Nimrod to go by March
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Whilst I have the highest regard for RN staff officers and have admired their intellectual skills, they may have been led to believe the JHF was a good idea from which they could gain, but were led down the path by senior RAF officers with an alternate agenda.
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Does anyone know exactly how much money the government will save for taking the MR2 out of service a year early. or is it case that Nimrod is a bad word to politicians and they want to see the back of it no matter what it brings to the party? Seems to me it is being grounded through the back door by obstacles continuously being put in its way by those scared of any litigation should something, however unlikely now, go wrong.
Sometimes you don't realise what your going to miss until its gone and the stop gap measures are not what you have been briefed they are. I hope Mr Ainsworth knows what he is doing, but somehow I doubt it.
Sometimes you don't realise what your going to miss until its gone and the stop gap measures are not what you have been briefed they are. I hope Mr Ainsworth knows what he is doing, but somehow I doubt it.
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Plenty of people have put there oar in about the unsafe MR2, they can all be happy now.
For many people its the opposite and today is proof of that as 100 people were made redundent on the civvy side of things at Kinloss.
For an aircraft thats had 40 years of the finest service this surely this is not the ending that it deserves.
For many people its the opposite and today is proof of that as 100 people were made redundent on the civvy side of things at Kinloss.
For an aircraft thats had 40 years of the finest service this surely this is not the ending that it deserves.
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There is a vast saving made by ditching the Mk2 a year early (along with a few other things) and its in the region of £100 million.
Could argue the Nimrod fleet was lucky to make it the 2+ years after the XV230 incident. I'm sure more than £100 million has been spent taking it from pre 2006 state to ALARP.
Could argue the Nimrod fleet was lucky to make it the 2+ years after the XV230 incident. I'm sure more than £100 million has been spent taking it from pre 2006 state to ALARP.
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Nimrod has been ****** over as a way to save money, looks like BBMF is next
Hard days to come but its when they take the Reds that the public might actually give a ****
Many books will be written in a few years but im so ashamed now to be part of something thats crumbling faster than the Berlin Wall.
Hard days to come but its when they take the Reds that the public might actually give a ****
Many books will be written in a few years but im so ashamed now to be part of something thats crumbling faster than the Berlin Wall.
Rum.....Hopefully not too many more people will lose their jobs......I agree that taking operational aircraft before show aircraft makes no sense.....The few who talked loudest get the result, those that just did it and got on with it were not heard......maybe a govt change may change the decision or a bunch of subs descending on the Clyde again will make someone see the light.
Now I may be as thick as a thick thing, but could somebody please explain to me how stopping the MR2 early saves £100 million - not that I'm saying it doesn't....
Apart from not burning the fuel, the following points need to be considered:
Kinloss is not closing - so no great saving in base running costs.
No RAF personnel are being made redundant, so no saving in the wage bill.
Most civil support contracts were probably in place to support the aircraft until Mar 2011, so breaking them early will probably invoke penalty clauses and produce little or no savings.
Most (all?) of the work been carried out to make the aircraft ALARP has already been done.
The Nimrod IPT's budget for MR2 was much less than £100 million.
All of the above comments are my own interpretation of the situation, and may be incorrect. However, if I am not way off the mark, where has this £100 million saving come from? Hopefully anyone who knows and is willing/able to expand will answer this question which is asked out of curiousity and in good faith...
I'm not after ...."if we didn't cut the MR2 where else would we save money".. or "the MR2 wasn't contributing anything".... type responses thank you.
Apart from not burning the fuel, the following points need to be considered:
Kinloss is not closing - so no great saving in base running costs.
No RAF personnel are being made redundant, so no saving in the wage bill.
Most civil support contracts were probably in place to support the aircraft until Mar 2011, so breaking them early will probably invoke penalty clauses and produce little or no savings.
Most (all?) of the work been carried out to make the aircraft ALARP has already been done.
The Nimrod IPT's budget for MR2 was much less than £100 million.
All of the above comments are my own interpretation of the situation, and may be incorrect. However, if I am not way off the mark, where has this £100 million saving come from? Hopefully anyone who knows and is willing/able to expand will answer this question which is asked out of curiousity and in good faith...
I'm not after ...."if we didn't cut the MR2 where else would we save money".. or "the MR2 wasn't contributing anything".... type responses thank you.
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Whilst we can all agree that its a shame that the MR2 has gone out of service early, are we not now crying over spilt milk?
As the Station Commander said, the decisions been made, the time for arguing about it is over and any more will be detremental. (Or along that drift)
Should we not just concentrate on giving the old girl a send off to remember (which is shaping up nicely!)
Spam
As the Station Commander said, the decisions been made, the time for arguing about it is over and any more will be detremental. (Or along that drift)
Should we not just concentrate on giving the old girl a send off to remember (which is shaping up nicely!)
Spam
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I believe the Nimrod force costs in the region of 700million a year (including staff and materials).
So along with no more fuel being burnt, you've no radars breaking, no engines needing serviced, no more jets in deep maintainence regimes..
There's plenty of slots for aircrew elsewhere so I'm sure a bulk of them will be sent away soon enough, and theres little requirement for groundcrew, again i'm sure there will be an exodus on that front soon enough.
Part of all this was the delay of the MRA4, some 2 years later we are to expect it... So there are less flying hours on that as well...
Cant say exactly where each pound is being saved, but needless to say the (what I heard) 180 people who got redundency the other day are just a big group, lots of other people have got it and not been mentioned in the news.
So along with no more fuel being burnt, you've no radars breaking, no engines needing serviced, no more jets in deep maintainence regimes..
There's plenty of slots for aircrew elsewhere so I'm sure a bulk of them will be sent away soon enough, and theres little requirement for groundcrew, again i'm sure there will be an exodus on that front soon enough.
Part of all this was the delay of the MRA4, some 2 years later we are to expect it... So there are less flying hours on that as well...
Cant say exactly where each pound is being saved, but needless to say the (what I heard) 180 people who got redundency the other day are just a big group, lots of other people have got it and not been mentioned in the news.
Getsometimein,
I have no idea where you get your figure of £700 million from, but it has got to be way out, probably by a factor of 10.....
From what I have picked up from generally just being "defence aware"...
Cost of running Lyneham, and therefore savings, have been stated recently in parliament as about £50 million a year..... So, cost per year?
Industry support contract announced for Typhoon for 5 years was about £500 million..... Cost per year again?
Industry costings to support 9 MRA4s for 5 years started off at about £500 million before cuts... Once again, annual costings?
Nimrod MR2 IPT budget, when there were seperate MR2/MRA4 IPTs, to support/maintain the fleet was in terms of 10s of millions, say 30-40.
So, a station costs say £50 million to run, support contracts cost say £50 million, so where dos the rest of your £700 million come from.
Repairing radars, servicing engines, deep maintence will all come under costs borne either by the IPT or the station. We are also talking about 10 odd airframes.....
Sorry, as I said I may be as thick as a thick thing, and please, please understand I am not having a "go" at you personally, I just can't see where the number £700 million comes from.....
I'm not asking you to account for every pound, just some £600 million odd?
By the way, I was of the opinion the RAF was short of TG1 personnel, and several bases with a less operational focus have been running undermanned for years....so your comments reference aircrew and groundcrew may end up the other way around....
I have no idea where you get your figure of £700 million from, but it has got to be way out, probably by a factor of 10.....
From what I have picked up from generally just being "defence aware"...
Cost of running Lyneham, and therefore savings, have been stated recently in parliament as about £50 million a year..... So, cost per year?
Industry support contract announced for Typhoon for 5 years was about £500 million..... Cost per year again?
Industry costings to support 9 MRA4s for 5 years started off at about £500 million before cuts... Once again, annual costings?
Nimrod MR2 IPT budget, when there were seperate MR2/MRA4 IPTs, to support/maintain the fleet was in terms of 10s of millions, say 30-40.
So, a station costs say £50 million to run, support contracts cost say £50 million, so where dos the rest of your £700 million come from.
Repairing radars, servicing engines, deep maintence will all come under costs borne either by the IPT or the station. We are also talking about 10 odd airframes.....
Sorry, as I said I may be as thick as a thick thing, and please, please understand I am not having a "go" at you personally, I just can't see where the number £700 million comes from.....
I'm not asking you to account for every pound, just some £600 million odd?
By the way, I was of the opinion the RAF was short of TG1 personnel, and several bases with a less operational focus have been running undermanned for years....so your comments reference aircrew and groundcrew may end up the other way around....
Last edited by Biggus; 17th Jan 2010 at 09:22.
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Even the units with ongoing operational focus are running at less than 100% manning within TG1. Seem to recall a policy of best maximum 95%, but since the Manning figures are now hidden in the inaccessible (to me at least) RAF Placement Plan who knows? Some squadrons are fully manned but with a lot of newbies, and they have, of course, been through the LEAN machine which means there is no fat to carry the new kids.
Sadly this is spin and desperate attempts to make H-C go away whilst pretending to make savings.
Frankly any modern politician is a waste of oxygen
Better stop now, BP on the rise
Sadly this is spin and desperate attempts to make H-C go away whilst pretending to make savings.
Frankly any modern politician is a waste of oxygen
Better stop now, BP on the rise
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£700 milion?????
MR2s stop flying - savings on fuel
Civilian airfield services - small saving
Kinloss stays open - no savings
No RAF personnel are being discharged (yet) - no savings to defence
Depth support contract is not being refunded - no savings
RR engine contract is not being refunded - no savings
Most spares are provisioned as per before - no savings
Non-attributable spares - small saving
R1 keeps flying - no savings
Design authority still on contract with BAE - no savings
Nimrod R1/MR2 Project Team remains for the R1 - no savings
So unless I have missed something really obvious, I conclude that:
'Vast saving..... in the region of £100million' (getsometimein) - incorrect
'the Nimrod force costs £700million a year' (getsometimein) - utter kack
Where do you get your sums from??
FG
(bored of Kinloss - serving out FRI)
Civilian airfield services - small saving
Kinloss stays open - no savings
No RAF personnel are being discharged (yet) - no savings to defence
Depth support contract is not being refunded - no savings
RR engine contract is not being refunded - no savings
Most spares are provisioned as per before - no savings
Non-attributable spares - small saving
R1 keeps flying - no savings
Design authority still on contract with BAE - no savings
Nimrod R1/MR2 Project Team remains for the R1 - no savings
So unless I have missed something really obvious, I conclude that:
'Vast saving..... in the region of £100million' (getsometimein) - incorrect
'the Nimrod force costs £700million a year' (getsometimein) - utter kack
Where do you get your sums from??
FG
(bored of Kinloss - serving out FRI)
The value of the perceived savings had me scratching my follicley-challenged head thinking ‘wtf did that figure come from?’ Then it occurred to me that the figure might have been the creation of the Satan Spawn aka Budget Managers. Correct me if I am wrong, but with the introduction of RAB, wasn’t every asset given a value that would show up on the books? Therefore if we have ‘x’ number of aeroplanes ’ @ ‘y’ value each, with the simple multiplication of ‘x’ times ‘y’ then getsometimein’s figure becomes quite plausible (e.g. 10 a/c @ £10m* each = £100m). So, in the true ‘Sir Humphrey’ spinning tradition of MoD, by using the value of the assets rather than their running costs someone can say 'Look at me, I've saved……..…..simples!!
* variable depending on how impressive you want the overall “savings” figure to be.
* variable depending on how impressive you want the overall “savings” figure to be.
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£2.8 billion MRA4 contract now £.36 billion (Final Figure?)
£16 billion initial life contract. Assuming this ends up 33% over that (as has getting the aircraft initially), that means a 30 year life (assumed) ends up being shy of £22 billion, giving just over £700 million a year... Simple numbers.
I'm sure there is few station commanders or higher around to let us know exactly what they have to spend money on... But the list is near endless...
And apparently the Navy Merlins are 40% undermanned... So what shall we do with all these maritime experts doing nothing at Kinloss?
£16 billion initial life contract. Assuming this ends up 33% over that (as has getting the aircraft initially), that means a 30 year life (assumed) ends up being shy of £22 billion, giving just over £700 million a year... Simple numbers.
I'm sure there is few station commanders or higher around to let us know exactly what they have to spend money on... But the list is near endless...
And apparently the Navy Merlins are 40% undermanned... So what shall we do with all these maritime experts doing nothing at Kinloss?
getsometimein,
Your figure of £700 million a year running costs now appears to relate to MRA4, so, whether or not that figure is correct....
Once again, I would ask what savings have been achieved by folding the MR2 fleet early? That is a different question to any savings made by slowing introduction of the MRA4....
Regarding shortages in the RN Merlin fleet, is it aircrew or groundcrew (or both?)? I believe I have read on other pprune threads that some RAF groundcrew were/are(?) on loan to the RN rotary world. If you are talking about aircrew, how long would it take to turn a RAF mult engine jet pilot into a rotary pilot on RN exchange, 2 years maybe? The only Nimrod aircrew who could move across fairly quickly, if there is actually a need, and the RN training machine could cope with the burden, would be a few acoustically trained WSOps.
Your figure of £700 million a year running costs now appears to relate to MRA4, so, whether or not that figure is correct....
Once again, I would ask what savings have been achieved by folding the MR2 fleet early? That is a different question to any savings made by slowing introduction of the MRA4....
Regarding shortages in the RN Merlin fleet, is it aircrew or groundcrew (or both?)? I believe I have read on other pprune threads that some RAF groundcrew were/are(?) on loan to the RN rotary world. If you are talking about aircrew, how long would it take to turn a RAF mult engine jet pilot into a rotary pilot on RN exchange, 2 years maybe? The only Nimrod aircrew who could move across fairly quickly, if there is actually a need, and the RN training machine could cope with the burden, would be a few acoustically trained WSOps.
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Who know EXACTLY how the 100 million applies in real world terms when it comes to getting rid of the fleet a year early... But thats the figure in the press and around bazaars...
Target Lock: Nimrod : Production
Seems like people are being very agressive when it comes to this... But these things are actually this expensive...
Target Lock: Nimrod : Production
Seems like people are being very agressive when it comes to this... But these things are actually this expensive...
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The savings to the MOD budget are:
This year-£50 million, by ending the MR2's stirling service a year early.
Next year-£60 million by slowing down the introduction of the MRA4.
I think that makes £110 million not £700 million.
Of course after SDR when they announce............
This year-£50 million, by ending the MR2's stirling service a year early.
Next year-£60 million by slowing down the introduction of the MRA4.
I think that makes £110 million not £700 million.
Of course after SDR when they announce............
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The savings to the MOD budget are:
This year-£50 million, by ending the MR2's stirling service a year early.
Next year-£60 million by slowing down the introduction of the MRA4
This year-£50 million, by ending the MR2's stirling service a year early.
Next year-£60 million by slowing down the introduction of the MRA4
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Quote:
'There's plenty of slots for aircrew elsewhere so I'm sure a bulk of them will be sent away soon enough, and theres little requirement for groundcrew, again i'm sure there will be an exodus on that front soon enough.'
Am I missing something here? Er, where exactly are these slots? Don't know many other RAF aircraft fitted with maritime search radars, acoustic processors or electro-optic sensors, but standing by to be re-briefed.
'There's plenty of slots for aircrew elsewhere so I'm sure a bulk of them will be sent away soon enough, and theres little requirement for groundcrew, again i'm sure there will be an exodus on that front soon enough.'
Am I missing something here? Er, where exactly are these slots? Don't know many other RAF aircraft fitted with maritime search radars, acoustic processors or electro-optic sensors, but standing by to be re-briefed.
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With all this going on they have bought 3 ex USAF aircraft to replace the R1, with there mods and refits this will cost more than £100 Million per a/c , just makes you wonder if there is seperate budgets for MR2 and R1. It appears not as its more important to fly R1s than have MR2s, but Im sure its been thought through and I trust the MOD for making the choice. End of the day they have to make cuts , MR2 first then VC10 next year , much saving im sure.