (MAA) speech to ADS Air Interest Group
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Old 27th Aug 2010, 16:17
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Tapper's Dad


Many thanks. I hadn't read it.



He talks of “elephants”.

Well, the biggest bloody elephant in his room is the fact that MoD’s “experts” briefed Adam Ingram, both before and after XV230 crashed, that the airworthiness regulations were being implemented correctly. Time after time Ministers were told this was wrong and actual examples given.

If I were Director General MAA, the very first thing I’d do is make sure those staffs, and those who support(ed) them, play no part whatsoever in my organisation. And if that denudes DE&S and the rest of MoD of much of their hierarchy, so much the better.

In the very next paragraph he says we do have established Defence Standards. News Flash. While Mr Haddon-Cave was deliberating, MoD declared obsolete the only procedural airworthiness Defence Standard. Take a look at many of his recommendations and ask where the answer is. That Def Stan.

Oh how I’d hate being in the MAA. This paragraph is a cracker.

Another aspect of better specification of requirements lies in the area of data capture and management. I mentioned previously fault trend monitoring and, whilst the Department must take a more active role in such monitoring across the support and operating spectrum, clearly some, perhaps the majority in the case of partnered support, of the relevant data will be generated and captured in Industry activities and reside on Industry systems. As a first order requirement, the understanding of what data is available, or required; where and how it is accessed; what use it is put to, by whom; and how it is safeguarded, must be explicit. Moreover, adequate and effective contractual cover must be in place to protect mission critical data and mitigate the risk of broken logic/evidence chains, or inappropriate commercial leverage being a temptation downstream during a system's potentially long life.
For those in DE&S reading this, dig out the obsolete Def Stan. This is stuff you need to know and have done a thousand times before being promoted to the grade 3 steps below the DE&S minima.

I’m afraid I really am utterly appalled. Not one single person in any DE&S Project Team should have to be told any of this. One assumes the DG assessed his target audience while preparing this speech; as one is taught to. His conclusion, and the basic level at which he aimed, tells me this is going to take years.
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Old 27th Aug 2010, 18:15
  #245 (permalink)  
 
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TD thanks
Tucs reply is a bit worrying - it looks like the MoD airworthiness process is in even worse shape than I thought!!! MAA are between a rock and a hard place!
F
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Old 27th Aug 2010, 21:10
  #246 (permalink)  
 
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Whilst Tuc's reply might appear a little worrying - I think its spot-on!

Many of the current incumbents are most likely to be the same weak-willed drongoes that allowed the degradation of the specific services they were supposed to supply for budgetry reasons alone. And then they allowed these issues to worsten using "creative reporting" (smoke and mirrors) to cover it all until opened up by public inquiry.

It will probably take 5-10 years to build a new safety culture within the MAA itself and possibly further to reach into all Line operations and be accepted as the new "norm" for the shop floor - Thats where your safety culture is maintained.

IMO the new safety culture would be better served using newly inducted and untainted staff who are keen to do the "proper" job in a sustainable way - like their new Boss suggests he would like too.
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Old 27th Aug 2010, 23:51
  #247 (permalink)  
 
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Either that or trawling the retirement homes for engineers (over 50 yo at least) who gave a sh!t about the aircraft for which they were given charge!
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 07:31
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IMO the new safety culture would be better served using newly inducted and untainted staff who are keen to do the "proper" job in a sustainable way - like their new Boss suggests he would like too.
I agree, but the entire MoD personnel structure has to change. If the MAA is to provide continuity, who is going to join for 10 years while their contemporaries do a succession of less responsible jobs and get promoted each time? The willingness to accept responsibility, be accountable and an ability to do the job properly, must be rewarded somehow. We used to have “scarce discipline” allowance in MoD(PE). But many recipients wouldn’t accept airworthiness delegation and were little more than minutes secretaries. What MoD needs is to recognise this and those who don’t accept responsibility or delegation are effectively held back. This is nothing new. There used to be a system whereby it was recognised certain posts required seniority for line management purposes, but they couldn’t be promoted until serving 2 years in a post with wider responsibility, like having airworthiness delegation. “Restricted opportunity” posts I think they were called. They were rare, but they need to become the norm.

Either that or trawling the retirement homes for engineers (over 50 yo at least) who gave a sh!t about the aircraft for which they were given charge!
And that is what industry does successfully whenever they hit a problem the younger staff have never seen before. The pinnacle for their engineers is Chief Designer. He is God+1. It may take 30 years to achieve that level of experience and competence, and then he retires after a few years. That doesn’t suddenly make him incompetent and very often they are held on a retainer. That doesn’t mean the younger staffs are lacking. It is simply a pragmatic recognition that you get different problems every day and some don’t reoccur for decades. It is the nature of safety and risk management. It prevents reinvention of the wheel. MoD don’t do that. When their older staffs advise them something is going very wrong and aircrew are at risk, they simply get one of Rigga’s drongoes to trash him in a Ministerial brief. (One day, I shall frame the Ministerial brief from AbbeyWood saying I am the only person in MoD who says there is an airworthiness problem, therefore I am wrong. Dated 2 years before XV230).

I will never stop saying this until MoD acknowledge it. The record will show, for all time, that Ministers were advised in writing, long before XV230 crashed, of systemic airworthiness failings. ACM Loader’s words, which led directly to Haddon-Cave, were simply a reiteration if known facts, as was the H-C report.

Last edited by tucumseh; 28th Aug 2010 at 08:09.
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 09:18
  #249 (permalink)  
 
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tuc:
The record will show, for all time, that Ministers were advised in writing, long before XV230 crashed, of systemic airworthiness failings.
......and the future will no doubt go on repeating that myopia unless and until MOD Ministers, et al, are forced to take note of and act on such advice. That will not be while the MAA is subservient to them. It must be independent, that is completely remote of the MOD. Then and only then can it truly earn the title of "Authority" and enforce the UK Military Airworthiness Regulations on all who are bound by them.
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 12:54
  #250 (permalink)  
 
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Prove it!

Tuc, i always read your posts with interest, and we share a common belief that safety culture needs to be improved within the MoD. Budget excuses should not be allowed to ride roughshod over design or continuing airworthiness.

I would be interested to see a copy of this brief of yours though. All your arguments seem to be based on the fact that you raised the issues before, but were put back in your box. Care to share a scanned copy?

Cheers

El Colonel!
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 14:54
  #251 (permalink)  
 
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CC

I think the ball is in MoD's court, not mine/ours. They were advised of problems, not just by me but in numerous official reports. They denied them. They then lost two high-profile cases (C130 and Nimrod) when they were caught lying in court. Mr Haddon-Cave decided they were wrong, not me. I no longer have to prove anything. My pprune posts on the subject go back to my very first one, about 7 years ago. Long before Mr Haddon-Cave reported I laid out my stall and said I'd retract, apologise and walk away if he contradicted me. He didn't; not once. It was up to MoD to prove their case. They failed. We move on, but at the same time it is wise to remind ourselves occasionally why we are here. I'll do that every time there is a suggestion from MoD that this was in anyway a surprise.

As to publishing my "brief", it is plural by the way, I took the opportunity afforded by Des Browne (immunity from prosecution) by submitting evidence to Haddon-Cave. That no longer applies and it would be wrong of me to publish such documents. But there are many here who will confirm their existence.

Regards
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 16:07
  #252 (permalink)  
 
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Water of a duck's.

Read my posts.

Read Haddon-Cave.

You are shooting at the messenger. Why lurk in the shadows while others spoke out?


MoD denied knowledge of ESF until after XV179 had crashed. Specifications exist dated March 1990 and are called up in the regulations as risk / hazard mitigation for, inter alia, inert projectiles.

MoD stated at the Nimrod inquest that the airworthiness regulations were irrelevant. Wrong, and the Coroner and Haddon-Cave agreed.

Why no action was taken is not for me to say. But Haddon-Cave corrected that, didn't he?

As to the failings beginning before 1998, that is a simple matter of record and I have posted relevant links, for example, CDP's evidence to the Public Accounts Committee.

One is left wondering why you are suddently having a pop on these subjects. Just at a time when the actions of MoD staffs are under investigation and a Review is about to commence on a 1994 crash. One would think you didn't want these facts to be heard.

Last edited by tucumseh; 28th Aug 2010 at 16:21.
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 16:25
  #253 (permalink)  
 
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Shell Management
Messangers pass on details. You are just 'passing' when it comes to the details. Not the same thing.
What some of us would actually like to read are the documents you claim to have submitted.
If you want to shun an informed audience for those documents one can draw conclusions.
BTW it 'off a duck's back' old boy.
Your second post on this thread and you're picking tuc up for grammar.

That must be a record

Game over
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 16:28
  #254 (permalink)  
 
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BTW it 'off a duck's back' old boy.
Messangers




Messangers pass on details. You are just 'passing' when it comes to the details.

You miss the point entirely. I didn't pass. I passed the information to the correct authorities at the appropriate time. Did you? Your argument is akin to saying today is Saturday, two days ago it was Thursday, now prove yesterday was Friday. Haddon-Cave and the creation of the MAA renders your comments an irrelevance.

Again. What is your motive for attacking someone whose actions are aimed at enhancing aviation safety?
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 16:49
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the creation of the MAA renders your comments an irrelevance
Touche?

What is your motive for attacking someone whose actions are aimed at enhancing aviation safety?
Not 'attacking' but 'asking' you to share documents you say you have written.

If Haddon-Cave agrees with your submissions why are they not quoted?

Now you have retrospectively edited one of your posts we see that the 'courts' the MOD 'lost' in where Coroner's Courts. No one wins or loses in a Coroner's Court.

SirPeterHardingsLovechild: I think you mean spelling not grammer.
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 17:32
  #256 (permalink)  
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tucumseh


Well said.

It is MoD who has questions to answer, not you.

Keep up the good work.


Ralph Kohn (FRAeS)
 
Old 28th Aug 2010, 18:00
  #257 (permalink)  
 
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No one wins or loses in a Coroner's Court.
True in a legal sense. But nor is a Coroner's Court meant to be adversarial, but MoD made it so with their aggressive defence of the indefensible, and the accompanying lies.

Ask MoD if they thought they "won". They were utterly humiliated.



Ralph Kohn - Thank you.
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 18:17
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SM (freudian or mere coincidence?), those of us who have read and followed Tucumseh's posts on the Parliamentary, Nimrod, Mull, this and other threads are fully satisfied with his bona fides whether we be pro or con his views. The place for the "evidence" which you demand are the BoI's, FAI's, Coroners Courts, Reviews and Inquiries that have endeavoured to find why supposedly serviceable, airworthy and fit for purpose RAF aircraft have variously been brought down by a single round, exploded or been "flown" into the sides of Scottish hillsides. He has submitted to many of the later such hearings, so he tells us, and I for one believe him. As to "informed", personally I would say that I am now much better informed about UK Military Airworthiness provision (or the lack of it!) thanks to him. I suggest that you read his posts rather than simply make demands. You might learn something. There again....
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Old 28th Aug 2010, 19:00
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I think you mean spelling not grammer.
Now that is funny!!
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Old 29th Aug 2010, 07:32
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Indeed it is!

Perhaps if Shell Management took the muzzle of his rifle off his foot and his finger away from the trigger, then he might spare himself further humiliation?
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