Nimrod XV230
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Party Animal,
Hard to disagree with anything you write above. No problems with any of the internal kit going in (you mention EO) it was the clapped out, ancient airframe they were trying to squeeze it into that caused all the grief....and I agree wholeheartedly with your points re political influence on procurement and the bit about the FAA.
Chug
We agree on that point at least. On the use of Pprune, I think there are two important and separate debates relating to the Nimrod.
One is about the loss of an aircraft and its crew...with all the associated airworthiness issues, which as you rightly point out, extends beyond the Nimrod world.
The other is about the complete loss of our maritime patrol capability...which previously had been maintained continuously since 1937.
Necessarily these debates clash at the point where the former influenced the decision on the latter...as articulated by DV above. But otherwise these are separate debates and constantly joining them together merely serves to confuse. That is probably why that is exactly the approach taken by Fox, when he announced the decision.
Hope that sorts it out for you.
Hard to disagree with anything you write above. No problems with any of the internal kit going in (you mention EO) it was the clapped out, ancient airframe they were trying to squeeze it into that caused all the grief....and I agree wholeheartedly with your points re political influence on procurement and the bit about the FAA.
Chug
I say it couldn't, so do you I think, but I remain confused...
One is about the loss of an aircraft and its crew...with all the associated airworthiness issues, which as you rightly point out, extends beyond the Nimrod world.
The other is about the complete loss of our maritime patrol capability...which previously had been maintained continuously since 1937.
Necessarily these debates clash at the point where the former influenced the decision on the latter...as articulated by DV above. But otherwise these are separate debates and constantly joining them together merely serves to confuse. That is probably why that is exactly the approach taken by Fox, when he announced the decision.
Hope that sorts it out for you.
Good posts one and all. TOFO, I don't think we've met, but I can assure you the same sentiments regarding the N2000/RMPA/MRA4 programme were voiced very robustly by some very experienced RAF and civilian engineers in MoD(PE), both in London and then when we moved to AbbeyWood. I'd worked on Nimrod R from 90-93 and was certainly aware that all the aircraft were "different", a situation made far worse when the Chief Engineer's organisation decreed that Configuration Control should no longer be maintained. (To be fair, our own CDP was dead against it as well. I like to think Haddon-Cave was thinking of him when he had a swipe at submariners!). I was well used to such differences, and how to manage them, between production runs, but Nimrod was in another league altogether. For that reason alone, many experienced people simply did not believe MoD would countenance "RMPA" being a Nimrod derivative. It was madness.
Hope that sorts it out for you.
the complete loss of our maritime patrol capability...which previously had been maintained continuously since 1937.
Of course if another misguided attempt to save money by going down the 2000/MRA4 path had not been taken, a new build Scruggs Kipper Mk1 might have fared better, if it had received proper airworthiness provision. But where would that have come from?
Last edited by Chugalug2; 23rd Oct 2012 at 16:46.
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Tuc,
I was a spectator of the RMPA bidding process from the 'dark side' and while there may have been some at ABW expressing concerns, it probably wasn't universal.
I recall the original design concept for the bid was the existing MR2 with an updated glass cockpit, updated mission systems & sensors in the back, more modern and economical GE engines (which actually fitted in the wing!). Note that quite a lot of risk reduction work had been done to look at the adequacy of the airframe and, since it was built like a brick outhouse (due to its Comet heritage), there were no real fatigue or corrosion concerns although some repair work was envisaged. Avoiding large structural changes meant that airframe build variation wouldn't be an issue either. Keeping the basic systems unchanged was intended to keep the training and conversion costs to a minimum. The price bid was more or less what was believed to have been budgeted.
During the negotiations with the PT concerns about the engines were raised: "RAF aircraft must have Rolls Royce engines you know..." and since it was made clear that it was a condition for success, the first mistake was made. As a result a new part wing would be required to allow the RR engines to fit. The question of wing fatigue and corrosion was then raised and eventually a completely new wing was accepted as the baseline; another mistake. Industry left the negotiations with a radically different and far larger project and more or less the same price and timescales as the original offer – 'Nimrod 2000' as originally intended wasn't a tongue in cheek joke. The preceding risk reduction and planning was rendered useless. The rest as they say, is history.
I'm not saying this as an excuse for failure, but sometimes the story on here seems a bit one-sided. Ultimately those on the industry side knew what they were doing, but as the only big design programme in town for some years to come, it was seen as a 'must win'.
EAP
I was a spectator of the RMPA bidding process from the 'dark side' and while there may have been some at ABW expressing concerns, it probably wasn't universal.
I recall the original design concept for the bid was the existing MR2 with an updated glass cockpit, updated mission systems & sensors in the back, more modern and economical GE engines (which actually fitted in the wing!). Note that quite a lot of risk reduction work had been done to look at the adequacy of the airframe and, since it was built like a brick outhouse (due to its Comet heritage), there were no real fatigue or corrosion concerns although some repair work was envisaged. Avoiding large structural changes meant that airframe build variation wouldn't be an issue either. Keeping the basic systems unchanged was intended to keep the training and conversion costs to a minimum. The price bid was more or less what was believed to have been budgeted.
During the negotiations with the PT concerns about the engines were raised: "RAF aircraft must have Rolls Royce engines you know..." and since it was made clear that it was a condition for success, the first mistake was made. As a result a new part wing would be required to allow the RR engines to fit. The question of wing fatigue and corrosion was then raised and eventually a completely new wing was accepted as the baseline; another mistake. Industry left the negotiations with a radically different and far larger project and more or less the same price and timescales as the original offer – 'Nimrod 2000' as originally intended wasn't a tongue in cheek joke. The preceding risk reduction and planning was rendered useless. The rest as they say, is history.
I'm not saying this as an excuse for failure, but sometimes the story on here seems a bit one-sided. Ultimately those on the industry side knew what they were doing, but as the only big design programme in town for some years to come, it was seen as a 'must win'.
EAP
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don-Cave Review
I’d like to thank all of you that have commented on my views on where the fire occurred on XV230. Sadly nothing can bring back the aircraft and the fourteen lives that were lost but I think it is important that the real source of the fire should appreciated and that it is understood the Haddon-Cave Review failed in that respect.
The RAF Board of Inquiry did not appreciate the real danger of the NACA intake 2.1 metres behind the blow off valve taking cooling air onto the Secondary Cooling Pack intercooler at over 450°C. However what I find inexplicable is the Haddon-Cave Review which states clearly in para 3.15:-
"The Review’s Terms of Reference are expressed to be “in light of the findings of the BOI”. It has therefore been important for me to satisfy myself as to the accuracy and completeness of the findings of the BOI."
Unfortunately the Review did not proceed in a scientific manner to do that. Having mentioned the BAe report which advised more flight tests the Review made no effort to find out where the blow-off fuel actually went which could easily have been done.
The Review did not appreciate that the fire almost certainly started some seconds before the SCP went off line. The bomb fire warning which came on two minutes ten seconds after the SCP went off line was almost certainly triggered by a hot rear bulkhead, not by a fire in the bomb bay. In my view the Review was too easily satisfied that the BOI was right and tried, unconvincingly, to justify the BOI’s analysis.
The RAF Board of Inquiry did not appreciate the real danger of the NACA intake 2.1 metres behind the blow off valve taking cooling air onto the Secondary Cooling Pack intercooler at over 450°C. However what I find inexplicable is the Haddon-Cave Review which states clearly in para 3.15:-
"The Review’s Terms of Reference are expressed to be “in light of the findings of the BOI”. It has therefore been important for me to satisfy myself as to the accuracy and completeness of the findings of the BOI."
Unfortunately the Review did not proceed in a scientific manner to do that. Having mentioned the BAe report which advised more flight tests the Review made no effort to find out where the blow-off fuel actually went which could easily have been done.
The Review did not appreciate that the fire almost certainly started some seconds before the SCP went off line. The bomb fire warning which came on two minutes ten seconds after the SCP went off line was almost certainly triggered by a hot rear bulkhead, not by a fire in the bomb bay. In my view the Review was too easily satisfied that the BOI was right and tried, unconvincingly, to justify the BOI’s analysis.
When considering the cause of the fire, there are several theories, but for me they nearly all lead to conclusion of a failure in airworthiness related to aar well before 1998.
The fuel source is key - either tank blow off, or coupling failure.
For tank blow off, the existence of a design feature that allows fuel to vent outside the ac and into potentially hot parts of the ac raises serious questions over the implementation of the original aar fit, nevermind later issues with the higher pump rates of tristar.
I guess a coupling failure can't be ruled out, but seems less likely for the reasons HC suggests - the timing of the incident just after aar. Of course the higher pump rates of tristar may have put additional unforeseen loads on the couplings. Such a failure would however still be linked to aar operation.
The speculation over whether the fuel found hot parts in the SCP or dry bay 7 is, you could argue, not material to the airworthiness debate.
Final point, often missed I think, is that once a limitation was imposed which stopped aar, the airworthiness of the nimrod was effectively restored, as I understand the tank blow off can only operate during gnd/air refuelling activities. In this respect the coroner was perhaps mistaken in his statement declaring all nimrods not airworthy.
So, in answer to the OP question, which was sort of "could the airworthiness shortfalls (which could be argued to be directly related to aar) have been solved easily?"
Two answers to this -
1. Limit ops to exclude aar - they are solved.
2. Change the ac to make aar safe - not sure how easy. No ac mod is necessarily easy, but perhaps an effective solution to the blow off hazard could have been found without too much difficulty.
PS I know the above is a bit simplistic and misses out many other shortfalls that were identified, but I personally think the aar integration issues were the biggest hole in the cheese on 230.
PPS I realise that if you subscribe to the "risk of coupling failing at any time leading to massive fuel discharge in the dry bay" theory, you won't agree with my thoughts.
The fuel source is key - either tank blow off, or coupling failure.
For tank blow off, the existence of a design feature that allows fuel to vent outside the ac and into potentially hot parts of the ac raises serious questions over the implementation of the original aar fit, nevermind later issues with the higher pump rates of tristar.
I guess a coupling failure can't be ruled out, but seems less likely for the reasons HC suggests - the timing of the incident just after aar. Of course the higher pump rates of tristar may have put additional unforeseen loads on the couplings. Such a failure would however still be linked to aar operation.
The speculation over whether the fuel found hot parts in the SCP or dry bay 7 is, you could argue, not material to the airworthiness debate.
Final point, often missed I think, is that once a limitation was imposed which stopped aar, the airworthiness of the nimrod was effectively restored, as I understand the tank blow off can only operate during gnd/air refuelling activities. In this respect the coroner was perhaps mistaken in his statement declaring all nimrods not airworthy.
So, in answer to the OP question, which was sort of "could the airworthiness shortfalls (which could be argued to be directly related to aar) have been solved easily?"
Two answers to this -
1. Limit ops to exclude aar - they are solved.
2. Change the ac to make aar safe - not sure how easy. No ac mod is necessarily easy, but perhaps an effective solution to the blow off hazard could have been found without too much difficulty.
PS I know the above is a bit simplistic and misses out many other shortfalls that were identified, but I personally think the aar integration issues were the biggest hole in the cheese on 230.
PPS I realise that if you subscribe to the "risk of coupling failing at any time leading to massive fuel discharge in the dry bay" theory, you won't agree with my thoughts.
Last edited by JFZ90; 27th Oct 2012 at 16:10.
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I'm not saying this as an excuse for failure, but sometimes the story on here seems a bit one-sided. Ultimately those on the industry side knew what they were doing, but as the only big design programme in town for some years to come, it was seen as a 'must win'.
Loyal maritime chaps/chapesses blame the government?MOD, because defence cuts blew it off just when BAe were on the verge of producing a "great bit of kit". They overlook that BAe were contracted to produce 21 "great bits of kit" by 2001.
Those concerned with "big picture" airworthiness issues blame the MOD/RAF because they did not deal adequately with legacy safety design issues from what was an antiquated airframe.
Many people blame politics for sticking its unwelcome oar into defence procurement.
And the taxpayer blames BAe for swindling us all out of £3.5 billion.
The truth is out there...but we'll never know it.
QED
JFZ90 & TOFO
Fully agree. Everyone looks at this case from their own perspective. In my experience, at this time (early-mid 90s) there were a number of projects that were endorsed as “simple” modifications or upgrades to discreet kit, but were actually major aircraft programmes. Chinook Mk3, Nimrod, Sea King AEW are good examples. In each case, a common factor was poor articulation of the Requirement by MB, with entire projects omitted from programmes. That places immediate financial pressure on the Programme Manager, who in many cases didn’t realise he had concurrent major projects on his hands until it was too late.
However, THE number 1 risk on ANY aircraft programme was well known. Following the RAF Chief Engineer’s polices of the early 90s, it was ALWAYS, ALWAYS the fact that the design and safety baselines were not known, because the Chief Engineer had ordered they should not be maintained and withdrawn funding. (25% cut in FY91-92 noted in CHART report by Inspector of Flight Safety).
The practical effect of this in programmatic terms was MoD’s obligation to feed-in serviceable and airworthy aircraft (or equipment) to the conversion programme could not be met. e.g. 21 Nimrod MR2s. If you study why some programmes were delivered with effortless competence, you will find that this risk was mitigated before development began, by the simple expedient of implementing mandated airworthiness and Requirement Scrutiny regs; albeit retrospectively, because at this time MoD(PE) had no control over in-service aircraft.
This is important on Nimrod MRA4. The MRA4 team, in London and then ABW, relied upon the In Service Support team at Wyton to supply 21 airworthy a/c. The MRA4 IPTL, for example, would have to continually satisfied that this was achievable and on target (given it was his #1 risk). He didn’t. This makes Haddon-Cave’s praise of him look nonsense. In turn, the Wyton team’s work was fatally compromised by their boss’s policies. (This is what Baber later inherited). In this case, Haddon-Cave’s criticism was nonsense. (A trend appears!).
Failure to deliver has many knock on effects. But in the context of this discussion, the main one is the impact on BAeS’s contract. MoD were in contractual default. BAeS knew it. Anyone remotely connected with airworthiness in MoD knew it. I know they were told. By me! They did nothing. Concurrently, other aircraft programmes were conducting Risk Reduction contracts to resurrect airworthiness (as far as possible). We didn’t worry too much about unserviceabilities; that can be dealt with under “emergent work” and companies usually have the wherewithal to deal with it. (In practice, the aircraft on such programmes were stripped to nothing anyway, so rectification was built-in to the contract). But they can’t deal with MoD policies, extant since the late 80s, to deliberately rundown airworthiness. (This is one reason why every PM has to be aware of the difference between airworthiness and serviceability, and how the former facilitates the latter). That was systemic, and there was no single individual to go to. (I suppose they could have gone to CDP, 4 Star, but he was PE’s greatest proponent, apart from DGAS2). And we know the attitude of the first MRA4 IPTL – he stood in the shadows and said nothing when he knew Baber was unfairly accused. Those PMs in MoD who mitigated the risk, did so against the express orders of the DGAS2, who oversaw all the programmes I mention.
The inevitable outcome is that of presenting a blank cheque to the company. In fact, many cheques. I cannot speak for MRA4 directly, but on other programmes this was compounded by non-technical staff being allowed to self delegate Technical, Financial and Airworthiness approval, and waiving significant contract milestones such as Critical Design Reviews, System Integration and Safety Cases; yet paying the contractor in full. There is a fine line between such incompetence, and outright fraud and corruption. Again, these actions were fully supported, in writing, by DGAS2 and CDP at the time.
I deliberately avoid comment about BAeS, because as a primarily RW man I (luckily) didn’t have to deal with them too often. But, when I did, the lasting impression was that they fully understood all the above, but (rightly) regarded it as a risk they didn’t own and left it to MoD. Equally, however, they were not exactly pro-active in helping MoD identify and mitigate the risks. However, it must be said that this may have been down to the usual MoD suspects, who had also ruled that “Risk Management” amounted to recording the risk, but under no circumstances should resources be expended on mitigation. Under such circumstances, and to be fair, any company is stuck between a rock and a hard place. I happen to know, from long experience, that Westland for example routinely rejected such contracts until the risks were mitigated (but it saddens me they seem to have regressed since being taken over). As did many reputable Avionic companies, such as Joyce Loebl, GEC-Marconi and Ferranti. Others didn’t, and it is they who are associated with the disasters.
I’ve covered a number of issues here, but each one always gets down to the same root cause, and the same people in MoD.
Fully agree. Everyone looks at this case from their own perspective. In my experience, at this time (early-mid 90s) there were a number of projects that were endorsed as “simple” modifications or upgrades to discreet kit, but were actually major aircraft programmes. Chinook Mk3, Nimrod, Sea King AEW are good examples. In each case, a common factor was poor articulation of the Requirement by MB, with entire projects omitted from programmes. That places immediate financial pressure on the Programme Manager, who in many cases didn’t realise he had concurrent major projects on his hands until it was too late.
However, THE number 1 risk on ANY aircraft programme was well known. Following the RAF Chief Engineer’s polices of the early 90s, it was ALWAYS, ALWAYS the fact that the design and safety baselines were not known, because the Chief Engineer had ordered they should not be maintained and withdrawn funding. (25% cut in FY91-92 noted in CHART report by Inspector of Flight Safety).
The practical effect of this in programmatic terms was MoD’s obligation to feed-in serviceable and airworthy aircraft (or equipment) to the conversion programme could not be met. e.g. 21 Nimrod MR2s. If you study why some programmes were delivered with effortless competence, you will find that this risk was mitigated before development began, by the simple expedient of implementing mandated airworthiness and Requirement Scrutiny regs; albeit retrospectively, because at this time MoD(PE) had no control over in-service aircraft.
This is important on Nimrod MRA4. The MRA4 team, in London and then ABW, relied upon the In Service Support team at Wyton to supply 21 airworthy a/c. The MRA4 IPTL, for example, would have to continually satisfied that this was achievable and on target (given it was his #1 risk). He didn’t. This makes Haddon-Cave’s praise of him look nonsense. In turn, the Wyton team’s work was fatally compromised by their boss’s policies. (This is what Baber later inherited). In this case, Haddon-Cave’s criticism was nonsense. (A trend appears!).
Failure to deliver has many knock on effects. But in the context of this discussion, the main one is the impact on BAeS’s contract. MoD were in contractual default. BAeS knew it. Anyone remotely connected with airworthiness in MoD knew it. I know they were told. By me! They did nothing. Concurrently, other aircraft programmes were conducting Risk Reduction contracts to resurrect airworthiness (as far as possible). We didn’t worry too much about unserviceabilities; that can be dealt with under “emergent work” and companies usually have the wherewithal to deal with it. (In practice, the aircraft on such programmes were stripped to nothing anyway, so rectification was built-in to the contract). But they can’t deal with MoD policies, extant since the late 80s, to deliberately rundown airworthiness. (This is one reason why every PM has to be aware of the difference between airworthiness and serviceability, and how the former facilitates the latter). That was systemic, and there was no single individual to go to. (I suppose they could have gone to CDP, 4 Star, but he was PE’s greatest proponent, apart from DGAS2). And we know the attitude of the first MRA4 IPTL – he stood in the shadows and said nothing when he knew Baber was unfairly accused. Those PMs in MoD who mitigated the risk, did so against the express orders of the DGAS2, who oversaw all the programmes I mention.
The inevitable outcome is that of presenting a blank cheque to the company. In fact, many cheques. I cannot speak for MRA4 directly, but on other programmes this was compounded by non-technical staff being allowed to self delegate Technical, Financial and Airworthiness approval, and waiving significant contract milestones such as Critical Design Reviews, System Integration and Safety Cases; yet paying the contractor in full. There is a fine line between such incompetence, and outright fraud and corruption. Again, these actions were fully supported, in writing, by DGAS2 and CDP at the time.
I deliberately avoid comment about BAeS, because as a primarily RW man I (luckily) didn’t have to deal with them too often. But, when I did, the lasting impression was that they fully understood all the above, but (rightly) regarded it as a risk they didn’t own and left it to MoD. Equally, however, they were not exactly pro-active in helping MoD identify and mitigate the risks. However, it must be said that this may have been down to the usual MoD suspects, who had also ruled that “Risk Management” amounted to recording the risk, but under no circumstances should resources be expended on mitigation. Under such circumstances, and to be fair, any company is stuck between a rock and a hard place. I happen to know, from long experience, that Westland for example routinely rejected such contracts until the risks were mitigated (but it saddens me they seem to have regressed since being taken over). As did many reputable Avionic companies, such as Joyce Loebl, GEC-Marconi and Ferranti. Others didn’t, and it is they who are associated with the disasters.
I’ve covered a number of issues here, but each one always gets down to the same root cause, and the same people in MoD.
Last edited by tucumseh; 27th Oct 2012 at 21:01.
