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MoD wants to lease more C-130J's
By Douglas Barrie
LONDON – Britain is considering leasing up to five additional Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules to help plug the capability gap left by continuing problems with the European Airbus Military A400M. The United Kingdom is interested in taking more C-130Js by 2012, which likely means it will need to conclude an agreement this year if the in-service date target is to be met. The Royal Air Force (RAF) earlier ordered 25 C-130Js, with deliveries beginning in 1999. All but a handful of the RAF’s aging C-130Ks are due to be retired by 2012. Alongside a C-130J lease, the ministry is further considering adding to its six-aircraft fleet of Boeing C-17s to provide additional airlift. RAF airlift is under strain due to having to sustain the air bridge between Britain and Afghanistan in support of the 8,000 military personnel deployed to combat operations there. Delays in the A400M program are only exacerbating the issue. Senior British Defense Ministry officials are believed to have met March 4 to examine proposals for the ministry’s next round of funding, known as Planning Round 09. The need for additional airlift may have been one of the considerations addressed during the meeting. The British debate comes as the French government also is looking at gapfiller options to avoid a tactical airlift shortage resulting from delays with A400M (Aerospace DAILY, March 4). ------------------- Isn't this lease to basically plug the gap of attrition from the airframes lost which have never been replaced? |
Lease! Words fail me, you think these idiots would have learnt from the C17 lease, it would have been far cheaper to buy in the first place rather than lease.
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You bet me to it, Rigger :ugh:
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Just buy 5 more C130Js, fully specced from LM, to replace the SFC130Ks.
This will allow the remaining C130Js to be left in the general AT pool. Leasing - what a waste of money. Buy them NOW - A400M is all but dead in the water. |
Leasing extra -130Js comes straight from the same mealy-mouthed politcos handbook as the original C17 lease. In effect, Airbus will have lobbied influential European politicians, who in turn lobby our Govt, to make it clear that the "lease" does not impact committment to A400 (as if a major buyer pulls out it could pressage a stampede...); hence we only need to borrow a gap filler, not replace a capability. In addition, the lease has a convenient effect on the Finances. Leased aircraft do not attract cost to capital charges, and the lease rate per annum will be more acceptable than the capital cost of purchase, particularly as the budget is broken over the next 5+ years. So, in politician world, they can brag about increasing AT lift in Theatre, keep within the Defence Budget provision and keep Europhiles and Airbus happy. Oh, and wait to expose the REAL cost of doing this (a la C17) after the next election....
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So, how exactly are they going to build spare capacity wrt sims for the extra crews that 5 jets will require, or will the current crews be expected to man up and once again, do more with less?
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If this actually comes to fruition then hoorah. Leasing might not be the best deal in terms of value for money but a) I don't care - we need the aircraft and this is the only can get them then do it, and b) if we do this the way the we did the C17 then we these things could be on the line in no time at all. Buying the aircraft just sends all the wrong messages to all the europhiles in govt - this is probably the only way we're going to get anything so crack on.
They'd be US spec and as such would be operated as a mini-fleet with, I suspect, crews only being qualified on one software level/aircraft. VR - we've got people coming out of ears, it's aircraft we don't have. WRT to sims I suspect that there would be a requirement to use sims that were running the same level of software although to be honest for run-of-the-mill stuff you'd be able to use the existing sims. The slightly more esoteric stuff would probably require use of foreign sims. No big deal really. Just needs a bit of lateral thought. |
Well, if we do go down the lease route, I hope for the crews sake they sort out some form of decent spares contract for them a la the Boeing contract.
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They'd be US spec and as such would be operated as a mini-fleet with, I suspect, crews only being qualified on one software level/aircraft. I know of a good use for a 'mini-fleet' for a couple of years which would release 5 'standard' C130Js back to the airframe pool. Maybe even allow us to modify our own frames with a slighly reduced timescale. Say 12 crews to operate 5 mini-fleet frames? I wonder where we could get numbers like that in a hurry? God knows - we could do with 5 more airframes in whatever shape or size at the moment! |
VR - you strike me as a glass half empty kinda chap :}
Truckkie - I can't imagine who you're referring to.... :) These things coming (if this were to ever come about) as standard US spec would save us enormous amount of faffing about - external tanks, comms, fast ramp, decent freight bay, higher spec software standard etc etc. Marvellous :) |
But would they meet TES and MAR?
And of course other assorted bullsh1t spouted by those individuals the decision doesn't favour - career wise. ;) |
Getting a bit rusty but I picked up on the comment about 5 aircraft with standard USAF floors.
I was under the impression that the J models for the RAF had the standard floor and that you were using the B & P standard air delivery system. Regards Col |
Trukkie
With 12 crews and 5 aircraft you are not planing on working the aircraft very hard!
Most airlines work with 6 or 7 crews per aircraft and have the things in the air for about 19 hours a day. I don't know much about the way the military use the aircraft but in the transport role the aircraft utilisation seems very low by airline standards. |
A & C
That's because the C130 is a tactical transport aircraft, not a tin tube full of full of the beshellsuited masses... When deployed (ie. all the time) we generally work on a ratio of 1 crew per aircraft.
I don't know much about the way the military use the aircraft |
Herkman,
brit floor is 'E' model standard. No underfloor winch, no ECHS, no intergrated CVR etc, etc. Our finest military brains were involved with procuring the J hence no external tanks either...genius!! :ugh: Oh, and -4A was only an afterthought, we very nearly ended up with skydel. GM |
Stoppers,
Maybe you should have also included that in theatre it's one crew per aircraft with the crew generally working 14 hrs on and 10 hrs off for up to 10 days in a row, see how that fits with his civilian model. |
Stopstart
If you are going to quote me please use the full paragraph and not just the bits to try to make yourself look clever.
It is clear that by civil standards the aircraft are under used, perhaps you should start to ask why when deployed on tactical tasks you only have one crew. It would seem to me that a valuble asset is sitting on the ground waiting for the crew to rest, brief and plan when if more crews are made avalable the aircraft could be working. I think it is time for the RAF to have a hard look at the way it conducts business and suspect that the one crew per aircraft attitude started when the air force had a lot of aircraft, now it is due to the critical overstreach in manpower that I see when ever I talk to guys I know in the RAF. |
It is clear that by civil standards the aircraft are under used, perhaps you should start to ask why when deployed on tactical tasks you only have one crew. It would seem to me that a valuble asset is sitting on the ground waiting for the crew to rest, brief and plan when if more crews are made avalable the aircraft could be working. While the crew is 'resting' all this is carried out by only a few engineers who also have maybe 3 or 4 other frames to look after. Unfortunately we don't have the luxury of pitching up an hour before to a fully prepped aircraft, with all our planning done by a despatch system, with only a black leather flight bag, to monitor the autopilot for 10 hours before relaxing in a hotel for 3 days. One crew, one airframe works well for tactical ops as a lot of the time the crew have to live in the back of the aircraft! 5 airframes would allow 4 to be used, with an in-theatre spare, or to allow one to be in deep servicing. We have a better crew to airframe ratio for strategic ops - believe me our AT fleet is not sat around idle. 5 more C130Js would certainly help with both hub and spoke strat lift and relieve the pressure on the in-theatre tac airlift fleet. |
He does have a point though. Why work ourselves into an accident due to crap crew duty regs in theatre (not including rocket alarms, mid crew rest call outs, crap air con, noisy buggers in the corridor etc) when we COULD deploy more crews and have more crews at home if we had the facilities and manning to do it. IMHO, the J fleet is drastically undermanned when you bear in mind the Operational workload we are doing.
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Post #16
Which Herc do you think we are talking about? Seems like you have got a mixture of "E", "H" & "K"!!!! |
Re my previous post, I thought I was right about the floor, but was not sure.
It should be understood, and I would be surprised if at least Marshalls did not know, that all J models come from the factory plumbed for externals. Aircraft can be fitted with externals, I believe it takes about two days. The source of all bits could be taken off the K models as they go out of service. Neither stretched J models of the RAF and RAAF have the flip over rollers (what a shame, because the RAF and RAAF were not prepared to finance the plug in extensions. Now of course that I believe it was developed for the USA stretched air planes the retrofit is so expensive. Would have thought that both air forces having C17 experience would see the folly of cost cutting. Anyone who has flown with the B& P sytem knows the restictions that places on you if you have to floor load. I think you would be wise to buy more C130's even if it only gives you better use of the fleet by spreading the hours around. Does anyone know when the first mainplane changeover is going to be made. Hope you do not make the mistake of letting the K's go with the external fitted, like you did with the first batch that were traded to Lockheed. Nose wheel centered, parking brake set, exit clearance and watch the props. Col |
Didn't we sell off a load of our C-130s a few years back? They are still in service in Mexico, Sri Lanka and Austria.
I hope we got a good price for them! |
A&C, not "trying to make myself look clever" merely trying to save the internet some space. However if do you want me to quote your entire post and then state that you clearly don't understand how we do business then fine.
It is clear that by civil standards the aircraft are under used, perhaps you should start to ask why when deployed on tactical tasks you only have one crew I think it is time for the RAF to have a hard look at the way it conducts business and suspect that the one crew per aircraft attitude started when the air force had a lot of aircraft, now it is due to the critical overstreach in manpower that I see when ever I talk to guys I know in the RAF. Basically (good basically) you're entitled to your opinions and as a civilian airline pilot they're probably fairly well educated opinions but don't be fooled into thinking that your procedures/rules etc have read-across or relevance to what we do on ops. herkman It should be understood, and I would be surprised if at least Marshalls did not know, that all J models come from the factory plumbed for externals. Ideally, we'd buy some of the US Js and they'd come with all the good stuff already fitted - we only really need external tanks on a few aircraft. HQ2 Didn't we sell off a load of our C-130s a few years back? |
Whilst the externals from a C-130K could be fitted to the -J, LM will not underwrite that changeover, so externals for the C-130J will be new ones.
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Civilian Practices
I remember hearing a story that when the FSTA project was in it's infancy, a civilian aviation consultancy was hired to explore the concept of leasing aircraft to replace the VC10 and TriStar. They examined the flying programme and pronounced that they could redesign it such that the MoD would need 1.8 aircraft. Of course they had not factored in all the concurrent tasking and had not appreciated that some aircraft and crews are still doing their job when they are not flying, by holding a readiness state.
SS is quite rightly points out that the C-130 is a world away from airline operations, but it is also worth bearing in mind that the much-maligned shiny/Strat AT fleet consists of only 3 aircraft. The rest are also tankers, a role that also has unique facets, with no civilian equivalent. I hope you get your extra frames, they are going to be needed as A400M tries to shed it's excess 12 tonnes. |
Well your statement about externals and lockgreed is undoubtably correct.
But the US forces have just done upgrade and they did it within their own structure. About time this new breed of aces at LM, learnt who is the customer is and people getting ripped off by their excessive costs need to take a long hard look at what they are doing. It is the RAF who did the in flight refueling from bits which I believe came off the Vulcan, and did it all in 6 weeks. Tanks, come the need for wartime for operation could be on in days. The RAAF has tanks in reserve for just this need and they are the same tanks. Regards Col |
What we actually need is 5/6 C130J (Mk4s) fully equipped with externals, decent floor and winch, RWR, etc, etc.
This 'mini-fleet' could be put to very good use releasing 5/6 'standard' C130Js back to the strat/tac AT pool. The C130Ks are sha**ed - and yes we did sell a load off as part of the C130J buyback scheme. Each one went with external tanks and cupola! - most of them were Mk1s as well - the platform that has suffered the worst combat attrition. However, if we don't decide to buy them now it will almost be too late - we need to plan for the next conflict/operation. |
Hows this for cost saving
Buy your 5 J's Replace the floors with the current k floor from the aircraft you are scrapping,instant fully interegrated Airdrop platform at a fraction of the money that is being wasted on developing new airdrop platforms and systems for the current J. how radical.
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Rip out the enhanced cargo system, the flip floor and the built in winch and replace it with parquet flooring...Genius. And while we're at it we could rip out that annoying glass cockpit and get rid of those tedious high performance engines too.... :hmm:
To be honest, I wouldn't put that sort of idiocy beyond UK Plc. Intead of such nonsense, how's about we just use the US systems? Or just integrate our current/development systems with the new, clever cargo system? Given that it's the serviceability of the dash 4 that's causing most of the problems I can't see my suggestion taking much longer to integrate.... |
how very droll
isnt it wonderfull how a T**T like stop start bleats on about engines and glass cock pits. dont believe i mentioned anything about that , just a sensible cheap and effective way to get 5 fully spamed up aircraft out in to theatre as quick and effectively as possible to cope with the demands of certain ops
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Bleats? Bless you for your kind words. Clearly irony passes you by :hmm:
I'll elucidate for you. Ripping out a flip floor ECHS back-end to fit a K floor would be the equivalent of pulling the engines off a J and fitting K ones in their place. Nigh on impossible, a backward step and, of course, pointless. just a sensible cheap and effective way |
K floor on a J, awesome idea.
Where do these clowns come from? |
"Location: lyneham, wilts, Uk" ....which makes it even more distressing...
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Distressing? I actually just had a good laugh at that. Remember to laugh Stoppers! Dont become one of those serious South Siders!
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Dont become one of those serious South Siders! A lot of us have done 'north-side' - well before the J arrived!!!! We're all one big happy family south-side:ok: I think we all agree we need more, fully-equipped platforms and quickly - before we sh*g another fleet through excess fatigue! |
Hows this for cost saving Buy your 5 J's Replace the floors with the current k floor from the aircraft you are scrapping,instant fully interegrated Airdrop platform at a fraction of the money that is being wasted on developing new airdrop platforms and systems for the current J. how radical. Mac |
All,
Don't start the North/South willy-waving contest again........pleeeeease!:eek::eek: Anyway, been on both sides of 'the bund' and the view from either side is great and everyone (apart from Juliet, apparently) takes their role very seriously and (dare I say it) professionally - shock horror!!? CDS - As others have pointed out, a J with a K floor is a non-starter - period! SS was quite right to compare such folly with the retrograde step of replacing FADECs with 'Mrs Shilling's Orifices' - even if he was a bit harsh - perhaps you didn't appreciate the complexity/impossibility of changing the floor! Either way, please lighten up both. J - Get 'serious'! SS - As you know, I've seen both sides of the aviation spectrum and I think that Vin Rouge may have a valid point that manning/crewing levels are not doing you the best of favours and only predisposing crews and ground-staff to fatigue induced error/strain. Please let me know if I'm out of date but history, even if recent, is a good teacher. In 2002-4, remember how hard everyone was working on the J in OIF - but you had 4 ac sitting on the pan at LYE with no engines! How hard would everyone have been working with 4 extra ac to fly? Now, no-one expects a J, K or C17 to work 24/7 (except in a slip pattern - do you do those anymore?) but there is no reason why a well-serviced and maintained ac with the right number of spares and engineers in theatre should not be working 18-20 hours a day, even with re-roling and minor servicing (a contentious statement perhaps - so feel free to appraise me of the state of the AT fleets). But of course, most combat-threat flying is done at night which may reduce these hours a little!? Truckkie - I accept that if you have to 'live' on the ac it may it cloud things a bit in theatre - but its nothing that a few portacabins, DRASH or even some 12 x12s wouldn't fix - its been done before!? Unfortunately, I suspect all your problems will lie with Group/PMA manning levels rather than with the number of ac . In OEF and OIF (01-05), the Herc crewing levels had dropped significantly from that of the Cold War. In 01-02, trying to run an airbridge to AFG from a 'neighbouring country', we could barely keep 5 ac (out of 8) flying each night - with just 2 crews per ac in theatre (flying 17-21 hour 'days') and a full engineering det and a few AGEs. Back at LYE, the theoretical manning levels were about 3:1 but we never got our full quota of crews in theatre; for the simple fact that they weren't actually available - or were knackered/out of hours! That's why you need more crews. We were lucky that our loads only required 5 ac/night, plus a spare frame , with 2 ac constantly being worked on. To the detacthment's great credit, even then, we ran the movers out of loads to AFG! Instead, they found us some pilgrims to take to Mecca but that's another story! Okay, you won't need as many as 6 -7 crews per ac as VR suggests - perhaps 3 or 4:1 would be sufficient to allow for a short surge; bearing in mind, it feels like we have been 'surging' for almost 11 years - since Kosovo/Sierra Leone! However, the fact is that the 2 Gp/AC budgets have shrunk (aided and abetted by PMA) so as to keep the ac crewing levels way below acceptable levels - they are probably about 2:1 for a constantly falling number of ac, which is barely sufficient IMHO. OTOH, if crew numbers were to increase there would be a greater training and admin burden - at geat cost to AC/HMG, so I don't think this is a starter. However, should there be an accident where fatigue caused by insufficient manning is a major factor, then 'the MoD system' as a whole, could be at fault for not providing you guys with enough raw material (people) with which to do the job. Arguably, more ac would be better but the system would have to provide with more crews to go with them, so that's not going to happen either - its an 'angry oval' or 'vicious circle'; as you prefer! Just getting on with it, in old military fashion, is just not sufficient defence these days. Everyone needs sufficient rest - its a physical requirement - just like food and water (and even sex)!!! Anyone who thinks they can get operate efficiently and safely with insufficient rest for more than a couple of nights, is fooling themselves. Countless studies and anecdotal evidence have underline this but yet we all convince ourselves we are 'fine, thank you'. If you want to see what years of insufficient rest does to someone - see how Maggie Thatcher and even Tony Bliar look now! So, if you can't use the ac to their full potential with the number of crews that you have - don't try to get the proverbial quart out of a pint pot! Pressure your execs to point this out to Group/PMA and up the manning levels - which really would buck a trend. I will gladly eat my hat if you succeed!:ugh::ugh::ugh: flipster |
Spot on post Flip! :ok:
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It would also help if you had an AOC who knew a bit more than four and threequarters of f**k all about AT!
3P:ok: |
3putt
Ah......that old chestnut....t'was ever thus! flipster |
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