RAF Merlin Crews Screwed
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The aircraft is transferring to RN. The marinisation has not been funded........yet, that is my understanding. Good luck to the RN with it. I think they will find it tough to keep serviceable against an ever decreasing spares package and sending it to saltier climes.
My sympathy to the Merlin aircrew, who still have to deploy to the sandpit for the next 2 years whilst the RN crews are trained. They have been seen off big style. I think that the nimrod crews may feel fortunate that they got shafted when there were a few cockpits to fill. Now there are no spaces anywhere. I'm hearing from an insider that the offers from manning have been mostly derisory so far.
My sympathy to the Merlin aircrew, who still have to deploy to the sandpit for the next 2 years whilst the RN crews are trained. They have been seen off big style. I think that the nimrod crews may feel fortunate that they got shafted when there were a few cockpits to fill. Now there are no spaces anywhere. I'm hearing from an insider that the offers from manning have been mostly derisory so far.
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'Now there are no spaces anywhere...... The offers from Manning are derisory'.
Let's not forget this problem was not of Manning's making, they have to deal with the fallout from the decisions of our political masters. The bottom line is there are too many people for way to few jobs. It's going to be ugly just as it has been for the Nimrod boys and girls. Say what you like about Manning staff, but anyone really fancy that job right now? Thought not.
Let's not forget this problem was not of Manning's making, they have to deal with the fallout from the decisions of our political masters. The bottom line is there are too many people for way to few jobs. It's going to be ugly just as it has been for the Nimrod boys and girls. Say what you like about Manning staff, but anyone really fancy that job right now? Thought not.
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I understand that emotions will be high on this subject and the SH world has my sympathies. I am one of many who are already in the predicament you will soon be facing, you have to make a critical choice.
Do you want to stay in the RAF?
It sounds obvious but until your job/role is gone it is difficult to get in to the right frame of mind, consider all the changes that will happen to pensions, allowances, SFA charges, etc. It will not be the job you know and maybe love now.
IF you decide to stay and avoid redundancy or the use of 'manning levers', then write off the next 3 years as far as any 'good' jobs go, the posting offers are not 'derisory', they are JPANs that need filling and can be opportunities to gain knowledge and skills that will make you professionally more useful and effective when you return to flying role.
I'm afraid it really is a case of drying your eyes and getting on with it
, or seeing how many mouse clicks it takes to PVR on JPA 
.
After the initial shock many from my old fleet have found the opportunities outside the RAF too good to refuse, the problem now will be retaining what is left
Do you want to stay in the RAF?
It sounds obvious but until your job/role is gone it is difficult to get in to the right frame of mind, consider all the changes that will happen to pensions, allowances, SFA charges, etc. It will not be the job you know and maybe love now.
IF you decide to stay and avoid redundancy or the use of 'manning levers', then write off the next 3 years as far as any 'good' jobs go, the posting offers are not 'derisory', they are JPANs that need filling and can be opportunities to gain knowledge and skills that will make you professionally more useful and effective when you return to flying role.
I'm afraid it really is a case of drying your eyes and getting on with it
, or seeing how many mouse clicks it takes to PVR on JPA .After the initial shock many from my old fleet have found the opportunities outside the RAF too good to refuse, the problem now will be retaining what is left
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As far as I'm aware (or have heard), the light blue are something like 100 aircrew posts overborne and didn't bother (dare) to include any in the recent redundancy round. I'm sorry fellas, but I think you've been shafted by your heirarchy!
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It seems far fetched but I was told yesterday that there are already enough DHFS graduates in the hold to keep the Chinook OCF busy for 30 years! A precident in turning off the training pipeline for crewmen in total last occured in 1982 (for two years IIRC) and must surely be on the horizon again if there is even a half truth in the rumour.
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I try and take a step back from the inevitable emotion going on up the road, but we should really take stock now of the way that we in the light blue do our business.
1. Can we stop all of the single Service agendas and politics (I know the other Services do it, but it appears to me on the shop floor that we really are brash, blunt and not very gifted at it). I personally believe that in 'fighting' some of the SDSR political decisions and also fighting the Fisheads has resulted in many staff officers being distracted (at best) from doing their day jobs, to potentially at worst running a campaign that potentially saw information witheld to further our position in the Merlin transfer fight. If people are our the main priority, then we took our eye off the ball when in reality we should at least have been running a shadow plan if Merlins didn't remain with us. By winning the Puma 2 debate we became over confident I believe. IMHO if some of the Airships and Blimps (including those doing non-jobs - see other threads on this forum) actually concentrated on running the RAF rather than a campaign of 'fight the Fisheads or fight the Pongos' at every opportunity in order to save cockpit seats, then we might not find ourselves in this situation.
2. There are some very good and capable officers up the road, and sadly I believe that they have been prevented from passing on information and applying their leadership skils early by an alleged policy from our Airships and Blimps of not stepping out party line so as not to jeopardise the RAF Merlin fight. Hopefully now these same officers will have unrestricted and unrestrained ability to properly inform and lead those under their command.
3. Just Culture is very much alive at my level. If I make a mistake then I fess up, however embarrassing or damaging it migth be. I believe that our Airships and Blimps should also have the same just culture and fess up to the SoS Defence in order to get a a Tranche 3 for the redundancis. We all know that MOD bad news is not liked, well if this is a genuine mistake by Air Command then it should be expalined as such in order to get the fair result for our people. If there is a significant pool of RAF aircrew that cannot be employed elsewhere (and I have no idea of the numbers, but gathering from the rumours it is hundreds) then our Airships and Blimps should at least have the honesty to request a Tranche 3 to give many of the 100 the option (if selected) to leave in a managed way, rather than hold them for years, put to them into jobs where they are not suited, or create an (unsafe and unhappy) environment where the majority are not doing jobs that they enjoy. We are just storing up trouble for when the pensions, New Employment Model and all the other Terms and Conditions of Service are changed/whittled away and they will leave disillusioned after many years loyal service.
What I will say is that although I do not agree with all of the Defence and Fishead arguments for our Merlin Force to transfer to the dark blue, I can (and always have) seen the logic. The buzz going round here is that there are now significant numbers of Fisheads up the road (the clearest indicator that transition is really is happening), and rather than rub our noses in it and gloat the Fisheads have quietly just got on with their jobs. I am not too sure that we would have been the same if Merlin had remained with us - a review of the 'Will Puma Survive' thread alone makes uncomfortable reading for some of us with our very arrogant and ill informed posts.
However sad, however painful, now that the Merlin transition is happening and the cat is out of the bag down on the shop floor I look forward to RAF people and personnel once again becoming the true focus over the coming months and years to get ourselves out of this mess.
And seriously, please can we now just stop the single Service agendas and politics which we have proven we are not very good at, and concentrate on what we excel at and are the envy of many Air Forces around the world.
1. Can we stop all of the single Service agendas and politics (I know the other Services do it, but it appears to me on the shop floor that we really are brash, blunt and not very gifted at it). I personally believe that in 'fighting' some of the SDSR political decisions and also fighting the Fisheads has resulted in many staff officers being distracted (at best) from doing their day jobs, to potentially at worst running a campaign that potentially saw information witheld to further our position in the Merlin transfer fight. If people are our the main priority, then we took our eye off the ball when in reality we should at least have been running a shadow plan if Merlins didn't remain with us. By winning the Puma 2 debate we became over confident I believe. IMHO if some of the Airships and Blimps (including those doing non-jobs - see other threads on this forum) actually concentrated on running the RAF rather than a campaign of 'fight the Fisheads or fight the Pongos' at every opportunity in order to save cockpit seats, then we might not find ourselves in this situation.
2. There are some very good and capable officers up the road, and sadly I believe that they have been prevented from passing on information and applying their leadership skils early by an alleged policy from our Airships and Blimps of not stepping out party line so as not to jeopardise the RAF Merlin fight. Hopefully now these same officers will have unrestricted and unrestrained ability to properly inform and lead those under their command.
3. Just Culture is very much alive at my level. If I make a mistake then I fess up, however embarrassing or damaging it migth be. I believe that our Airships and Blimps should also have the same just culture and fess up to the SoS Defence in order to get a a Tranche 3 for the redundancis. We all know that MOD bad news is not liked, well if this is a genuine mistake by Air Command then it should be expalined as such in order to get the fair result for our people. If there is a significant pool of RAF aircrew that cannot be employed elsewhere (and I have no idea of the numbers, but gathering from the rumours it is hundreds) then our Airships and Blimps should at least have the honesty to request a Tranche 3 to give many of the 100 the option (if selected) to leave in a managed way, rather than hold them for years, put to them into jobs where they are not suited, or create an (unsafe and unhappy) environment where the majority are not doing jobs that they enjoy. We are just storing up trouble for when the pensions, New Employment Model and all the other Terms and Conditions of Service are changed/whittled away and they will leave disillusioned after many years loyal service.
What I will say is that although I do not agree with all of the Defence and Fishead arguments for our Merlin Force to transfer to the dark blue, I can (and always have) seen the logic. The buzz going round here is that there are now significant numbers of Fisheads up the road (the clearest indicator that transition is really is happening), and rather than rub our noses in it and gloat the Fisheads have quietly just got on with their jobs. I am not too sure that we would have been the same if Merlin had remained with us - a review of the 'Will Puma Survive' thread alone makes uncomfortable reading for some of us with our very arrogant and ill informed posts.
However sad, however painful, now that the Merlin transition is happening and the cat is out of the bag down on the shop floor I look forward to RAF people and personnel once again becoming the true focus over the coming months and years to get ourselves out of this mess.
And seriously, please can we now just stop the single Service agendas and politics which we have proven we are not very good at, and concentrate on what we excel at and are the envy of many Air Forces around the world.
Last edited by MaroonMan4; 4th May 2012 at 06:12.
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MM4,
Fine sentiments, as usual.
You said "However sad, however painful, now that the Merlin transition is happening and the cat is out of the bag down on the shop floor I look forward to RAF people and personnel once again becoming the true focus over the coming months and years to get ourselves out of this mess."
As far as I am aware, no air officer has yet formally told the Merlin crews that the ac are transferring to the RN. The crews have read it here on PPrune (so it must be true!), and no doubt have observed that the latest Merlin OCF Cse is 100% dark blue.
That is a shameful lack of leadership.
Fine sentiments, as usual.
You said "However sad, however painful, now that the Merlin transition is happening and the cat is out of the bag down on the shop floor I look forward to RAF people and personnel once again becoming the true focus over the coming months and years to get ourselves out of this mess."
As far as I am aware, no air officer has yet formally told the Merlin crews that the ac are transferring to the RN. The crews have read it here on PPrune (so it must be true!), and no doubt have observed that the latest Merlin OCF Cse is 100% dark blue.
That is a shameful lack of leadership.
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As far as I am aware, no air officer has yet formally told the Merlin crews that the ac are transferring to the RN.
The problem with the RAF leadership, even down to station level is that they cannot follow an order! And they cannot provide the leadership to tell their own people in an honest way....and because of their obfuscation they do not allow the PMA to sort the poor Sqns out. Given they were losing a capability then redundancy should have been the honest way forward. Sad but true. By the by the same would have happened for the RN crews if the transfer was cancelled as that is where the savings really come from.......the RN leadership would have been totally up front throughout.
I don't know the current state of RW manning, but if the RAF losing the Merlin is going to result in dozens and dozens of people being out of a cockpit, does that mean the FAA have dozens and dozens of people sitting around spare? How are they manning it, is it replacing another airframe?
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High Spirits
'this situation has been entirely predictable for the last 2 years'
...maybe so, doesn't mean that on the timeline of the transition there were going to be anymore jobs to put people into. From what I hear there simply aren't. Anyone who knows anything about the redundancy program will know it was a political decision not to have a tranche 3. Moreover, tranche 2 timings simply did not work for Merlin and a number of other platforms. I know this is a rumour network, but it would be nice to get closer to the actual truth sometimes....
'this situation has been entirely predictable for the last 2 years'
...maybe so, doesn't mean that on the timeline of the transition there were going to be anymore jobs to put people into. From what I hear there simply aren't. Anyone who knows anything about the redundancy program will know it was a political decision not to have a tranche 3. Moreover, tranche 2 timings simply did not work for Merlin and a number of other platforms. I know this is a rumour network, but it would be nice to get closer to the actual truth sometimes....
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Tourist,
Chopabeefer probably deleted his post as he possibly wrote after a few too many sherbets and got all emotional-I would cut him/her some slack as reading between the lines it would appear that he/she is one of ours that is a victim of this high level activity.
5 Forward,
It is my understanding that this debacle is not purely down to our senior leadership playing politics with the Fisheads over Merlin. We took all the things we as a Service liked about the Rotary Wing Strategy and SDSR and swiftly acted upon them (increase recruiting through DHFS for the anticipated increase in Chinook numbers etc being but one example), but at the other end of the spectrum we also delayed, procrastinated, prevaricated, (you name it, we tried it!) for the political decisions that we didn't like (again fighting Merlin transfer being but one area I believe).
Therefore, while we were tapping away all these letters and demanding these 'studies' and reviews challenging these political directives and orders, concurrently increasing our aircrew numbers for Chinook and Puma 2, no one was allowed (or even dare) mention or staff options that would have considered a managed drawdown should our premis be incorrect and the politicians and VCDS actually go through with the orders given to them via SDSR.
If there had been any concurrent planning or wider military judgement then we on the shop floor would not feel so shocked by the reality of the last 2 weeks.
I personally believe that sadly this plan by our Airships and Blimps was taken right to the wire until very recently , when a combination of some senior intervention telling our senior leadership to get on with it (i.e. Merlin transition), combined with a political decion to reduce the RWS Chinook new buy. Which all of a sudden means that we have far too many aircrew 'in the system' , with only the newbies made redundant (in a pretty horrid way by all accounts, and also potentially strangling the new blood that may have been our future leaders).
IMHO we would be in a much better place if our Airships and Blimps had just accepted the RWS and SDSR outcomes and planned, staffed and delivered an honest and fair manpower aircrew drawdown across all ages, ranks, skills and qualifications, admitting that we might have jumped the gun with Chinook new buy recruiting and also that our Merlins were transferring to the Fisheads.
As to Tranche 3 being political (and therefore un available to us), again it is my understanding that the Pongos are having a Tranche 3 to manage the huge numbers that they have been asked to reduce (note the context of size and also the Army's ability to explain to the politicians the essential requirement for a Tranche 3).
I really hope that as our senior leadership got us into this mess by playing political games and gambles, that they will have the moral courage to get us out of it, firstly by apologising to the other 2 Services and seeing if we can fill any spare cockpits with RAF 'exchanges' and secondly being honest with the politicians and piggy backing an RAF aircrew Tranche 3 on the back of the Army's. Thereby at least giving the option for some to leave in a managed way, rather than 'tough, if you don't like it you can get your P45 on the way out the door'.
How very sad, and I really do hope that our Airships and Blimps have learnt some lessons and have noted the pain, grief,angst and uncertainty that they have now caused to their personnel and to service families that they have the prime responsibility for and which should have been the priority post SDSR, not trying to score points or get one over on the Fisheads or Pongos.
Especially when we might need their help to sort this mess out and in presenting a united front as we run into SDSR 15.
Chopabeefer probably deleted his post as he possibly wrote after a few too many sherbets and got all emotional-I would cut him/her some slack as reading between the lines it would appear that he/she is one of ours that is a victim of this high level activity.
5 Forward,
It is my understanding that this debacle is not purely down to our senior leadership playing politics with the Fisheads over Merlin. We took all the things we as a Service liked about the Rotary Wing Strategy and SDSR and swiftly acted upon them (increase recruiting through DHFS for the anticipated increase in Chinook numbers etc being but one example), but at the other end of the spectrum we also delayed, procrastinated, prevaricated, (you name it, we tried it!) for the political decisions that we didn't like (again fighting Merlin transfer being but one area I believe).
Therefore, while we were tapping away all these letters and demanding these 'studies' and reviews challenging these political directives and orders, concurrently increasing our aircrew numbers for Chinook and Puma 2, no one was allowed (or even dare) mention or staff options that would have considered a managed drawdown should our premis be incorrect and the politicians and VCDS actually go through with the orders given to them via SDSR.
If there had been any concurrent planning or wider military judgement then we on the shop floor would not feel so shocked by the reality of the last 2 weeks.
I personally believe that sadly this plan by our Airships and Blimps was taken right to the wire until very recently , when a combination of some senior intervention telling our senior leadership to get on with it (i.e. Merlin transition), combined with a political decion to reduce the RWS Chinook new buy. Which all of a sudden means that we have far too many aircrew 'in the system' , with only the newbies made redundant (in a pretty horrid way by all accounts, and also potentially strangling the new blood that may have been our future leaders).
IMHO we would be in a much better place if our Airships and Blimps had just accepted the RWS and SDSR outcomes and planned, staffed and delivered an honest and fair manpower aircrew drawdown across all ages, ranks, skills and qualifications, admitting that we might have jumped the gun with Chinook new buy recruiting and also that our Merlins were transferring to the Fisheads.
As to Tranche 3 being political (and therefore un available to us), again it is my understanding that the Pongos are having a Tranche 3 to manage the huge numbers that they have been asked to reduce (note the context of size and also the Army's ability to explain to the politicians the essential requirement for a Tranche 3).
I really hope that as our senior leadership got us into this mess by playing political games and gambles, that they will have the moral courage to get us out of it, firstly by apologising to the other 2 Services and seeing if we can fill any spare cockpits with RAF 'exchanges' and secondly being honest with the politicians and piggy backing an RAF aircrew Tranche 3 on the back of the Army's. Thereby at least giving the option for some to leave in a managed way, rather than 'tough, if you don't like it you can get your P45 on the way out the door'.
How very sad, and I really do hope that our Airships and Blimps have learnt some lessons and have noted the pain, grief,angst and uncertainty that they have now caused to their personnel and to service families that they have the prime responsibility for and which should have been the priority post SDSR, not trying to score points or get one over on the Fisheads or Pongos.
Especially when we might need their help to sort this mess out and in presenting a united front as we run into SDSR 15.
Last edited by MaroonMan4; 6th May 2012 at 08:03.
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Do you mean that some crew will go to the states for years to sit in the ex-presidential 101's waiting for some future delivery to the RAF of a totally unrelated craft?
Do you mean that some crew will go to the states for years to sit in the ex-presidential 101's waiting for some future delivery to the RAF of a totally unrelated craft?
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Well, looks as if none of us are immune. Even Flt Lt Wales is desk bound.
RAF tells Prince he has to choose between flying and Royal duties | Mail Online
RAF tells Prince he has to choose between flying and Royal duties | Mail Online
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Globefan,
If the situation was entirely predictable, is there a case for 'constructive dismissal'?
Remember, this is not a 'nimrod' situation as the ac is not going out of service. Instead, replace the aircrew, give them nowhere to go (except the sh!t ground posts that noone else wants) and then hope that they leave instead of paying out redundancy.
Food for thought.
If the situation was entirely predictable, is there a case for 'constructive dismissal'?
Remember, this is not a 'nimrod' situation as the ac is not going out of service. Instead, replace the aircrew, give them nowhere to go (except the sh!t ground posts that noone else wants) and then hope that they leave instead of paying out redundancy.
Food for thought.