Army route checks the RAF
 

I've just heard that the Army are in the process of 'route checking' all AT routes, to make sure we're doing what it says on the tin.

We have enough to worry about, without an Army Colonel demanding to know why you were 20 minutes late departing.

Good? Bad?

So where did you "hear" this or is this another wind up/fishing story. I note this is your first post.:cool:

Perhaps the "customer" is wanting his money's worth? You reckon they might suggest contracting out passenger hauls to more capable operations could follow from this?

So it's a sort of 'Customer Service Survey' as SASless rightly states?

Not a bad idea - if it's conducted in the right spirit.

We used to have to submit an entry in the aircraft diary if we were more than 20 min late off blocks - I never did learn what happened to all that data though. There must have been quite a lot of it, judging by all the paperwork delays, cocked up head counts and unreasonably tight planned turn round times I saw in my brief experience of AT.

Although "We were late because we had to recover a passenger life vest stolen by some thieving squaddie" might not go down too well with Woopert of the Wedgiment.... It happened to me once after a Turnhouse to Hannover trip; the movers had worked hard in the hot weather to get the jet unloaded and loaded in the turn round time, but the ALM found that one of the pax life vests was on its way to some squaddie barracks or other - the bus was stopped by the MPs and the life vest returned.

Not the fault of the RAF, that particular delay!

I don't suppose "Unless I get some lemon for my tea, I'm not going" will go down too well either.

I heard about this yesterday and it's true - consequence of the TA MP tirade. What worries the guys on the ground is that the said 'inquisitive' pongo will head straight for the youngest airman with white knees and grill him about what is happening with the turnround.

Here we go........same old, "if he hasn't got two wings on a light blue chest, he couldn't possibly have a brain and will not know what he is talking about!!!:= := := :=

Blakey,

"What worries the guys on the ground is that the said 'inquisitive' pongo will head straight for the youngest airman with white knees and grill him about what is happening with the turnround."

As the young airman with white knees is almost certainly going to be a mover, and as movers as we all know to our cost are the main reason for AT being delayed what you allude to seems perfectly reasonable to me:p

ABIW - Always causing mischief and it must hurt to be so right all the time. Your comment is of course not true but you must get in your 5 bleats a day.... What is worrying is that a lot of young airmen are now being deployed who are straight out of training but lack experience and sometimes still don't have all the ticks in the boxes because of manpower shortages. I believe a large percentage of the RAuxAF sqn are also on the Detachments and some theatres like the Balkans are now fully manned by them. it'll be interesting to see what the Army trapper discovers! It's also amazing that one third of the JHSU who support SH are also movers but they never get slagged off - must be a fixed wing J Loadie thing only?


Roll on 2012

Blakey,

I think you will find that it's all to do with the units name. It's the Joint Helicopter SUPPORT Unit and in my 3 Puma tours I can vouch for the fact that SUPPORT is exactly what they do:D

Only wish the "S" in UK MAMS or the new AMS moniker stood for support:rolleyes:

Ratty,

"Are you suggesting that the RAF is not training its Movers to a sufficient standard to be deployed safely?"

Did the RAF ever train it's movers to a sufficient standard, especially with regards to motorised vehicels, to be safely deployed anywhere:p

Ratty - No they are trained to operate safely but some only have the basic skills and so cannot operate all the support equipment. This in turn puts pressure on the others or sadly compels the supervisor sometimes to operate the kit himself losing total control as he is operating a piece of ACHE (Air Cargo Handling Equipment) - Does that clarify?
Roll on 2012

OMG!! - RTFQ! if you are a Supervisor you should not be operating any equipment otherwise someone else is telling you what to do. He/She didn't lose control of a piece of ACHE.....
Roll on 2012

And yet another thread about AT as a whole descends into a let's slag the movers off :bored: :bored: :bored:

I heard it said from a Shiney 10 captain. Most put out he was.

Much like the "If you're not wearing cam cream you probably never go out in the rain so we're not even gonna listen to you" :hmm:

The army effectively "route checks" the AT continuously and to date AT has been found "wanting"!
I guess by giving some warning of a particular "check" it will give a chance to improve things and achieve an acceptable service.
:E
The plane no longer departing when intended will now leave...........

Really?

Presumably you've seen the reports by the Army and have documentary evidence to prove this?

Appears Parliament have and most of the MoD hence the close eye being kept on how they operate. :hmm:

Looks like a nerve being struck. :rolleyes:

You say that like it's a bad thing........

Or like you can't understand why, I mean surely it's perfectly natural for the rest of the Military to do it, bearing in mind the service they offer:E

Lucky old you. I have been one of the chosen report writers; a thankless task.

Ignorance is bliss as they say, Twopack.

ABIW - what a card eh? If only he dedicated some of his obviously copious amounts of free time to learning a bit about what he is so quick to slag off then maybe Movers and Loadies may be able to meet in the middle from time to time and not pull in different directions.

For every horror story a loadie has about a Movements Team I guarantee that every Mover has a horror story about an ALMs ineptitude and inflexibility.

Fortunately though we don't tend to air our dirty laundry in public (as often) as this particular character.

Now, back on topic...the Army are Route Checking RAF AT Routes eh?

Never let the Army EVER dare moan and bitch when one of their illustrious officers is nominated as the Passenger Reporting Officer in that case. Seems to me that now they are thrusting themselves forward for the job, and I for one will endeavor to oblige.

From now on I will ensure that on every flight I have any dealings with this job will go to an Army Officer. This way it saves them having to put someone specifically on the flight for Route Checking purposes and there is ALREADY a proforma that (should) be filled out with comments both good and bad and returned in the pre-paid envelope to the organisation formerly known as DTMA.

Amazing hey? A system already in place that is mis-utilised. I'm sure time, effort and money will be spent putting in place something entirely different though.

CC

ps Oh yes, as a footnote - apparently (according to ABIW) the majority of delays are down to the fault of Movers...care to back up your accusation with facts matey? Thought not...

CC,

I guess that will be a bit of a nibble:p

"ps Oh yes, as a footnote - apparently (according to ABIW) the majority of delays are down to the fault of Movers...care to back up your accusation with facts matey? Thought not..."

I love the Loadie/Mover banter and rarely like to "air" in public but you did ask me to substantiate my claim:(

Last year I was lucky enough to ONLY spend 8 weeks in either Basrah or Kandahar,many good folks I know spent much longer. I worked in both locations with some top movers and Atlo staff however it's a fact that in my own experience well over 50% of my trips were late departing due to some sort of movements issue.

I know that there is always a bigger picture and when Col Mustard is hopping up and down because his multi million pound four tonner is scheduled to leave with out him, or priority freight/pax turn up late or the fork's simply give up the ghost it's not always as simple as the bleedin movers again, but invariably as often very honestly admitted to by the DAMO, movers or Atlo staff it was. Head counts screwed up, baggage/freight not prep'd, paperwork not completed, shift change etc etc were all daily occurrences I am sad to say.

I know we are not BA or Virgin and simply shutting the doors and leaving on time is not an option so I am not sure what the solution is but what I do know is that from a crew point of view being late is like playing your joker, you can do it once,and once only and get away with it:eek:

PS ALM's are rarely inflexible as they know which rules can and can't be broken and are only ever accused of inflexability when they insist on having put right the mistakes of those who themselves should know better:=

Well there has been a battlegroup in Afganistan for nearly a year and we haven't won yet - should we send the RAF Regiment over to QA the Army/RM processes? What about Northern Ireland - Op BANNER has lasted 38 years - slackers.

We might spend out time more usefully on here understanding why there are problems than indulging in pointless inter-service or inter-trade squabbles.

On reflection, I am not sure the internet is about useful passage of one's time...

What I have found in my time on the AT fleet is that we are generally a bunch of good guys trying to do the best we can with massive budget cuts, lack of man power and lack of support from our government.

We have been asked to do far more than is reasonably expected and this is half the reason people are leaving in large numbers.

I have had many bad experiences with movers,police, guards etc etc BUT these guys are in the same situation as us - i.e they are under manned, over worked and stretched, and I'm sure these guys have had bad experiences with aircrew.

But like always, we have to fight amongst ourselves, slag off eachother and not look at the far bigger picture. That bigger picture, quite simply, is lack of funding, investment and support from our Government and lack of backbone from our military hierachy to say so.

And lets not mention the army absolutely destroying a perfectly serviceable Basrah International Airport when they took it in GW2.... ripping up the tasteful marble floor, playing dodgems with the fire engines, wrecking runway lighting etc etc....

Of course, it'd be 'high-spirits' if it was perfectly servicable OM that got trashed, carpets ripped up, fire-extinguisers discharged, light-bulbs lobbed around?

Only if you pitched up first thing the next morning with a cheque book in hand to pay for any damage inadvertantly caused during the outbreak of high spirits;)

Fair comment.

(I wish there was a tongue-in-cheek smiley, trouble is it'd look like smiley-simulating-a-BJ).

One wonders how many other aspects of military operations at home and abroad would now be under scrutiny if only a TA wupert who also happened to be an MP had gained personal experience of it's short comings?
I guess if what's-his-face's house had burnt down during Fresco, the entire fleet of Green Goddi wouldn't currently be sitting in a disposal yard (yours for a couple of thousand quid each), and if he'd been kept waiting in a hospital queue, to then be seen by an Army doctor, no doubt they'd all be checked out by the Navy!

Din again - many apologies if you're tone is sarcastic (its hard to tell on here) but....

The impact of what the army did, which went largely unreported, was that the runway was unlit for a long time, no approach lights,inadequate fire cover and it cost millions to replace and repair!!!

They also took the pleasure of sh1tting in every single room possible, meaning alot of rooms and facilities were condemned for a very long time....:=

No apology necessary, 3bb. There's no way I would condone such behaviour.

diginagain,

But I will apologise for getting your name wrong in my last post!

An honest mistake made by a thick aircrew mate!

I'm not sure what this adds to the debate but, for what it's worth, the link http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia...4&formato=HTML may be interesting. It's not a MoD publication and only relates to the South Atlantic but is, nonetheless, a valid insight. The salient paragraph is; "when travelling on the Airbridge if there are any points that any passenger wishes to raise they should do so with the Passenger Reporting Officer (PRO), said Captain Philippson. "The PRO is a nominated senior military officer at the Lt Cdr/Maj/Sqn Ldr/ level travelling on the flight who is tasked with monitoring the performance of the service provided and completes a written report on each flight. Any comment on the service, positive or negative, should be passed on to him or her so that feedback will be passed on to the appropriate area at the time the issues arise. During your flight the PRO can be contacted via the cabin crew".

As you will see, the PRO doesn't have to be a Brown Job; it can be any SO2. There are DLO iterations of this arrangement but the Commercial one seems more succinct. This aligns with all the current QA expectations and is part of DSCOM's (DTMA as was) performance measurement against its agreed targets.

GBZ, the PRO process was more appropiate for those kinder, gentler times when we had vaguely sufficient assest to deliver an airbridge to the Falklands and various bits of the Services to interesting and challenging exercises somewhere other than Salisbury Plain. If the cabin crew on the SA run are useless then you should certainly let the system know.

What we face today is a number of airbridges to more theatres than we are resourced to operate to, moving more pax and freight than we have for years (Berlin Airlift?), using a limited number of increasingly old (argueably obsolescent according to other, civil users) aircraft with critical limitations on er essential equipment. I am not sure there is a suitable from for registering a complaint about this, save the one you get to fill in every 4-5 years in a ballot box...

Exactly my point on the previous page GBF...

There is a system already in place for monitoring and reporting on RAF AT Routes, it just so happens that in my experience the SO2's nominated for it generally see it as beneath them or that they are being 'dicked' and a lot of the time the reports are not filled out. Although DTMA may disagree with this as they are obviously the ones who get the feedback when it is sent.

I can assure you though that the necessary people do act on things that are mentioned in these PRO reports if it is constructive and not just whinging.

You are correct in saying that the PRO can be nominated from any of the Services, but my point was that if the Army are deeming it necessary to invoke their own form of Route-Checking then I will endeavor to oblige and from now on always nominate an Army SO2 for the job of PRO.

As I see it there is little or no point to this latest initiative because a system already exists for it. But I wonder how many man hours are being wasted on it as we speak...?

CC

BAB - sorry our posts conflicted there...

I can assure you that it is laid down policy for a PRO to be nominated for every single RAF AT Pax route, be it Cyprus, Falklands, Gulf etc.

Now I can't vouch for the fact that all PRO's are briefed correctly but in the pack-up it explains exactly what this task entails, including procedures on unscheduled diversions, complete passenger manifests and all salient details about the flight.

One of my previous jobs was in Ascension and it was part of my duty to call the PRO forward and find out if there had been any problems on the first leg of the flight and to then back-brief the passengers on the name of the PRO and where he was sat on the aircraft so that any comments could be given directly to them and they had the necessary paperwork to fill in and send back to DTMA.

Surprisingly for the amount of bitching that goes on about the service provided not many people actually get off their arse and speak to the right people, preferring instead to air their whinges in inappropriate arenas such as web-based discussion forums.

One of the things that came out of my personal chats with the PRO's was the facilities for Pax in Ascension and the upshot of that was these comments were taken further and funds were found to provide more creature comforts (but unfortunately the alcohol ban remained - a legacy of the behaviour of British Army pax during a delay...different story)

So you see, the system can and does work if used correctly.

CC