Air Engineer Role.
 

Evening all ,

Please excuse me for my ignorance, How come there is no longer a Air Engineer role on the RAF careers website?

Have they been phased out now?

Information will be much appreciated.:ok:

Thank you

Nathan

Oh right , Shame that.

Thanks for the Info.:ok:

AIDU, are you feeling OK? :rolleyes:

Own up, who nicked AIDUs log in?

You're not suggesting that we are going to run out of Air Engineers are you? At least there are no plans to extended the VC 10 or Tristar............................
Anyone got the old Air Eng school lesson plans?

A suitably old and bold Eng did in fact save much of the course (or should that be coarse) paperwork, and recent discussion on producing WSops to fill Air Eng positions found that there was sufficient to provide a pretty basic package to enable this if required. Whilst the idea has been shelved for the time being, it remains a possibility for the future to produce the very limited number required for legacy platforms. I remain a little confused (ok, no bloody idea) as to the success of the WSop trade/posting flexibility idea. ME Fleet draw down gives PMA little chance to move people around, and let's not start PMA bashing as they can only go on the numbers and plans passed on by their lordships, nuff said on that. Yes, one or 2 guys have changed brevet (yeh, I know, but you know what I mean), but there seems to be a moratorium on it now. Have the other fleets seen the WSop thing work, or are people stuck in their roles there as well? Have we managed to scare off the ex-rankers by refusing to give them their choice of role as NCA, or are they still applying? Answers on a postcard please, to 'Confused of Chippenham.........'

Air Eng Lessons!!!
 

I knew an air eng who said he may have some lesson plans of the cranditz course. They wouldnt have made sense to me (move heavy boxes and make sure that they're sort of tied in). I also know the youngest (currently) air eng - and yes he will reach 55 way before the awacs is due out of service. None of the AC planned exit dates slip to the right ever do they....! :oh:
I'm sure that the 'system' will fudge the issue and come up with a way around this - techie to air eng via a double ocu anyone (and if they're good enough to hack it - good luck to them)
To all those in the sand pit - Keep Safe
(14 Greens - I hope my chariot is ok for next week):O

M2MOB

Of course another (temporary) option to fill gaps between the last Air Eng retiring and the last aircraft requiring an Air Eng retiring is to place pilots in the role.

I know, I know, people will kick and scream, but the reality is that pilots are capable of the job. Im not talking about training pilots specifically for the role, just using them as a stop gap.

It worked well for the airlines for many years, with pilots often starting out their career in the third seat before upgrading to the right hand seat.

Seem to remember training an experienced pilot to sit in the middle seat at Lyneham about the same time we were trying to get GE's and Aussie Caribou loadies to do it. Don't remember him lasting very long.
Hope the old and bold have a good price in mind........

Juilet, where do you think we would find these extra pilots? The tri-motor is short of the 2 wing master race at the moment and not many pilots are staying past age 38.
(14 greens is probably crying into his 4x, he's gone to Aus to watch the rugby league world cup!)

Think you'll find that with the introduction of these new-fangled imprests, there is now no kitty - hence no need for the engineer. It was never about flying the plane!!

:}

Throttle pusher,

The fact is the remaining Air Eng lot are getting old and new ones are not being trained.

As I see it there are a few options.

Extend the current Air Engs', assuming they want to.
Train new Air Engs', but what will they do after the retirement of the aircraft? Train techies for the role, but again what is their role after the job goes?
Convert Loadies/GEs/WSOP?
Convert pilots?

In terms of training risk and stress the best option is probably to extend the current crop, assuming they can/will. Failing this it would be to put current pilots into the seat. All the other options, and there will be different options to those I have come up with, incur more of a training burden and risk. They also present a problem in the future in terms of what to do with trained Air Engs'. In the long term the conversion of a Loady to Air Eng and then a reconversion back to Loady (they are going to have to do some sort of OCU) just puts more stress on the training system.

Pilots are in short supply, no doubt about that, but so are many other trades. In some cases though the shortages are on aircraft that have no need for an Air Eng. Some aircraft that do require an Air Eng have potentially some spare pilots due to the ability to provide only a limited number of that type. This is not always the case, but the reality is that some of our types are just not as serviceable as others, and yet have the same or similar manning.

As I said originally, putting pilots in the third seat is not ideal, but in terms of a short term option that can be managed internally by the squadrons I think it is worth looking at.

Fill the empty Eng seats with civil serpents, especially the bean counting variety, maybe then and only then will the forces get more funding for the shortfalls they have.

Civil Licenced Aircraft Engineer to Flight Eng is a couple of weeks course......

Does the VC 10 Still carry a Navigator in the Cockpit to counter ballast the Air Loadmaster down the back? :}

certainly crying in to my beer, england have been rubbish!!!
Watched a good Irish win tho
did bump in to a nice chap in RAAF uniform gave me a good contact number in Canberra for lateral recruitment info tho!!!!

As for the old and knackered going on to the Tri Motor think the next 2 boys coming thro the course will not be too happy with that comment, am sure pretty boy especially!!

Its mine. All mine !!
 

Im not old, and I'm certainly not bold. but 4 years ago or so I was told to "get rid" of all training notes and software.. I obeyed.. "I got rid" to my pc, and it remains stored on disc.

I've got a piece of paper( legally) that now says that I own these documents..and there was no objection from the Crown.

It wont take a rocket scientist to reproduce a lot of it. but it will take many thousands of man hours, and who can afford that these days.? Its interesting stuff if nothing else, but the short-sightedness of PMA astounds me.

Hi goneeast
 

I may know you - did you perhaps/maybe once mention to a driver airframe that you didn't need an aircrew knife - coz you could ring his neck with your bare hands?:O If it is you - long time no see and hope things are going well for you.
m2mob

Thats me!!

I was quite annoyed that he'd asked me where my knife was, I wasnt in Akrotiri and therefore didn't need to open any charlie bottles.

To my original post, I didnt mean that I own the material, just the discs it is stored on. I dont think you can own the Rolls-Royce Dart Fuel system. The material could be built again (as I said , many man - hours). Theres 24 weeks of lessons /exams there.
Just a shame noone officially thought it worth storing for future use, the attitude was "get rid of". There was years of effort in the lesson packs and Dominie school material. (Didnt keep AEPT stuff, as I didnt forsee anyone bussing students to Newark Air museum for a sortie).

The idea of training A.N Other trade popped up few year ago, when I was still in. The CAA would probably have an interest, as they did back then, as the guys need a formal course of some type. They are not terribly interested in WSop as they dont operate the aircraft as such (no offence, but its way authorities see it I think). Also, I have seen/taught the generic groundschool, and Air Eng standards it is not!! So there may be some work for someone in the future.

Excuse the ignorance of a non aircrew/techie interloper, but how difficult would it be to convert a GE to a temp AE?

Air Eng training
 

It's not as if this has come as a surprise to the RAF (well, maybe it has) but their airships were told on many occasions that Engineer training should not have been curtailed when it was.

All the course material is available (I put aside the AEPT stuff) but the main problem is implementing a course. The AEPT is now no more than a large amount of widely dispersed pieces, and the pool of experienced instructors is also widely dispersed.

To run the course the RAF would need to withdraw Eng's from the front line to be instructors which will only exacerbate the current manning problem. However, for a suitable fee (!), I'm sure I could get sufficient, instructor qualified, retired Engineers together to run a suitable course! It's all part of my retirement plan!

Sadly, I doubt the bean counters would put forward sufficient cash for my pet project so I suspect I may have to graft elsewhere for a little longer.