Typhoon Tranche 1
Well someone was given the job of writing a spec - so he/she has a choice - they can write what everyone really, really wants knowing it will never stand a cat in hell's chance or they can do a one liner saying"no chance of any cash for this dig up a couple of Tiger Moths"
Option 1 keeps you busy and earns the undying gratitude of those with the wish list - the other option is curtains for your career.
Option 1 keeps you busy and earns the undying gratitude of those with the wish list - the other option is curtains for your career.
Safety Case or Scrap?
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It's beginning to look as if DG DSA may have sussed a little local difficulty in confirming a full safety case for the remaining, ageing Tranche 1 aircraft, given that only they and the Hawk Mk1 are not on the 'available for sale' list
Apparently some will continue to be used for aggressor training during their remaining service life until 2025 or whenever, but 'fingers crossed' the safety case won't be publicly tested (and found wanting) in the very public way that the Hawk Mk 1 safety case has been found wanting in recent years.
If past public safety case problems and multiple unimplemented SI recommendations are anything to go by, it will be fingers and toes crossed for Hawk Mk 1 until midnight on 31st March 2022.
Except for a dozen T1s for the Reds, probably under a special waiver, with perhaps a sensible change of rules to limit circus flying to 'strictly A to B, with no shenanigans in between.' Even that might now be considered a risk too far, when safer alternatives are readily available.
That of course would not directly apply to Tranche 1 Typhoon, where it would be easy to quietly exclude inadequately trained or joy-riding passengers in any remaining two-seaters, though not so easy to safely sell them on, except for scrap.
LFH
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"Whilst we are on the subject of Tranche 1 (let us throw in Hawk T1 too) and the looming abyss of an aggressor force, ...."
Apparently some will continue to be used for aggressor training during their remaining service life until 2025 or whenever, but 'fingers crossed' the safety case won't be publicly tested (and found wanting) in the very public way that the Hawk Mk 1 safety case has been found wanting in recent years.
If past public safety case problems and multiple unimplemented SI recommendations are anything to go by, it will be fingers and toes crossed for Hawk Mk 1 until midnight on 31st March 2022.
Except for a dozen T1s for the Reds, probably under a special waiver, with perhaps a sensible change of rules to limit circus flying to 'strictly A to B, with no shenanigans in between.' Even that might now be considered a risk too far, when safer alternatives are readily available.
That of course would not directly apply to Tranche 1 Typhoon, where it would be easy to quietly exclude inadequately trained or joy-riding passengers in any remaining two-seaters, though not so easy to safely sell them on, except for scrap.
LFH
...
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It's beginning to look as if DG DSA may have sussed a little local difficulty in confirming a full safety case for the remaining, ageing Tranche 1 aircraft, given that only they and the Hawk Mk1 are not on the 'available for sale' list
Apparently some will continue to be used for aggressor training during their remaining service life until 2025 or whenever, but 'fingers crossed' the safety case won't be publicly tested (and found wanting) in the very public way that the Hawk Mk 1 safety case has been found wanting in recent years.
If past public safety case problems and multiple unimplemented SI recommendations are anything to go by, it will be fingers and toes crossed for Hawk Mk 1 until midnight on 31st March 2022.
Except for a dozen T1s for the Reds, probably under a special waiver, with perhaps a sensible change of rules to limit circus flying to 'strictly A to B, with no shenanigans in between.' Even that might now be considered a risk too far, when safer alternatives are readily available.
That of course would not directly apply to Tranche 1 Typhoon, where it would be easy to quietly exclude inadequately trained or joy-riding passengers in any remaining two-seaters, though not so easy to safely sell them on, except for scrap.
LFH
...
It's beginning to look as if DG DSA may have sussed a little local difficulty in confirming a full safety case for the remaining, ageing Tranche 1 aircraft, given that only they and the Hawk Mk1 are not on the 'available for sale' list
Apparently some will continue to be used for aggressor training during their remaining service life until 2025 or whenever, but 'fingers crossed' the safety case won't be publicly tested (and found wanting) in the very public way that the Hawk Mk 1 safety case has been found wanting in recent years.
If past public safety case problems and multiple unimplemented SI recommendations are anything to go by, it will be fingers and toes crossed for Hawk Mk 1 until midnight on 31st March 2022.
Except for a dozen T1s for the Reds, probably under a special waiver, with perhaps a sensible change of rules to limit circus flying to 'strictly A to B, with no shenanigans in between.' Even that might now be considered a risk too far, when safer alternatives are readily available.
That of course would not directly apply to Tranche 1 Typhoon, where it would be easy to quietly exclude inadequately trained or joy-riding passengers in any remaining two-seaters, though not so easy to safely sell them on, except for scrap.
LFH
...
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I think that’s the point, you didn’t mention them yet you say Tr1. Which is the same airframe and avionics give or take. So, as you can see, it’s quite simple, that by saying Tr1 isn’t airworthy, then Tr2/3 are the same?
Suspicion breeds confidence
And why for example Spanish T1s are airworthy and ours aren't and if they are not airworthy today then why carry on flying them for a couple of years.
Well, I suppose if you read the MAA's regs you might think it simple. But if you consider what must actually happen to maintain airworthiness, which is a prerequisite to Continuing Airworthiness, then matters are not simple at all. Not least because MoD stopped doing it many years ago, and is finding it impossible to resurrect on older fleets. But enough of Hawk, AWACS, etc.
I do however recall two events during EFA development.
First is that, astonishingly, they were given a Configuration Control Manager. Kudos to the person who asked, as most teams do, but it had never been granted on any rotary project or programme I knew of. If you wanted to do CC, you did it in your spare time, in the evenings and at week-ends, and certainly didn't let on to anyone above 1 Star. I have seen calling notices for mandatory CC Boards sent out, and non-technical officers allowed to issue directives that no-one shall attend. Same with risk management. The funerals were always sad affairs.
Second is that, in 1996, EFA (actually, a very highly paid professor employed as a consultant) declared to all and sundry that they'd discovered a new phenomenon called 'electronic component obsolesence'. It was quietly pointed out that MoD already had three specifications and a Def Stan setting out mandated policy. That, EFA simply had to implement them. However, to be aware that in doing so they'd be breaching directives not to maintain airworthiness, of which component unavailability is a core component, and of which obsolescence is one aspect.
EFA toppled.
The two are of course linked, and I wonder if this is perhaps one reason for the decision to abandon T1. Another might be the tendency to destroy engineering records of in service aircraft, which the safety cases increasingly rely on. Hawk, again. Gliders. Nimrod.
I do however recall two events during EFA development.
First is that, astonishingly, they were given a Configuration Control Manager. Kudos to the person who asked, as most teams do, but it had never been granted on any rotary project or programme I knew of. If you wanted to do CC, you did it in your spare time, in the evenings and at week-ends, and certainly didn't let on to anyone above 1 Star. I have seen calling notices for mandatory CC Boards sent out, and non-technical officers allowed to issue directives that no-one shall attend. Same with risk management. The funerals were always sad affairs.
Second is that, in 1996, EFA (actually, a very highly paid professor employed as a consultant) declared to all and sundry that they'd discovered a new phenomenon called 'electronic component obsolesence'. It was quietly pointed out that MoD already had three specifications and a Def Stan setting out mandated policy. That, EFA simply had to implement them. However, to be aware that in doing so they'd be breaching directives not to maintain airworthiness, of which component unavailability is a core component, and of which obsolescence is one aspect.
EFA toppled.
The two are of course linked, and I wonder if this is perhaps one reason for the decision to abandon T1. Another might be the tendency to destroy engineering records of in service aircraft, which the safety cases increasingly rely on. Hawk, again. Gliders. Nimrod.
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Well, I suppose if you read the MAA's regs you might think it simple. But if you consider what must actually happen to maintain airworthiness, which is a prerequisite to Continuing Airworthiness, then matters are not simple at all. Not least because MoD stopped doing it many years ago, and is finding it impossible to resurrect on older fleets. But enough of Hawk, AWACS, etc.
I do however recall two events during EFA development.
First is that, astonishingly, they were given a Configuration Control Manager. Kudos to the person who asked, as most teams do, but it had never been granted on any rotary project or programme I knew of. If you wanted to do CC, you did it in your spare time, in the evenings and at week-ends, and certainly didn't let on to anyone above 1 Star. I have seen calling notices for mandatory CC Boards sent out, and non-technical officers allowed to issue directives that no-one shall attend. Same with risk management. The funerals were always sad affairs.
Second is that, in 1996, EFA (actually, a very highly paid professor employed as a consultant) declared to all and sundry that they'd discovered a new phenomenon called 'electronic component obsolesence'. It was quietly pointed out that MoD already had three specifications and a Def Stan setting out mandated policy. That, EFA simply had to implement them. However, to be aware that in doing so they'd be breaching directives not to maintain airworthiness, of which component unavailability is a core component, and of which obsolescence is one aspect.
EFA toppled.
The two are of course linked, and I wonder if this is perhaps one reason for the decision to abandon T1. Another might be the tendency to destroy engineering records of in service aircraft, which the safety cases increasingly rely on. Hawk, again. Gliders. Nimrod.
I do however recall two events during EFA development.
First is that, astonishingly, they were given a Configuration Control Manager. Kudos to the person who asked, as most teams do, but it had never been granted on any rotary project or programme I knew of. If you wanted to do CC, you did it in your spare time, in the evenings and at week-ends, and certainly didn't let on to anyone above 1 Star. I have seen calling notices for mandatory CC Boards sent out, and non-technical officers allowed to issue directives that no-one shall attend. Same with risk management. The funerals were always sad affairs.
Second is that, in 1996, EFA (actually, a very highly paid professor employed as a consultant) declared to all and sundry that they'd discovered a new phenomenon called 'electronic component obsolesence'. It was quietly pointed out that MoD already had three specifications and a Def Stan setting out mandated policy. That, EFA simply had to implement them. However, to be aware that in doing so they'd be breaching directives not to maintain airworthiness, of which component unavailability is a core component, and of which obsolescence is one aspect.
EFA toppled.
The two are of course linked, and I wonder if this is perhaps one reason for the decision to abandon T1. Another might be the tendency to destroy engineering records of in service aircraft, which the safety cases increasingly rely on. Hawk, again. Gliders. Nimrod.
Given the serious systemic failings reiterated by the Nimrod Review and various Coroners over the last 15 years, and that the root of those failings has been identified yet MoD still defends the individuals who caused them, while attacking the messengers, then yes, I'm afraid the narrative might seem repetitive. You should be asking why the same failings are raised time and again, and try to understand those failings.
Next week, for example, the Inquest into the death of Corporal Jonathan Bayliss opens again. In case you've forgotten, he was left behind in a Hawk T1 at RAF Valley in March 2018. MoD's submissons include a claim there were no systemic failings, and the risks that manisfested were not recognised.
There are twelve common factors with the XX177 (Sean Cunningham) accident in 2011 listed in the XX204 Service Inquiry report of 2018, despite MoD assuring the XX177 Coroner that they were being addressed.
And one can only assume the claim about risk means no-one today has read the Red Arrows risk register, an exhibit in the XX177 case. And, noting, XX177 was itself a recurrence of extant risks.
Please let us know what you think of the link I draw between the destruction of records, and inability to produce valid safety cases. Would you care to comment on how that came about, what MoD has done about it, and how such events might make the MAA nervous over other fleets? For the record, I think they're now doing the right thing, but on Hawk for example, this was known almost immediately after the XX177 accident. And on Nimrod, it was known in 2007, at latest. (And you may not know that Minister for the Armed Forces Adam Ingram was given written warning about these systemic failings one year BEFORE XV230, but the same people in MoD advised him to deny it). Why has it taken so long to act, when 'all' one had to do was implement mandated regulations? Who told them not to, and who condoned this? Might I suggest that is where your ire should be directed.
Last edited by tucumseh; 28th Oct 2021 at 06:35.
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Only Hawk and Nimrod? I must be slipping.
Given the serious systemic failings reiterated by the Nimrod Review and various Coroners over the last 15 years, and that the root of those failings has been identified yet MoD still defends the individuals who caused them, while attacking the messengers, then yes, I'm afraid the narrative might seem repetitive. You should be asking why the same failings are raised time and again, and try to understand those failings.
Next week, for example, the Inquest into the death of Corporal Jonathan Bayliss opens again. In case you've forgotten, he was left behind in a Hawk T1 at RAF Valley in March 2018. MoD's submissons include a claim there were no systemic failings, and the risks that manisfested were not recognised.
There are twelve common factors with the XX177 (Sean Cunningham) accident in 2011 listed in the XX204 Service Inquiry report of 2018, despite MoD assuring the XX177 Coroner that they were being addressed.
And one can only assume the claim about risk means no-one today has read the Red Arrows risk register, an exhibit in the XX177 case. And, noting, XX177 was itself a recurrence of extant risks.
Please let us know what you think of the link I draw between the destruction of records, and inability to produce valid safety cases. Would you care to comment on how that came about, what MoD has done about it, and how such events might make the MAA nervous over other fleets? For the record, I think they're now doing the right thing, but on Hawk for example, this was known almost immediately after the XX177 accident. And on Nimrod, it was known in 2007, at latest. (And you may not know that Minister for the Armed Forces Adam Ingram was given written warning about these systemic failings one year BEFORE XV230, but the same people in MoD advised him to deny it). Why has it taken so long to act, when 'all' one had to do was implement mandated regulations? Who told them not to, and who condoned this? Might I suggest that is where your ire should be directed.
Given the serious systemic failings reiterated by the Nimrod Review and various Coroners over the last 15 years, and that the root of those failings has been identified yet MoD still defends the individuals who caused them, while attacking the messengers, then yes, I'm afraid the narrative might seem repetitive. You should be asking why the same failings are raised time and again, and try to understand those failings.
Next week, for example, the Inquest into the death of Corporal Jonathan Bayliss opens again. In case you've forgotten, he was left behind in a Hawk T1 at RAF Valley in March 2018. MoD's submissons include a claim there were no systemic failings, and the risks that manisfested were not recognised.
There are twelve common factors with the XX177 (Sean Cunningham) accident in 2011 listed in the XX204 Service Inquiry report of 2018, despite MoD assuring the XX177 Coroner that they were being addressed.
And one can only assume the claim about risk means no-one today has read the Red Arrows risk register, an exhibit in the XX177 case. And, noting, XX177 was itself a recurrence of extant risks.
Please let us know what you think of the link I draw between the destruction of records, and inability to produce valid safety cases. Would you care to comment on how that came about, what MoD has done about it, and how such events might make the MAA nervous over other fleets? For the record, I think they're now doing the right thing, but on Hawk for example, this was known almost immediately after the XX177 accident. And on Nimrod, it was known in 2007, at latest. (And you may not know that Minister for the Armed Forces Adam Ingram was given written warning about these systemic failings one year BEFORE XV230, but the same people in MoD advised him to deny it). Why has it taken so long to act, when 'all' one had to do was implement mandated regulations? Who told them not to, and who condoned this? Might I suggest that is where your ire should be directed.
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If you want black and white, I can't help you. How many shades of grey would you recognise ? It's 'caballos de carreras para hipódromos' mi amigos.
I don't know how other countries measure their 'airworthiness' but I am given to understand the Spanish Air Force is in the process of upgrading some of their Tranche 1s to include AESA radar. That'll never catch on here. Upgrading is an idea which seems to be out of favour in the UK. "Throw it away - Buy New."
If you keep full records of maintenance, repair, modifications etc. instead of neglecting or actively destroying them while the aircraft is still in service, and ignoring mandated regulations as well, you would stand a better chance of proving and maintaining a safety case. The UK has 'bad form' in that respect.
LFH
... that by saying Tr. 1 isn’t airworthy,
And why for example Spanish T1s are airworthy and ours aren't
I don't know how other countries measure their 'airworthiness' but I am given to understand the Spanish Air Force is in the process of upgrading some of their Tranche 1s to include AESA radar. That'll never catch on here. Upgrading is an idea which seems to be out of favour in the UK. "Throw it away - Buy New."
If you keep full records of maintenance, repair, modifications etc. instead of neglecting or actively destroying them while the aircraft is still in service, and ignoring mandated regulations as well, you would stand a better chance of proving and maintaining a safety case. The UK has 'bad form' in that respect.
LFH
Foghorn. You need to get out of transmit mode, if foghorns can do that. What do you not get about MoD telling a minister to deny warnings a year before the Nimrod accident? Of all people, tucumseh is entitled to speak of this as he wrote the warning. You need to read the evidence.
MC
MC
Relevant reading
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It is hard going, and it's very depressing too, when people/organisations continually fail in their military safety and airworthiness responsibilities in the way that the UK MoD has failed in the last thirty years. Followed by the sad and self-protective willingness to mislead and lie to government, families, law courts, inquiries, coroners and the public. That is what's depressing.
I wonder if you have read any of the books by David Hill ?
If I could recommend one to get you going, which encapsulates all the above remarks and events (and more) it would be "Breaking the Military Covenant - Who Speaks for the Dead." it's instantly available as an E-book. Another more recent and very relevant to next week's inquest, is "Red 5" which deals with XX177 and now includes a chapter on the more recent XX204.
LFH
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I do find it hard going, as do others, when you continually tar people/organisation with the same brush ......
I wonder if you have read any of the books by David Hill ?
If I could recommend one to get you going, which encapsulates all the above remarks and events (and more) it would be "Breaking the Military Covenant - Who Speaks for the Dead." it's instantly available as an E-book. Another more recent and very relevant to next week's inquest, is "Red 5" which deals with XX177 and now includes a chapter on the more recent XX204.
LFH
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I think it’s terribly disrespectful to say that Cpl Bayliss was ‘left behind’. That kind of pejorative language is unhelpful and wrong. All the examples you’ve cited are historical. It doesn’t make it right, but as I say, you don’t mention what’s being done today and for the future, yet you tar everyone with the same brush.
What group have I tarnished with the same brush? In fact, it is MoD who has tarnished everyone in Air Systems (including, latterly, the entire MAA), by consistently claiming that all but one person (me) failed to notify ANY systemic safety failings. It said this as criticism of myself, not as an admission. In 2003 it was invited by the Information Commissioner, at my behest, to withdraw this pejorative claim against many of my colleagues, and it has consistently refused. In doing so, it rejected the fact that successive RAF Directors of Flight Safety had issued the same warnings from 1992-98, in turn reiterating what internal MoD auditors had stated since 1988.
I'm glad something is being done today and for the future. But until MoD acknowledges the historical facts, it cannot begin to understand why it's doing what it's doing, or getting a lot of it wrong. Or why it's happening 33 years after formal notification. I still have the letter I wrote on 13 January 1988, which precipitated one of the audits, which confirmed the 'savings at the expense of safety' policy later confirmed by Mr Haddon-Cave. (The auditor took about two weeks to give MoD a bigger rocket than Mr H-C managed after nearly two years). There, I suggest, is where the reason for the demise of many fleets lies. But far more importantly, the unnecessary deaths of so many aircrew and passengers.
Disrespectful to whom ?
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Terribly disrespectful to whom ? The SI sets out the time line of the last few seconds before the crash. You might wish to read it. I don't imagine certain parties at the inquest will be pussy-footing around that bit of the accident either.
Why do you seem to think this is all 'historical' ? It's still going on with absolutely no indication that the leopard is likely to change his spots.
Next week's resumed inquest (four days in Caernarfon Coroner's Court) into the death of Jon Bayliss, will regrettably not be an Article 2 Inquest, so the family will not therefore receive legal aid and therefore Mod is unlikely to be put on the spot.
Last weeks inquest (Oxford Coroner's Court) into the death of Guardsman Mathew Talbot in Malawi, heard that the SI "... concluded there had been several failings and made 30 recommendations."
Known problems had not been addressed. Sound familiar ?
LFH
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I think it’s terribly disrespectful to say that Cpl Bayliss was ‘left behind’.
Why do you seem to think this is all 'historical' ? It's still going on with absolutely no indication that the leopard is likely to change his spots.
Next week's resumed inquest (four days in Caernarfon Coroner's Court) into the death of Jon Bayliss, will regrettably not be an Article 2 Inquest, so the family will not therefore receive legal aid and therefore Mod is unlikely to be put on the spot.
Last weeks inquest (Oxford Coroner's Court) into the death of Guardsman Mathew Talbot in Malawi, heard that the SI "... concluded there had been several failings and made 30 recommendations."
Known problems had not been addressed. Sound familiar ?
LFH
...
A once world leading Air Safety system has been brought to its knees by the malevolence and incompetence of certain RAF VSOs and, even more unforgivably, by a cover up of that subversion by subsequent RAF VSOs. The chickens have taken over three decades to come back to their perches, but they are now here to stay unless meaningful reform is enacted as an urgent priority.
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