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New military aviation 'body' to set up.

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Old 22nd Mar 2010, 05:21
  #81 (permalink)  
 
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In summary from Me, I think that at least Chug, Rigga and myself agree that at present there is no credible continued airworthiness management within the MoD (RAF) during my time on the ASTOR project it was glaringly obvious that the military(and the contractor) were only paying lip service to the idea of adopting a framework based around parts 66,145 & 147 it was in my opinion something that they felt was not necessary for them maybe brought about by the indoctrination of service personnel into thinking that they were superbly trained and had no need to change or be subject to civilian regulations which in all honesty would seem extremly alien to serving personnel. Both rigga and myself have been through both systems with a combined service engineering background of 37 years we see the flaws withing the system both military and civilian but the MoD needs a completely independent MAA headed by someone from civilian aviation it does not matter how good the ex AVM is because he never got to such a high rank by telling the brass 'how it is' If the military are serious about CAM then they have to go down the independent route however sadly it seems to me that the recommendations from H-C will not be implemented until we have another avoidable tragedy.
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Old 29th Mar 2010, 11:08
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MAA webpages

New MAA webpages:

Ministry of Defence | About Defence | What we do | Air Safety and Aviation | Military Aviation Authority | Military Aviation Authority (MAA)

There's a lot of Nimrod, Chinook (Mull), etc. documentation at:

Ministry of Defence | About Defence | Corporate Publications | Air Safety and Aviation Publications | Flight Safety

Might have been there for ages though, for all I know.
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Old 29th Mar 2010, 12:35
  #83 (permalink)  
 
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Established 01 April 2010!! are they trying to say something?????
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Old 29th Mar 2010, 14:02
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It has full oversight of all Defence aviation activity and, through independent audit, provides assurance to the Secretary of State for Defence that the highest standards of aviation safety and airworthiness are maintained in the conduct of military aviation.

Under the previous regime, successive SofS and PUS were consistently assured "through independent audit" that the same "highest" standards were NOT maintained.

They did nothing. The current incumbent was happy to confirm his stance in writing, supporting those who consistently ruled these standards were NOT to be attained or maintained.

So, assuming the MAA don't even bother asking him to over-rule himself (he's already refused), I do hope this is the first question of the new SofS after the election.
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Old 29th Mar 2010, 21:40
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With the labeling of Ops and Technical SRG's there is some early similarity to the UK CAA Structure - We will have a long wait to see if it follows that lead in any other ways.

Although I've heard of Charles Ness I don't know the others mentioned?

Lets hope that this new office will make the point that safety is cost effective, and drive it to being the norm rather than the exception.

In past cases the MOD has been really good at showing the first achievement of any new project and quietly dismissive at the lack of any other achievements after that.

I distinctly remember the mid-1970's dismissal of Time Promotion in favour of positive assessments stating that a JT could now get promoted in two years instead of three. Shortly afterwards the RAF news displayed a newly promoted JT with only 2 years in rank - a feat never to be repeated again.

Incidently, have you noticed that the single Part M approval gives the Tornado IPT the right of issueing ARC's!!!!
Can anyone tell me how that happens in a regulation that doesn't have that ability?

(Once a QA Man,...)
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Old 30th Mar 2010, 17:05
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Rigga:
Lets hope that this new office will make the point that safety is cost effective, and drive it to being the norm rather than the exception.
In that one plaintive plea I think you have put your finger on the nub of the MAA's dilemma, Rigga. They are condemned to a constant battle of justifying what they do and why they do it to the rest of the MOD. If the CAA was a joint stock subsidiary of the British Civil Airlines, and coincidently itself contained the AAIB, I imagine they would be condemned to the same fate and thus be a mere cypher, paying lip service to safety rather than mercilessly enforcing it. No matter how trendy their logo, how remote their HQ from Main Building, I cannot see how we may expect anything more of this latest example of the British disease of Self Regulation than with the others. The wheel has already been invented; ie operating, enforcement and investigation must be separate and independent of each other or people die. That is the stark truth of the matter and no amount of fudge can alter that.
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Old 24th Feb 2011, 11:39
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Over the last six months, the MAA have started to produce Regulatory Notices (guidance) and Regulatory Instructions (mandatory instructions) concerned with aircraft safety. As far as I can tell, these are not publicly available (I can't find them at the MAA bit of the mod.uk website).

Not too much earth-shattering stuff (imo) until the RI concerned with aviation risk management came out about a month ago.

MAA RI/02/11 (DG) – AIR SAFETY: RISK MANAGEMENT

In the first instance, and somewhat in accordance with Haddon-Cave's recommendation that aviation (safety) risk management should be driven by the operators rather than the Project Teams, this RI is targetted at operators. However, if operators implement risk management in accordance with the RI, it's easy to predict that they will want PTs to manage risk in a similar manner. So it will impact PTs and, via the PTs, industry.

Anyway, the RI represents quite a departure from the traditional aviation risk management currently practiced by the PTs and I have concerns over how things will be migrated (it's one thing to say, "we want you to do things very differently" ... it's a lot more helpful to say, "we want you to do things very differently and here's some guidance on how you can efficiently achieve the change").

Furthermore, the new RI is rather incoherent and, as far as I'm aware, the new methods and processes its mandates have not been tried in anger. Basically, I worry we'll find it won't work!

I should add, the major changes embodied in the RI are concerned with how risk is measured (including a very new style of risk matrix) and recorded (a "risk register" concept similar to but different from the traditional Hazard Log).

Last edited by Squidlord; 24th Feb 2011 at 11:44. Reason: missed some stuff!
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Old 24th Feb 2011, 14:17
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Squidlord

I share your concern.

The point made throughout the late 80s (from 13th January 1988), 90s and 00s was that the mandated Safety / Risk Management processes and procedures were really quite robust (albeit dated); it was just that senior staffs in AMSO / MoD(PE) / DPA / DLO ruled the basic concept (maintaining safety) was a waste of money - and slashed funding. Especially AMSO in 1990-93; funding that was never resurrected. (Which is largely why the regs are dated - there was no funding to update them). It followed that very few staffs were actually taught how to do the job properly in that time. That doesn't make them incompetent, merely insufficiently trained for their task.

Haddon-Cave merely reiterated this fact, although inexplicably claiming the problems only started in 1998. (He has the correspondence proving 13.1.88).

Given those who ignored (e.g. DGSM, DGAS2 and CDP) directives successfully attained/maintained safety by simply implementing the regulations, I find it very odd the MAA have not once sought to learn from these successes. The only explanation I can think of is they don't want to upset certain senior staffs by being seen to contradict them - better to re-invent the wheel and risk making mistakes; which, from what you say, seems likely.


They really do have to learn that Chinook, C130, Nimrod etc occurred because mandated regs were not implemented, not because the regs were wrong.
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Old 24th Feb 2011, 14:54
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tucumseh - you obviously have a particular personal beef with an incident(s) in your career that you use to underpin all your commentary / arguments. Can you please expand on the details of it?
 
Old 24th Feb 2011, 16:07
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Blagger

Not a single incident, by any means; and not just me.


In 1988 our entire Directorate in MoD(PE) complained about new policies issued by AMSO which effectively relegated safety and airworthiness to the back burner, by slashing funding. Prior to this, in my experience, the subject had been adequately funded, with errors caused by relatively rare failures to implement regs.

But, as soon as you deny funding, the problem becomes systemic - as reported to Haddon-Cave and accepted by him. It also becomes policy, in the sense that without funding a policy is only an aspiration. If there is no funding, then no work is being done and competencies/skills are lost. (Same principle others are applying to the MPA question). Regulations become meaningless and no-one thinks to update them. This is what happened progressively throughout the 90s.

The formal notifications of systemic failings continued until late 1992, when AMSO's Director General Support Management got fed up and threatened civilian staffs (those with airworthiness/technical/financial delegation) with dismissal if they persisted. His threat became largely academic - the lack of funding meant there was little to do, posts were cut and staff sought other jobs.

However, to counter this threat, Director Procurement Policy (DPP) was engaged and an internal audit initiated. Director Internal Audit (DIA) reported direct to PUS (Chief Accounting Officer) in 1996, fully supporting all the previous formal representations and making 17 recommendations. Not one of them was implemented despite all being directly related to safety and financial probity. The Nimrod/Chinook 2 Star in PE dismissed the report as "Of no concern to PE", which may help explain subsequent events on certain programmes. Obviously, PUS was similarly advised. Ironically, if you read Bernard Gray's report (the new CDM) he makes similar recommendations; as did Haddon-Cave. Both reports can be summed up with "Implement your regulations".


This 1996 DIA report removed the threat of dismissal for a while, but in 1998 the Chief of Defence Procurement made the same ruling as DGSM did in 1992 - it was disciplinary offence to implement mandated regulations, but dismissal was replaced with formal warnings. This remained the situation as of a year ago, supported in writing by the last four Labour Ministers for the Armed Forces (Caplin, Moonie, Ingram, Ainsworth). Clearly, not all staffs who tried to implement the regs found themselves under such threat - you have to have a particularly idiotic boss to have such a complaint levelled at you. Nevertheless, if it happens, you haven't a leg to stand on. The resolve of the new regime has yet to be tested, but first impressions are promising.


The above explains, I think, the underlying problems that have resulted in numerous deaths and the formation of the MAA.

You may not like what I say, but it demonstrably correct. MoD are quite happy to confirm the above in writing and under FoI, arguing their case strongly when defending their actions. It is only the advent of the Haddon-Cave report (which, as I said, is merely a collation of previous reports, applied to Nimrod) that has brought about a degree of change. What I think everyone must understand, in particular the MAA, is that not a single word of his report came as a surprise to anyone charged with managing airworthiness since 1988.

Don't shoot the messenger! Ask why so few spoke out. I have been entirely consistent with what I've said since joining pprune 8 years ago - all tragically borne out by subsequent events.
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Old 24th Feb 2011, 17:18
  #91 (permalink)  
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Interesting - not throwing stones, was just keen to understand the perspective.
 
Old 24th Feb 2011, 17:33
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Blagger


Thanks. Not just "interesting". Criminal I'd say. Haddon-Cave named the wrong people.
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Old 24th Feb 2011, 20:15
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Your "End of Military Airworthiness" saga above should be required reading for all tuc; aircrew, groundcrew, suppliers, administrators, in fact everyone from the CAS downwards. This is what lies behind every airworthiness related fatal military air accident, whether covered by a PPRuNe thread or no. 62 people have perished in such accidents at least and if that death toll is to be prevented from increasing inexorably something urgent has to be done. To date nothing urgent has been done despite the reviews and reports that tuc mentions. Now we await Lord Philip to present the next one. Unless and until the MAA and the MAAIB are independent of each other and of the MOD I see little prospect of any great change to this scandalous situation, created as tuc says of criminal neglect and the issuing of illegal orders. People have died, whole fleets scrapped and an abundance of treasure wasted. There is no redeeming aspect to all this unless you count the sinecure jobs, awards and promotions handed out to members of the Senior Officer Cadre. I rather suspect that is exactly what they did.
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Old 24th Feb 2011, 20:22
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Squidlord,
"Furthermore, the new RI is rather incoherent"

I'll second that. Says one thing one place, then another somewhere else - stuff will fall between the cracks.

sw
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Old 24th Feb 2011, 21:02
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I have just checked (or - phoned two mates) and, as far as I can ascertain, not one of the contracted Continued Airworthiness Management companies has any knowledge of any "RN" or "RI" in circulation.

It seems that airworthiness does not, in military terms, extend to continued airworthiness "partnerships"?
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Old 25th Feb 2011, 11:47
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One could postulate that if you are in an ivory tower and throw things then you must be right...................

Of course the JSP55X series is being re-written, Def Stan 00-56 Issue 5 is being discussed and Def Stan 00-970 was reissued last year. All discuss similar things and say differing things in certain areas. Add RI's and everything else going on it makes a right mountain of paperwork. That's the great thing about standards there are so many of them

Of course the question I ask is that in concentrating on processes and procedures they may increase the overall baseline and bring everyone to a minimum standard (hooray!) but how many of these processes and procedures actually reduce risk? Additionally, how many of them focus on health & safety law as that is what you will get prosecuted under.......
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Old 25th Feb 2011, 12:14
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I could fill several pages with my concerns over these RI's/RN's and the huge gaps appearing between the PTs and the new DDH/ODH structures. Glad we have plenty staff & experience levels on the 'operator' side to deal with these rapid changes and robust funding lines to seek external or independent advice...

If the PTs really did have all the provenance they claimed to support their existing Safety Cases or Hazard Logs it may have been a little easier...

Now that the operator community has started to flip over these troublesome stones we could do with an RI that instructed us on what to do when you find monsters scurrying around underneath that some PTs had managed to gloss over many moons ago.

What a mess.
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Old 25th Feb 2011, 14:12
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Recent posts.... I agree with what you're saying, but would gently remind you of what I've said before. When criticising PTs for not doing the work (i.e. maintaining an audit trail), not all did this deliberately or knowingly.

Please remember that the necessary funding was withheld, posts chopped and the Corporate Knowledge flushed down the toilet. THAT is where the deliberate and knowing acts took place. Under those circumstances, it doesn't take very long for these basics to be consigned to distant memory with only a few dinosaurs left to bang their heads against walls and face the consequences when they try to implement the regulations.

It is all very well re-issuing these standards, but (a) is materiel and financial provision being successfully made to fund implementation and (b) staff being trained to do so (given both have been deemed a waste of time for over 2 decades). Who will train the staff? Who will train the trainers? Who knows how to make proper M&F Provision and staff it through to successful conclusion? MoD no longer employs these junior grades and the regulations rather assume the most junior in DE&S have already done all this before being promoted. Not any more!
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Old 25th Feb 2011, 17:17
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A point that has been made on other threads for other reasons, but the basic logic of it is the same -

There is some incredible fallacy, I can describe it in no other way, that says the intent to resurrect or develop a capability is all you need to achieve it. Without the depth of knowledge spread across all levels of a subject - in other words 'when you want to do something and realise you sacked everyone who knew anything about it' - it takes decades to rebuild competency in any but the most simple skills.

Having effectively pruned airworthiness out of the defence business, not only do those at the top not know how to go about resurrecting airworthiness, but nobody lower donw the pyramid is really sure how to do it either. No matter how much determination the MAA now show, the sad inevitability is that it will take years for the MAA to become proficient.

I really think that those who castrated the existing process should be jailed (either for wantonly, brazenly, deliberately screwing it up in exchange for personal advancement, or simply for being thick...my own preference).

That so many such people go on to enjoy highly paid consultancies (while their mates and underlings remain in office, so the contracts can be awarded to the 'right' people) while the rest of us mere mortals live with the consequences, is nothing short of corruption.

Dave
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Old 25th Feb 2011, 19:13
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davejb, I agree with your condemnation of those who conspired to bring UK Military Airworthiness to its knees, and of course they should face the consequences of their actions. Ordering a subordinate to suborn the regulations is in itself an offence under Military Law, ie the issuing of an illegal order which should not only be disobeyed but also reported. When a superior to whom the offence is reported then chooses to discipline the complainant and support the perpetrator they in turn commit an offence, and so the cycle goes on, generating sufficient material to fuel enough Courts Martial to match any series of show trials of the 1930's. Personally I won't be holding my breath, preferring rather to get airworthiness restored to UK Military Aircraft ASAP.

You rightly point out that when such vandalism is committed it takes far longer to fix than it does to destroy. It needs someone with the drive and far sightedness of a Trenchard to see to it that the fixing is as quick and effective as possible. As those supposedly already charged with achieving airworthiness do not have the knowledge or experience required he will have to look elsewhere to find those who do. This is a challenge that has to be met. It will cost money as tuc rightly says, it will cost pride, it will cost reputations, it will cost careers, but if it is not done it will cost still more lives.

We need to remember that this happened not because the Regulations were deficient. They were not. This happened not because those who implemented them were deficient. They were not. This happened because senior Air Rank Officers ordered it so and under the present arrangements could do so again, no matter what the MAA assures us to the contrary. Only by removing that organisation from the MOD can it be provided with the independence that is its sine qua non. The same goes for the MAAIB. The AAIB is not separate from the CAA because of some quirk of fate but because it must be independent of Regulator and Operator so that it can lay blame on either or both if necessary.

My own preference would be to have each military regulator and investigator sistered with its civilian counterpart, but the nuts and bolts of the how's are best left to those who have to make this happen. The why's should be blindingly clear, to avoid avoidable airworthiness related fatal accidents in future.
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