Voyager Plummets (Merged)
Beagle, depends what you call wasted? The budget for the TriStar wing pods was donated to the VC10! 
That was, of course, in the days when there was a tanker force.
The real politics behind the MMR development are unknown to me. However, it did work and, if the TriStar fleet had received only a tiny fraction of the investment on FSTA, we could have had 2 squadrons of updated TriStar and kept Nimrod and Harrier and have 5 Billion £ change!*
* Numbers estimated
OAP
That was, of course, in the days when there was a tanker force.The real politics behind the MMR development are unknown to me. However, it did work and, if the TriStar fleet had received only a tiny fraction of the investment on FSTA, we could have had 2 squadrons of updated TriStar and kept Nimrod and Harrier and have 5 Billion £ change!*
* Numbers estimated
OAP
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Why Not
Rather than ground the aircraft the RAF should order the Co Pilot to fly the aircraft manually in the cruise and the Captain should shout at him/her if the aircraft deviates much from the flight path...a small stick could be issued to aircraft Captains if shouting fails to have the desired effect.
Of course the Captain will need to have natural breaks and the odd snooze so we will need to re introduce the Flight Engineer onto the Voyager flight deck to do the shouty hitty stuff when the skipper is unavailable.
Flight Engineers quite handy to have about. Perhaps the RAF have forgotten that.
Of course the Captain will need to have natural breaks and the odd snooze so we will need to re introduce the Flight Engineer onto the Voyager flight deck to do the shouty hitty stuff when the skipper is unavailable.
Flight Engineers quite handy to have about. Perhaps the RAF have forgotten that.
Still grounded, I gather?
No doubt the contracts people are wondering how to sort out the compensation for failure of service provision....
No doubt the contracts people are wondering how to sort out the compensation for failure of service provision....
Join Date: Sep 2007
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It would have been an extremely capable tanker, with considerable AT capability.
Outbound - First attempt aborted at around 100KIAS, second attempt got us to Basrah.
Return - First attempt failed to depart from Brize, 2 hours later the spare ac also went U/S.
That's an impressive 25% success rate. Still, maybe it worked first time every other day of the month.... Great aircraft in its day but that day has quite definitely passed.
lj101 wrote:
Yup, plenty of time off in nice places and no doubt quite a few Brenda-blatts to sweeten the delays - although I was never fortunate enough to be delayed in nice places! More like Incirlik, Akrotiri or Goose Bay....or perhaps Lajes. But a couple of extra days at El Toro was nice....
Do I hear whispers that the cause of the mighty Plummeter's recent Stuka-like incident has yet to be found? I guess the jets will have to stay grounded a while longer, if that's the case.
Couldn't you just imagine the headlines if the MoD decided 'NFF' was adequate and cleared the aircraft for further flight.....
Sounds like a great trail.
Do I hear whispers that the cause of the mighty Plummeter's recent Stuka-like incident has yet to be found? I guess the jets will have to stay grounded a while longer, if that's the case.
Couldn't you just imagine the headlines if the MoD decided 'NFF' was adequate and cleared the aircraft for further flight.....
ShotOne,
I think in todays climate, the Daily Mail would find it easy to cook up a story that painted the MOD, RAF, Defence Minister etc in a very bad position with respect to risk, which would be significantly worse if (God forbid), the event ocurred again.
Why should NFF make headlines if it was true
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With the A/C grounded I hope they are using British Charter Aircraft and not paying for overseas Aircraft
If the aircraft are wired the same as a civvy one then the data available from the aircraft systems is enormous. The civvy ones also have a QAR which helps with an initial snapshot of what occurred , but the FDR has a higher sampling rate.The question is what was recorded and who is looking at it? As this is a major incident I would imagine the AAIB and Airbus will also be involved.