Nimrod MRA4 Being Broken Up
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mmitch
Yes, I would buy a car (or anything else from them if it came to it) from BAE.. But I would know exactly what spec it was that I was buying, what they were contracted to deliver, what it was costing me, when they were delivering it etc… If it was not fit for purpose or they tried to up the price or whatever. I wouldn’t accept it & see them in court.
As Alexander (but apparently not the MoD) would say… Simples!
Get it?
Yes, I would buy a car (or anything else from them if it came to it) from BAE.. But I would know exactly what spec it was that I was buying, what they were contracted to deliver, what it was costing me, when they were delivering it etc… If it was not fit for purpose or they tried to up the price or whatever. I wouldn’t accept it & see them in court.
As Alexander (but apparently not the MoD) would say… Simples!
Get it?
its [sic] still wasn't operational so how much was it going to cost?
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The cynic in me sees this as a long term job creation scheme for hundreds of Bae staff, I dont think any of us here can begin to understand the sheer frustration and disappointment that these workers must be feeling.
I have an idea, why not turn Woodford into a "Hill"
Tip millions of tons of sand at the Poynton end of the runway then employ all the staff to shovel and wheelbarrow it all to the wilmslow end, when finished turn around and take it all back to the start point and so on.
Absolutely pointless and soul destroying I know but not really any difference to what has happened, probably a lot cheaper as well.
And what about this 200 million for scrapping !!! Why cant I get contracts like that ? A couple of jcbs, chainsaws and some trucks and there you go instant millionaire !!
I have an idea, why not turn Woodford into a "Hill"
Tip millions of tons of sand at the Poynton end of the runway then employ all the staff to shovel and wheelbarrow it all to the wilmslow end, when finished turn around and take it all back to the start point and so on.
Absolutely pointless and soul destroying I know but not really any difference to what has happened, probably a lot cheaper as well.
And what about this 200 million for scrapping !!! Why cant I get contracts like that ? A couple of jcbs, chainsaws and some trucks and there you go instant millionaire !!
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Yes, because I'd make damn sure that it was clear up front that if they didn't deliver the thing on time, to spec and on budget, they'd get sod all money out of me!
The biggest losers are the poor sods who are losing their jobs over this and of course the tax payer who foots the bill. The BAE fat cats & the MOD consistently ignored those who knew how to build aircraft (the guys on the shop floor), changing specs, changing mission needs and generally moving the goal posts at a whim.
It's a sad state of affairs and the crux is we wont have learned a damned thing......history shows this.
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MRA4 was due to enter service 2003, first flight was 2004.
At the time the contract was signed in 1996 the Nimrod was due to enter service (and certainly be flying in 2000).
Very soon after the contract was signed the whole thing was re-baselined to the dates you suggest.
If you read all the defence white papers from 1995 thru to 2003 you can unravel the early smoke and mirrors associated with this project.
PS as mysekf and many other posters have stated, this is not primarily the fault of BAE, so no need for more robust defence of them. The fault lies primarily with the interfering politicians (buy british, even when the bid is evidently b**llocks) and the MOD procurment process that has always been a CF of biblical proportions.
PS
Much more media interest than I was expecting. If a frontline investigative journalist were to run with this we might get an enquiry on this whole sorry project after all. Journo's...the research is going to be a piece of p**s because there are going to be hundreds of unemployed BAE, RAF and MOD engineers and aircrew with a story to tell, a voice to be heard and a cause to fight.
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Sad day indeed.. but lets not forget why it has happened - 13 years of a labour government to thank for that. Spend spend spend and now we are broke.
As sad as the retirement is (and the scrapping of the Harrier as well) UK Plc is broke due to Bliar and Clown, and we have to save money so the cuts are needed.
As sad as the retirement is (and the scrapping of the Harrier as well) UK Plc is broke due to Bliar and Clown, and we have to save money so the cuts are needed.
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Can someone remind me please; was centraliased flight testing at Warton a BAe requirement or a MoD one? Also, was a lot of that work previously carried out by AAEE?
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Manccowboy,
It's all very sorry, but I think you have added 2 and 2 and come up with 5.
The "****" that was trying to be converted was built in the very same factory, was it not? Even so, I think its a bit of a red herring to suggest that all the woes stem from the decision to reuse Nimrod fuselages.
The poor sods who are losing their jobs had been warned that Woodford would close on completion of the MRA4 program, so the writing was on the wall, and should have been even more apparent when the delays came in.
The biggest losers will be those who die as a result of the UK not having the capability. It is a very real prospect that people will die because of this. A tad more serious than employment issues.
I recognise that you are very close to this, but equally, the MOD does not exist to provide employment. At all. It exists to perform military functions. Something it needs the right kit to do.
It's all very sorry, but I think you have added 2 and 2 and come up with 5.
The "****" that was trying to be converted was built in the very same factory, was it not? Even so, I think its a bit of a red herring to suggest that all the woes stem from the decision to reuse Nimrod fuselages.
The poor sods who are losing their jobs had been warned that Woodford would close on completion of the MRA4 program, so the writing was on the wall, and should have been even more apparent when the delays came in.
The biggest losers will be those who die as a result of the UK not having the capability. It is a very real prospect that people will die because of this. A tad more serious than employment issues.
I recognise that you are very close to this, but equally, the MOD does not exist to provide employment. At all. It exists to perform military functions. Something it needs the right kit to do.
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Just been watching JCBs being used to break the aircraft up at Woodford on the BBC News channel. Very sad.
The fence was a nice try at discretion but not tv-camera-in-a-helicopter proof. Idiots.
The fence was a nice try at discretion but not tv-camera-in-a-helicopter proof. Idiots.
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Sad day indeed.. but lets not forget why it has happened - 13 years of a labour government to thank for that. Spend spend spend and now we are broke.
The "****" that was trying to be converted was built in the very same factory, was it not? Even so, I think its a bit of a red herring to suggest that all the woes stem from the decision to reuse Nimrod fuselages.
The poor sods who are losing their jobs had been warned that Woodford would close on completion of the MRA4 program, so the writing was on the wall, and should have been even more apparent when the delays came in.
At this stage of the game only a fvcking idiot would cancel.
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Secret agents ???
Among all the froth about BAES and MoD and their respective responsibilities for the Nimrod cancellation, little has been said about the pervasive influence of the Treasury and what I once saw described as "its unconventional ways of accounting" .
Can anyone on Pprune say anything factual about this?
Rattling on about "beancounters" isn't helpful, but an insight into how the expensively educated and "fratefley respectable" gentlemen operate, both overtly and covertly, would be instructive - I remember from the past well-coordinated attacks on other programmes via "chums" in "respectable" weekly and daily newspapers giving figures that could hardly have come from MoD ... Someone in high(ish) places has an agenda and no qualms about "slipping" a nugget or two to a friendly scribe (or MP).
Can anyone on Pprune say anything factual about this?
Rattling on about "beancounters" isn't helpful, but an insight into how the expensively educated and "fratefley respectable" gentlemen operate, both overtly and covertly, would be instructive - I remember from the past well-coordinated attacks on other programmes via "chums" in "respectable" weekly and daily newspapers giving figures that could hardly have come from MoD ... Someone in high(ish) places has an agenda and no qualms about "slipping" a nugget or two to a friendly scribe (or MP).
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@ manccowboy
"Actually it was the Conservatives who ordered the MRA4 (Nimrod2000) in the first place."
I was referring to the chronic govt overspend on everything, not the nimrod specifically...
Had they kept a bit saved up - not created 100,000's of useless jobs and enlarged "the state" to the obese money swallowing state it is, and not sold most of our gold at its lowest price for the past 1000 years, then we might not be in such an awful state!
"Actually it was the Conservatives who ordered the MRA4 (Nimrod2000) in the first place."
I was referring to the chronic govt overspend on everything, not the nimrod specifically...
Had they kept a bit saved up - not created 100,000's of useless jobs and enlarged "the state" to the obese money swallowing state it is, and not sold most of our gold at its lowest price for the past 1000 years, then we might not be in such an awful state!
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JigP asked,
Possibly - let me have a go.
From my stand point, HMT are, believe it or not, more sinned against than sinning in defence spending. HMT's basic point is that MoD gets a fixed budget and has - like all the other Departments - to live within its means. MoD has spectacularly failed to do so at least since SDR 98 and wasn't doing terribly well even when the defence budget was 5% of GDP and 10-12% of public spending (mid-60s to mid-80s).
However, HMT gets blamed by the MoD because everyone (wrongly, in my experience) assumes that "Treasury" are long-screwdrivering every decision (they're not, not least because the Treasury defence team is surprisingly small - like the other Treasury spending teams), and that the answer to all of the MoD's problems is a bigger budget. If more cash were simply the answer - and I accept that there is a cash crunch - then the US forces wouldn't have anything to worry about, except that they do.
A large part of the MoD's consistent inability to live within its means centres on the MoD's unwillingness to scale back its objectives to meet anything approaching a likely budget level - senior officers and CS were breifing the Defence Select Committee 12 months ago that they were planning on a 1% real budget growth to 2015 and that anything else was so inconceivable that they wouldn't bother planning for it. This, AFTER Alistair Darling (remember him?) had shown that all of Government was going to take spending cuts. With their heads so far into the sand, the MoD have only got themselves to blame when unpleasant surprises come and bite them in the arse.
There are things MoD cannot easily do. MoD cannot set the foreign policy goals, and they do not easily turn around and say "No, Prime Minister. It cannot be done, because we don't have the resources." MoD should more often.
MoD needs to sort out the Equipment Programme - if you get a programme launched, it very rarely ever gets binned, irrespective of delays and increased costs; FRES is an excellent current example. MoD is also an abysmal customer for industry, where every Planning Round fudge is akin to a contract renegotiation, and industry has the whip hand every time.
Hence it is no surprise to me that MoD never held BAES' feet to the fire over Nimrod MRA 4, which let's remember was cancelled when it was 10 years late and more than twice the budget for less than half the airframes. Manccowboy can try and defend the company, but the way the company has dealt with fixed price contracts is nothing short of shambolic. They should be ashamed; instead, they get a payoff and get off scot-free. Again.
So what is Treasury responsible for? One thing that didn't help was pushing Trident's successor back into the MoD budget. IMHO it was absolutely the right thing to do, as it forced MoD to decide whether it was more or less valuable than other capabilities - if it was essentially free, then of course you'd have it, but this should've started a sensible discussion over Trident which may have happened, but it wasn't public.
Paradoxically, the other thing Treasury could've done was to be more intrusive in with MoD, not less. If they had been more intrusive, earlier, then perhaps they could've forced MoD to confront some of the problems in the budget before now, when it would've been less painful.
MoD need to get a grip of their finances. This is likely to mean more, more painful cuts because it has come to the party late.
So, Jig P, does this help?
S41
Among all the froth about BAES and MoD and their respective responsibilities for the Nimrod cancellation, little has been said about the pervasive influence of the Treasury and what I once saw described as "its unconventional ways of accounting". Can anyone on Pprune say anything factual about this?
From my stand point, HMT are, believe it or not, more sinned against than sinning in defence spending. HMT's basic point is that MoD gets a fixed budget and has - like all the other Departments - to live within its means. MoD has spectacularly failed to do so at least since SDR 98 and wasn't doing terribly well even when the defence budget was 5% of GDP and 10-12% of public spending (mid-60s to mid-80s).
However, HMT gets blamed by the MoD because everyone (wrongly, in my experience) assumes that "Treasury" are long-screwdrivering every decision (they're not, not least because the Treasury defence team is surprisingly small - like the other Treasury spending teams), and that the answer to all of the MoD's problems is a bigger budget. If more cash were simply the answer - and I accept that there is a cash crunch - then the US forces wouldn't have anything to worry about, except that they do.
A large part of the MoD's consistent inability to live within its means centres on the MoD's unwillingness to scale back its objectives to meet anything approaching a likely budget level - senior officers and CS were breifing the Defence Select Committee 12 months ago that they were planning on a 1% real budget growth to 2015 and that anything else was so inconceivable that they wouldn't bother planning for it. This, AFTER Alistair Darling (remember him?) had shown that all of Government was going to take spending cuts. With their heads so far into the sand, the MoD have only got themselves to blame when unpleasant surprises come and bite them in the arse.
There are things MoD cannot easily do. MoD cannot set the foreign policy goals, and they do not easily turn around and say "No, Prime Minister. It cannot be done, because we don't have the resources." MoD should more often.
MoD needs to sort out the Equipment Programme - if you get a programme launched, it very rarely ever gets binned, irrespective of delays and increased costs; FRES is an excellent current example. MoD is also an abysmal customer for industry, where every Planning Round fudge is akin to a contract renegotiation, and industry has the whip hand every time.
Hence it is no surprise to me that MoD never held BAES' feet to the fire over Nimrod MRA 4, which let's remember was cancelled when it was 10 years late and more than twice the budget for less than half the airframes. Manccowboy can try and defend the company, but the way the company has dealt with fixed price contracts is nothing short of shambolic. They should be ashamed; instead, they get a payoff and get off scot-free. Again.
So what is Treasury responsible for? One thing that didn't help was pushing Trident's successor back into the MoD budget. IMHO it was absolutely the right thing to do, as it forced MoD to decide whether it was more or less valuable than other capabilities - if it was essentially free, then of course you'd have it, but this should've started a sensible discussion over Trident which may have happened, but it wasn't public.
Paradoxically, the other thing Treasury could've done was to be more intrusive in with MoD, not less. If they had been more intrusive, earlier, then perhaps they could've forced MoD to confront some of the problems in the budget before now, when it would've been less painful.
MoD need to get a grip of their finances. This is likely to mean more, more painful cuts because it has come to the party late.
So, Jig P, does this help?
S41
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@ Squirrel 41
Yes indeed it does, thanks ...
Another thought about BAES - when the company went for initials and added "S" for Systems, it was, at least partly, becasue by then hardware (like airframes) was for them no longer the things to be in (and who can blame them?). Also, I saw recently that BAES actually earns more from the US DoD through its US offshoots, to the extent that I wondered if it shouldn't change to a more mid-Atlantic name and forget the "British" bit - but maybe it has privately already done so ...
Back to Nimrod: Another report had it that the aircraft's electronic task-fit was no longer up to much, given that it took no (or little) account of technological advances in electronics during the elephantine gestation time. This could have been one of those "whispers" I referred to in my earlier post (like the one about the TSR2's wing breaking on test -which it was meant to, but the whisperer in the PM's ear didn't mention that).
Another thought about BAES - when the company went for initials and added "S" for Systems, it was, at least partly, becasue by then hardware (like airframes) was for them no longer the things to be in (and who can blame them?). Also, I saw recently that BAES actually earns more from the US DoD through its US offshoots, to the extent that I wondered if it shouldn't change to a more mid-Atlantic name and forget the "British" bit - but maybe it has privately already done so ...
Back to Nimrod: Another report had it that the aircraft's electronic task-fit was no longer up to much, given that it took no (or little) account of technological advances in electronics during the elephantine gestation time. This could have been one of those "whispers" I referred to in my earlier post (like the one about the TSR2's wing breaking on test -which it was meant to, but the whisperer in the PM's ear didn't mention that).
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Back to Nimrod: Another report had it that the aircraft's electronic task-fit was no longer up to much, given that it took no (or little) account of technological advances in electronics during the elephantine gestation time. This could have been one of those "whispers" I referred to in my earlier post (like the one about the TSR2's wing breaking on test -which it was meant to, but the whisperer in the PM's ear didn't mention that).
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I cannot believe that only now 6 former defence cheifs have condemed this decision. Who is running this Air Force if 6 senior officials are now telling us the country is in serious trouble with capability gaps. 1) Why speak now when they have started destroying the Aircraft and 2) Who is actually in charge of the Air Force, the Armed Forces Minister stated it was what the Defence Chiefs that wanted to axe MRA4, yet the Primie Minister said It will save money.
Yet again the spinless leaders that fail time and time again passing on the information what the country actually needs, not saving there own precious fast jet fleet to keep there egos happy.
Yet again the spinless leaders that fail time and time again passing on the information what the country actually needs, not saving there own precious fast jet fleet to keep there egos happy.