ASCOT ops love or hate
 

I'd like to know what people think about ASCOT ops. Do you belive they solve problems, or make problems

I belive they solve a lot of problems

do you? :ok:

When I was first on the FunBus in 1984, I was taught to stand on my own two feet when 'down route' - and to check in with Ascot Ops whenever I arrived at my overnight stop. Didn't matter whether that was Block 101 in Akrotiri or the Royal Hawaiian - phone Ascot Ops, give them the info and the contact no.

But then came that inadequately testiculated little git (now out on redundancy - good riddance!) who didn't understand that OpCon rested with Ascot Ops when down route. So captains then had to check in not only with Ascot Ops, but also with Stn Ops and the pointless sqn 'Duty Auth' - some legacy of the PTC/FJ world who served only to erode the traditional AT/AAR Captain's authority.... Bloody nonsense.

When overseas trips had an element of flexibility, things weren't so bad. But towards the end of my time on the ancient FunBus it was obvious that the beancounters were leaning on the itinerary writers and the schedules they insisted upon just wouldn't work, given the abysmal serviceability we had at the time - a legacy of the idiot Kelvin Rucksack who had ruined the engineers' morale by splitting them from the aircrew sqns. (Rucksack has now also left on redundancy - no loss.) So we were being pulled in all directions by impossible itineraries, poor serviceability and ridiculous micromanagement.... Add to that the lowering of manning levels at Ascot Ops and the advent of the useless Phone Answering Branch and things went from good to not so good to appalling in a very short space of time. A proven system totally wrecked by complete idiots.

With sufficient staff, reasonable itineraries and no interference from sqn micromanagement, there is no reason why Ascot Ops shouldn't do the good job it did in the '80s and early '90s. I trained my student captains to look after themselves and to work with Ascot Ops when away from base, it's just a pity that other people always wanted to stick their worthless oars in....which eroded much of the authority of both Ascot Ops and the AARC cell when one was down route.

I am rather hesitant at being the first ( Damn - Beagle beat me to it --- amend to second) to reply on this post; because I went in the '96 redundancy scheme; however here goes:

In my experience as a VIP Captain we told them of a change of requirement and what we proposed,to accommodate the revised requirements of our Pax, to do. Almost invariably our proposals were agreed.

If, however, you present them with a problem and expect them to come up with a solution - then YOU have a problem. Command, Group and Sqn Supervisors will have to discuss the way forward and agree a plan - by which time you will be out of crew duty time.

Ascot Ops are there to help you - but you must help them to help you.

.....Being unable to contact them whilst in Banja Luka because it was shift change and they'd taken all the phones off the hook was a cracker!


.....Suggesting to them that because the bad weather over Bardufoss was going to last for at least 3 days and the contamination would last 4 days, we could simply delay the route for 4 days. Instead we 24hr delay every day for 3 days, pitching up at 0500L - waiting till Bardufoss opened before telling Ascot it was exactly as predicted.

.....A couple of non-specific incidents such as:

Ascot: "Sorry, although you were Transoped A to B via X, there's no Dip Clearance. You are now cleared A - B"
Crew: "We can't"
Ascot: "No, no you can, we've cleared it"
Crew "The Aircraft cannot physically travel that far without refuelling"
Ascot: "We'll get back to you"
Hang up.
Crew: "Numpty"


And other such gems


Edited to add:


Though I do understand that it must be hard for them to try and grasp each individual Tasks specific problems from half a world away. IMHO I just sometimes think that when an aircraft Captain needs an instant answer to an immediate problem and gets a,"We'll let you know;" then it is insuffient.
Perhaps a bit more haste and a bit more willingness to make instant, though difficult decisions - even if it means having to justify them later. Rather that than waiting until your immediate superior comes back from lunch to give their approval.

Not aircrew, and not in the RAF, but......

Ascot ops is a given caller about 2 seconds after arriving at work at 05:00Z every winter morning. (Clue: Work at the cold place outlined above)

"What kind of breaking action can we expect at 14:00Z"

.....I dunno, ask the man upstairs that supply the snow......I'll tell you at 13:55....


"When did RRR4418 depart"

...look at the dep message you got 1 hr ago, but........

"When did RRR4418 depart" (3 min later)

......told your colleague 3 minutes ago..... :O



Some of my collauges think that the ladies at Ascot Ops sound good looking, but I want proof! :E :E

"We have so and so freight, and Oh by the way, Foxtor oscar!"
:E :ok:

They do a job that no one wants to get posted into and are under a lot of pressure to get things sorted. Personally I have found them most helpful, and if you present them with a sensible solution to your problem(bearing in mind you useually have an easier time as you only have one problem on your hands) they will, 99% of the time, go with it. Yep, things get fouled up... but hey doesn't that happen to us all at some point.

Tonks

cazatou

I was very fortunate to be a Maritime Capt.
If and when I had a problem, airborne or detached, I told Gp of my problem, situation, weather, fuel state, serviceability and intentions, leaving little room for a pissing contest, and if they didn't get get back to me by return of post, ( 10 mins) I would execute my command, regardless, knowing I had the backing of my Sqn Boss and CO.

You give me impression that truckie Capts have no authority or clout

So, where does the non-existant "Air Support Command" with it's 'Operational or Overseas' Training (ASCOT) title feature in today's modern airforce

As an aside, ASCOT C/S's get right up operational people's noses

buoy 15,

Just let them get on with their job. Ok, occasionally we had to put up with using an Ascot callsign for an overseas, but to be honest, it was a better callsign than using one of our Rafair xxxx crap callsigns, or worse, at least people knew we were RAF.

I agree though, it is much easier, and better, to organise yourself your own life, rather than rely on any kind of ops personnnel to organise your life for you.

buoy 15
 

Please explain, I'd love to know why.

buoy15

.Thats all Ascot Ops is... Group, so whats your point.

As an ex-Nimrod chap I can say that we do as much "operational" stuff within the Ascot fleet as you lot do, so don't come that cr@p please:rolleyes: Not really sure why the callsign should cause you any grief.

"operational people".... whatever keeps you ego up buddy:zzz:

Not sure why Ascot Ops causes so much bitterness... sometimes they aren't great, but most of the time they are helpfull and just let you get on with the job. In three tours using them I can count the bad times with ascot ops on my thumbs

chiseller....

As for Ascot Ops...well, some good and some bad really, like any job. I always find that if you give them a problem and ask them to solve it they'll either not come up with anything or come up with something that you really don't want ;) Best bet, as said above, when faced with a problem down route is to come up with a workable plan and present it to them to a nice friendly way. Hopefully they'll be so pleased you 've come up with a solution that they won't notice that your plan involves coming home via Hickham, Darwin, Singapore etc rather than Goose Bay......

:)

"operational people." Hahahahahahaha.

Yup, I'm sure the Ascot callsign really pisses off those receivers on trails, or the troops we carry back to their loved ones. I bet those operational folks REALLY hate the Ascot callsigns that bring them supplies, or on R&R trips. I'm sure they are incandescent with rage whenever the callsign is mentioned.

Trying desperately to think of all those non-operational tasks we've been doing recently.....

Nope, can't think of any.

Back in your box son.

As a relatively inexperienced truckkie, I have seen both the best and worst of Ascot in my short time. I think the thread should be 'Love and Hate'. Yes you sometimes have the 'Ascot Shuffle' at Brize, but once down route they are generally very good. Apart from shift change, but that affects all trades me thinks. Remember, its not just Ascot Ops that define the task. I have heard the 'ITOC' course at Brize is an eye opener for what goes on behind the scenes of 2Group and Ascot.

Now on to sledging!!:}

Buoy15,

As a experienced person (won't call you captain, it might make your already massive 'operational' ego explode) you of all people should know not to throw stones. Try telling the non-operational C17 boys they get up everyone's nose!!:confused:

As for you doing on your own, I have seen the consequences of people who think they know better than the big picture! It normally involves orbitting on a Turkish border waiting for Dip clearance, before being told NO!! :\ Then diverting to Cyprus, ringing said 'Ascot' grovelling a bit, waiting for the bosses comment that will involve a meeting without tea and biscuits, then once that is all over trudging to block 101, where the only accommodation has been taken over by a Herc crew (non-operational of course), who are out of crew duty as they had a non-operational Comp A out of Basrah. To top it all off, you go for a Kebab and some AVGAS F69 (coccanelli) at Chris's, to find the VC10 crew have filled the place out!:}

Most Captains put forward a workable solution to Ascot, and most of the time that suggestion is taken. If Ascot makes a cr@p decision, then so be it. At least the Captain isn't in the poo for leaving the pax waiting at Hannover, for a Jet which has just landed at Brize.

I am very fortunate that you are not my captain

Just nailing you in the box that golpcup put you in!!:)

Having dealt with both Northwood Opcon and Ascot Ops there is no real difference between the 2. As other posters have said, if you have a problem, present them with a solution as well as the problem and they will run with your solution.

The difference, in my perception, is that in the maritime world, Opcon is reacting during a flight to an immediate set of circumstances which the Captain has to inform them off. With Ascot they are looking at a longer term position normally generated between sorties.

As a former maritime captain :} I can honestly say that whilst going round in circles on the Malin Head or in the Swapps at silly times, my only reaction to hearing an Ascot callsign has been one of envy, or in in the case of a heavy C-130 at FL200, one of sympathy for the time it will take them to reach landfall to the west :D

Well said Stan as this thread looked like turning into a p!!sin contest between the the fishing and working fleets:rolleyes:

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

During many years of dealings with them in the 80s and 90s I always found ASCOT Ops mostly harmless and usually pleasant. They were there to perform a political function, perpetuating the illusion that their airships at Why Hickham were exercising executive authority over all those damn truckers.

Conversations used to go something like:

'Hello Ops, this is ASCOT, I've blown a tyre in Ancona'

'Stand by ASCOT, . . . . ASCOT, from your operating Authority, you are to change the tyre'

Admittedly, it has been some years since I last flew albert, having been stuck behind a desk for almost a decade now, but I was glad for ASCOT - they sorted the dip clrs (a job that I know has got much harder post 9/11), teed-up all the onward stops when we inevitably went u/s and provided a single number we could call any time of the day or night if we had a problem and needed some support from home. The biggest ops faff of a route was always getting away from Lyneham and that had bugger all to do with ASCOT and was a Stn concern!

All it took to get a good service off ASCOT was to check in after each flight so that they could let us know if something went wrong beyond our fairly close horizon and spend a few minutes thinking of which solution we wanted to our problem and offering it up at the same time as the problem, as opposed to relying on them to figure it out. The way I looked at it, we were dealing with 1 task and they were dealing with about 40 (it was a bigger AT fleet back then!) so we had more time to figure out the best solution to our problem than they did!

At the end of the day, we were trying to do our job and they were trying to do theirs and we were both trying to achieve the same end goal. They were generally a good bunch with the odd dead-weight (much like ourselves). A little tolerance and understanding went a long way to making things run smoothly and I doubt that dealings with ASCOT are likely to be significantly changed since then.

Rodders: 'ITOC' course?

"Hello, Ascot Ops, do you have a revised itinerary for me?"

"RevItin? Why? We've still got you due out at **00"

"We can't do that - the outbound hasn't even landed yet! What was its departure time"

"Err...don't kno...standby...err, it was due out at **00"

"Yes, I know what time it was supposed to take off, but what time did it actually take-off? Haven't you got the deprture message?"

"Um, err, err, it must be here somewhere....."

"Indeed it must. But there's only 30 min flex on this route for max CDT and if it's later than that, we'll either be stuck at Gander with 150 pax at midnight local, or else we leave here tomorrow at a time which maximises our CDT as we'll need to de-ice etc - and that could be a faff from here because they'll be busy just then"

"Oh. Err, what's your suggestion....."

Thanks team. I then phoned Brize to be told that the outbound was actually over 2 hours late off due, predictably enough, to yet another serviceability snag...

Spoke to local DAMO and asked what'd happen to our pax if we delayed until early the next morning. "We'll keep them at their barracks" was the answer. So, as no-one was going to be inconvenienced by a midnight Gander-faff, we delayed until the next day.

Fine. Except the DAMO forgot that the arriving passengers were expected to use the same barracks accommodation - so our pax actually spent the night sleeping at the airport on floors various. No idea why the DAMO didn't find them an hotel. The first I heard of this was when Bwigadier someone or other complained to the AOC; there then followed a long, boring process of trying to pin the blame on me until the station told Group to knob off......

Ever thought of applying to go on the 'Grumpy Old Men' TV series BEagle? ;)

Whilst you're tales (garnered from over long career) are always colourful examples, I doubt that they portray a balanced view of things. I suspect that for every aircrew tale of ops incompetence, ops have at least one regarding aircrew unprofessionalism...