COJONES NEEDED FOR CAS
 

Apparently the CAS refuses to sign off authorisation for the VC10 destined for Cosford to land at Cosford.

Two points:

How come it now takes high priced help to authorise what used to be done at squadron level?

Can anybody find a spare pair of cojones to replace the ones that the CAS has obviously misplaced?

In this crazy PC world the CAS will be authorising the "guest list" at dining-in nights.

The days when commanders had delegations are over methinks much to the demise of leadership qualities..

Was any reason given ?

COJONES NEEDED FOR CAS
 

All joking aside and I am not taking the proverbial but can you really land a VC10 at Cosford? It was bad enough landing a Jag there but I wouldn't fancy being onboard when someone tried it in an aircraft of that size.
Besides your average multi engine pilot doesn't land until he's wasted the first 2000'. That doesn't leave much runway at a place like that.
Despite the serious first question I couldn't resist the dig at the end. I'm sorry. I'll try harder to play nicer next time.
BV

A British Airways crew managed it quite easily when they took one of their VC10s there. That airframe was scrapped because it was taking up space and it was a civvy jet and there was no problem because Cosford would be getting one of the RAF ones once they became time-expired.

I guess that Wessex and Chinook pilots are excused élan, flair and a sense of adventure during training and any residual amounts are screened out once you are selected for higher things.

LMF at the top
 

BA landed a VC10 there some years ago. I understand the runway length is within the RAF VC10 capability.

Seems to me, that the RAF Hierarchy are covering their 6's a bit too much, typical of the worries of litigious society and micro management from above. This sort of decision wouldn't have got as far as the CAS in days gone by, it would have been dealt with at group level but maybe AOC group didn't wish to make the decision and passed it up the chain.

Its a shame that a stalwart of the RAF cannot be displayed at the RAF Museum because of someone who needs to grow a pair of Cojones.

A runway is a flat piece of tarmac 1186 metres long.

If the CAS has concerns, why doesn't he get the crew to
try landing it a couple of times where they are currently
within that distance to prove they can do it ?

Or are they only wanting to do one take off and landing ?

One landing only - it ain't going anywhere after that.

The trouble is it may already be too late. The airframe is probably at Bruntingthorpe now and being converted into razor blades.

Same thing happened with the R1 Grimrod a couple of years ago. It would have been no problem getting it in at Cosford but the powers that be decided it would have to go to Kemble, get taken to bits and then driven up to Cosford...

Maybe time for a new CAS.

The VC10 -XR808 or 'Bob' that was destined for Cosford, flies into Bruntingthorpe tomorrow (Monday 29 July).

I am afraid that this thread is too little, too late and given that the RAFM spent an awful lot of money bring ashore the DO17, it may be some time if at all that the Ten gets moved to Cosford.

I sincerely hope that the PSO is having a read of this so that first thing tomorrow he can knock on the door...

"ahem, boss, you probably need to have a look at a thread on PPRuNe. It's not good"

or maybe CAS himself is a secret lurker with a handle such as "SteelyChinookDriver" and contributes to threads about why knitting can be dangerous.

He's probably been reading the threads about airworthyness and realised that unless an independent MAA sign off on the airframe it's not going anywhere. Welcome to the future of the RAF.

And I'm not being snarky.

Alfred - as the first defender of CAS I hereby "out" you as the man himself :E

Well I remember them getting the Vulcan in there with no bother (apart from the fact they were alledegly told to "get a move on there's a train coming and we don't want you to hit it on the approach"

Mind you they ruined the show a bit by slipping off the taxiway.....

Of course I am, of course I am.

:ok:

I am so glad that the current managnent of the RAF were not in charge in 1940............... I would be writing this in German now if they had been.

Far too much CYA and not enough backbone to make a decision based on anything except zero risk to carreer.

There must be something pretty basic wrong for this to be elevated to CAS. Surely someone from Cosford could simply say what the given reason was?

He's also getting a pasting on the XR808 thread in the "Aviation History and nostalgia" section.

Has anyone bothered to show CAS the landing performance calculations?

Would he even understand them, given that the last aeroplane he flew was probably a Jet Provost 35 years ago?

Approach at VAT-5, land it on the right spot, full reverse and max braking, then shut down on the RW.

Not that much more difficult than landing on RW26 at St.Athan and stopping before the E turn off, which is about 1080m. Which even I could manage when delivering VC10K2s to Scrapheap Challenge.

When I was first at Brize 30 years ago, it was normal SOP to land with passengers in 1340m, to make the first turn off on RW26 - and that wasn't with particularly heavy braking.

I really hope that it isn't too late for this pretty simple task to be re-assessed...:sad:

The Germans are clearly made of stronger stuff than us - here is a clip of the last Interflug Illyushin 62 landing on 860m of grass: