MPA Seedcorn
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Re the commissioned rear crew, why commission the front end either?
One small stumbling block would be if they tried to resurrect the trade as a fallback for chopped pilots who would already be commissioned.
Now here's a thought (thread drift), u/t pilots were commissioned and given flying instructional pay as an inducement. Then it was realised they didn't need FIP as an inducement so they stopped it. It would save a fortune if they commissioned at the wings stage too. This would not be as novel as it may sound for although DEC officers were commisioned after 4 months the career stream officers at Cranditz served 3 years before commissioning,
Commissioning at the wings stage always made sense - it is what happens here in Oz.
I remember in the RAF, a Graduate would join as a "green shielder" FLTLT. Go through OTS, BFTS, Valley, TWU and OCU (with delays in between) could sometimes take 3 years. Do first tour, and ready for promotion to SQNLDR.
Crazy !!
I remember in the RAF, a Graduate would join as a "green shielder" FLTLT. Go through OTS, BFTS, Valley, TWU and OCU (with delays in between) could sometimes take 3 years. Do first tour, and ready for promotion to SQNLDR.
Crazy !!
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For what it is worth, I personally consider the seedcorn concept to be something of a sop/figleaf, so the minister can imply the capability can be regenerated at short notice. I would expect the "seedcorn" to slowly whither on the vine with the passage of time, with anyone who returns, gets promoted, etc not being replaced - but that is my speculation!!
Seedcorn poses far more questions than it answers. ASW skills "perished" a long, long time ago. Even before I left (also a long, long time ago) there were Tac Nav captains on the fleet who had never tracked a real nuc (of any country). What was being maintained mostly comprised a mixture of simulations and contrived (ie start with an RV) mutual training. Better than nothing, but far short of the real thing.
Nowadays the skill sets are far more "kit specific" than generic. In the massively unlikely event that we ever get anything like an MPA again (which would hopefully be operated by the RN anyway), the skills required will depend on the kit provided.
Ever since I heard about Seedcorn I wondered what the purpose was...I wonder still? But it does have the whiff of politics about it.
Great postings though.
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I'm inclined to agree. There are worse experiences in life than a three-year posting to to the RNZAF, but I doubt they'll get much experience chasing submarines, if, in fact, 5 Sqn still spend time doing that! The RNZAF Orion P3K2 is much modified and digitalised these days, so it will be a good experience to have, but you have to wonder why!
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From yesterday's Hansard
Seedcorn Initiative
Angus Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence
(1) how many personnel are taking part in the Seedcorn initiative; what the location is of each; and with what equipment they are training; [81671]
(2) what capabilities are being maintained through the Seedcorn initiative; [81672]
(3) what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the Seedcorn initiative in each of the next five years. [81673]
Mr Gerald Howarth: The Seedcorn initiative will sustain the Ministry of Defence (MOD)'s capability to operate high level fixed-wing Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) and maintain the associated skills of its personnel. Qualified RAF aircrew will be on exchange with a variety of Allied MPA forces, where they will maintain their anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, long-range search and rescue, and Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) skills.
The estimated cost of the initiative on average is £2.4 million per year for the next five years; this includes salary and allowances.
Retaining skills and MPA knowledge is vital if the United Kingdom is to be in a position to regenerate our own MPA capability at some point in the future.
The number and location of personnel and equipment to be used is as follows:
Location
Aircraft
Number of personnel
Canada
Royal Canadian Air Force Greenwood
CP-140 Aurora
7
New Zealand
Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Whenuapai
P-3K Orion/P-3K2 Orion
5
Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Ohakea
Beech King Air B200
1
Australia
Royal Australian Air Force Base Edinburgh
AP-3C Orion
4
United States
Naval Air Station Norfolk
Non-flying appointment related to maritime operational staff duties.
1
Naval Air Station Patuxent River
P3C Orion
2
Additionally, discussions are ongoing with the US Navy on an exchange initiative for fully qualified RAF aircrew to support the US P-8A Poseidon programme.
Seedcorn Initiative
Angus Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence
(1) how many personnel are taking part in the Seedcorn initiative; what the location is of each; and with what equipment they are training; [81671]
(2) what capabilities are being maintained through the Seedcorn initiative; [81672]
(3) what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the Seedcorn initiative in each of the next five years. [81673]
Mr Gerald Howarth: The Seedcorn initiative will sustain the Ministry of Defence (MOD)'s capability to operate high level fixed-wing Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) and maintain the associated skills of its personnel. Qualified RAF aircrew will be on exchange with a variety of Allied MPA forces, where they will maintain their anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, long-range search and rescue, and Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) skills.
The estimated cost of the initiative on average is £2.4 million per year for the next five years; this includes salary and allowances.
Retaining skills and MPA knowledge is vital if the United Kingdom is to be in a position to regenerate our own MPA capability at some point in the future.
The number and location of personnel and equipment to be used is as follows:
Location
Aircraft
Number of personnel
Canada
Royal Canadian Air Force Greenwood
CP-140 Aurora
7
New Zealand
Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Whenuapai
P-3K Orion/P-3K2 Orion
5
Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Ohakea
Beech King Air B200
1
Australia
Royal Australian Air Force Base Edinburgh
AP-3C Orion
4
United States
Naval Air Station Norfolk
Non-flying appointment related to maritime operational staff duties.
1
Naval Air Station Patuxent River
P3C Orion
2
Additionally, discussions are ongoing with the US Navy on an exchange initiative for fully qualified RAF aircrew to support the US P-8A Poseidon programme.
"Exchange initiative" ? what are they going to do over here?
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Please explain Minister, why you canned Nimrod, and are now spending £2.4m per year to keep aircrew current in the Nimrod role?
Oh you can't. You weren't the Minister at the time. Blah de blah de blah, the previous Government. Useless bunch of fooking half wits
Oh you can't. You weren't the Minister at the time. Blah de blah de blah, the previous Government. Useless bunch of fooking half wits
RAAF - 2 originally on exchange plus 2 extra as Seedcorn. (If they're all Seedcorn - how come they're on different allowances and rental conditions?)
Closest thing we're ever likely to hear in the way of an admission of "Er, we may have got it wrong."
So soon after the decision too.
Retaining skills and MPA knowledge is vital if the United Kingdom is to be in a position to regenerate our own MPA capability at some point in the future.
So soon after the decision too.
New Zealand
[snip]
Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Ohakea
Beech King Air B200
1
[snip]
Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Ohakea
Beech King Air B200
1
It'll be a good posting, weather's not too bad, good skiing within a couple of hours by car, the schools are OK and Massey University in Palmerston North is only 40km away.
The beaches are lousy though. No, I remember West Wittering: the beaches near Ohakea are OK
But it's not ASW, they do that in Auckland, where the other 5 people are going!
£2.4m is cheap at half the price. 20x crew at £120k each - that's about the cost of 2x training sorties for 20x Typhoon Pilots! 
I don't believe that this Govt made the wrong decision. Those idiots in the North West of England that claim to be aircraft manufacturers were fleecing us and with no real possibility of delivering anything like the capability that was promised. The guy who came up with the Seedcorn plan was also the senior desk officer who told me all about this total procurement cock up - the audit and fraud team should be crawling all over this. Wouldn't it be nice to have a MPA at around the original cost (let's say within 15%) and then there would be a couple of Billion in the bank to pay for either the 5,000 we're making redundant or not have the pay/pension freeze or not make all those Civil Servants redundant? Instead, the shareholders made a mint and nu-labour bought off a whole bunch of voters in the North West. The whole thing stank of a very mouldy and minging kipper and I for one am glad it was chopped.
God speed to the Seedcorn bunch and the sooner the Coalition sort out this country's finances then the sooner we can look at filling the capability gap - gaps in finances and capability that can be firmly laid at the foot of Labour not "making hay when the sun shone" and borrowing during a time of economic growth
I hope that idiot Ed Balls reads this - you sir, are a complete twunt of the highest order, and God forbid if you ever make it into power, you are the next disaster waiting to befall this country.
iRaven
I don't believe that this Govt made the wrong decision. Those idiots in the North West of England that claim to be aircraft manufacturers were fleecing us and with no real possibility of delivering anything like the capability that was promised. The guy who came up with the Seedcorn plan was also the senior desk officer who told me all about this total procurement cock up - the audit and fraud team should be crawling all over this. Wouldn't it be nice to have a MPA at around the original cost (let's say within 15%) and then there would be a couple of Billion in the bank to pay for either the 5,000 we're making redundant or not have the pay/pension freeze or not make all those Civil Servants redundant? Instead, the shareholders made a mint and nu-labour bought off a whole bunch of voters in the North West. The whole thing stank of a very mouldy and minging kipper and I for one am glad it was chopped.
God speed to the Seedcorn bunch and the sooner the Coalition sort out this country's finances then the sooner we can look at filling the capability gap - gaps in finances and capability that can be firmly laid at the foot of Labour not "making hay when the sun shone" and borrowing during a time of economic growth
I hope that idiot Ed Balls reads this - you sir, are a complete twunt of the highest order, and God forbid if you ever make it into power, you are the next disaster waiting to befall this country.
iRaven
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iRaven,
Whist I accept that you are entitled to your opinions, as one of the 'idiots in the North West' who does claim to be an aircraft manufacturer, I take absolute exception to your claim that you or anyone else were being fleeced and that the MRA4 programme was some sort of pre-arranged super job creation scheme. I for one would welcome an audit or investigation, if only to clear up the perpetuation of wrong information - 'bring it on'!
I can only presume that you have been rubbing your hands with glee at the news of all of the redundancies in industry, the closure of manufacturing capability and the ceding to the USA of all future significant military investment. I guess you are content with becoming the 51st state so that we in the UK can have a second tier set of US government approved capabilities, tied into us going to war exactly when and where it suits our US bosses to send one of its minor brigades, and voting exactly as instructed at the UN.
For what it's worth (I doubt you'll worry too much what an idiot thinks) I absolutely agree with you on your Ed Balls comments.
Whist I accept that you are entitled to your opinions, as one of the 'idiots in the North West' who does claim to be an aircraft manufacturer, I take absolute exception to your claim that you or anyone else were being fleeced and that the MRA4 programme was some sort of pre-arranged super job creation scheme. I for one would welcome an audit or investigation, if only to clear up the perpetuation of wrong information - 'bring it on'!
I can only presume that you have been rubbing your hands with glee at the news of all of the redundancies in industry, the closure of manufacturing capability and the ceding to the USA of all future significant military investment. I guess you are content with becoming the 51st state so that we in the UK can have a second tier set of US government approved capabilities, tied into us going to war exactly when and where it suits our US bosses to send one of its minor brigades, and voting exactly as instructed at the UN.
For what it's worth (I doubt you'll worry too much what an idiot thinks) I absolutely agree with you on your Ed Balls comments.
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iRaven,
The outturn costs of Nimrod stand comparison with those for the P-8 Poseidon given on the US GAO website. P-8 costs are estimated as $7.35bn (£4.9bn) and $202m (£134m) per aircraft, which makes $9.2bn (£6bn) for a nine aircraft fleet. £4bn for Nimrod MRA4 is cheap by comparison, particularly when you consider that one MRA4 is as operationally capable as two P-8s. I suggest therefore that MRA4 would have been excellent value for money. Not to be forgotten (and you do seem to have done so) is the fact that it was subsidised to over £1bn by the ever generous shareholders of BAE Systems through several write-offs.
In terms of the programme I'm sure things could have been done quicker (perhaps saving 3 years) but 15 years from contract to service is not unusual these days. Certainly it is better than Eurofighter Typhoon (a vastly simpler aircraft) and, let’s face it, better than what the USN has achieved with MMA/P-8. It should not be forgotten that the USN initiated its P-3 replacement programme (P-7) in 1989 and cancelled it due to cost overrun in 1990. Thus with the P-8 not yet in service and still with a number of hurdles to get over (which RAF aircrew have now been dispatched to help with), the USN has waited even longer than the RAF to replace its cold war MPAs.
Ultimately the BAE Systems Team produced a world-beating product at a non-unreasonable price and in the sort of timescale one might have expected. The main thing that went wrong with the MRA4 project was the expectations set in the 1995 Bid. Certainly all those on the programme sweated blood to achieve the programme, but it was mission impossible from the start and merely a question of time how long the "conspiracy of optimism" would last.
EG
The outturn costs of Nimrod stand comparison with those for the P-8 Poseidon given on the US GAO website. P-8 costs are estimated as $7.35bn (£4.9bn) and $202m (£134m) per aircraft, which makes $9.2bn (£6bn) for a nine aircraft fleet. £4bn for Nimrod MRA4 is cheap by comparison, particularly when you consider that one MRA4 is as operationally capable as two P-8s. I suggest therefore that MRA4 would have been excellent value for money. Not to be forgotten (and you do seem to have done so) is the fact that it was subsidised to over £1bn by the ever generous shareholders of BAE Systems through several write-offs.
In terms of the programme I'm sure things could have been done quicker (perhaps saving 3 years) but 15 years from contract to service is not unusual these days. Certainly it is better than Eurofighter Typhoon (a vastly simpler aircraft) and, let’s face it, better than what the USN has achieved with MMA/P-8. It should not be forgotten that the USN initiated its P-3 replacement programme (P-7) in 1989 and cancelled it due to cost overrun in 1990. Thus with the P-8 not yet in service and still with a number of hurdles to get over (which RAF aircrew have now been dispatched to help with), the USN has waited even longer than the RAF to replace its cold war MPAs.
Ultimately the BAE Systems Team produced a world-beating product at a non-unreasonable price and in the sort of timescale one might have expected. The main thing that went wrong with the MRA4 project was the expectations set in the 1995 Bid. Certainly all those on the programme sweated blood to achieve the programme, but it was mission impossible from the start and merely a question of time how long the "conspiracy of optimism" would last.
EG
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As the Americans say, I have no dog in this fight.
However.....
It seems unfortunate that, from the last 2 posts, those close to the MR4A program seem to have limited insight into what went wrong and why the customer ditched it, and thus there seems little prospect of the UK aircraft industry addressing what must be significant issues that look like slowly leading to said industry eventually dissappearing (probable with bewildered staff wondering what did we do wrong).
There looks to be a significant/major amount of head in the sand if those close to the program maintain that it was all going along swimmingly, especially compared to other comparable programs.
If it was all going so well, why is there so much critisism and eventual cancellation?
Perhaps it would be healthier to look from the inside with an attitude of lets address the issues that led up to this situation of cancellation, and learn from it.
John
However.....
It seems unfortunate that, from the last 2 posts, those close to the MR4A program seem to have limited insight into what went wrong and why the customer ditched it, and thus there seems little prospect of the UK aircraft industry addressing what must be significant issues that look like slowly leading to said industry eventually dissappearing (probable with bewildered staff wondering what did we do wrong).
There looks to be a significant/major amount of head in the sand if those close to the program maintain that it was all going along swimmingly, especially compared to other comparable programs.
If it was all going so well, why is there so much critisism and eventual cancellation?
Perhaps it would be healthier to look from the inside with an attitude of lets address the issues that led up to this situation of cancellation, and learn from it.
John
Last edited by rjtjrt; 28th Nov 2011 at 02:52. Reason: Typing
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I think most have already said why they think MRA4 was binned in other more appropriate threads, throwing more mud with so many on all sides losing jobs will not help. Good luck to them ALL and fingers crossed 2012 brings better prospects.
One post got me thinking, the RAF (masses) can't understand why it cost more than originally stated and BAE can't see why that is a problem. To be fair to them it wasn't on previous projects, however the rules appear to be changing and MRA4s timing was bad. In the future we must be financially savy on both sides, the RAF can only buy what it can afford and industry must give accurate quotes not contract winning estimates. I know safe guards were written into the MRA4 contract, they were not applied and therefore worthless, maybe we would have implemented the penalties if we were dealing with Boeing or did BAE offer something they knew would over run because we had taught them it didn't matter as long as the money remained in the UK.
One post got me thinking, the RAF (masses) can't understand why it cost more than originally stated and BAE can't see why that is a problem. To be fair to them it wasn't on previous projects, however the rules appear to be changing and MRA4s timing was bad. In the future we must be financially savy on both sides, the RAF can only buy what it can afford and industry must give accurate quotes not contract winning estimates. I know safe guards were written into the MRA4 contract, they were not applied and therefore worthless, maybe we would have implemented the penalties if we were dealing with Boeing or did BAE offer something they knew would over run because we had taught them it didn't matter as long as the money remained in the UK.
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51st State
Mend em.
Given that we're utterly dependent on the USA for our 'independent' nuclear weapons, I fail to see how becoming dependent on the USA for MPAs makes the slightest jot of difference.
Given that we're utterly dependent on the USA for our 'independent' nuclear weapons, I fail to see how becoming dependent on the USA for MPAs makes the slightest jot of difference.
Ultimately the BAE Systems Team produced a world-beating product at a non-unreasonable price and in the sort of timescale one might have expected.
QED?
iRaven