WTF are they up to this time. Zero to zero in a century. How embarrassing is this.

A bad situation getting increasingly worse...

As an aside, I have a cadet training book for the Vigilant 'borrowed' from 633 around 1998 if anyone wants a bit of nostalgia....

Confusing rules
 

I think AEF is suffering the same fate as ATC Gliding; in that the rules have escalated to the point that actual flying gets more difficult to achieve just because they have increased the 'operational' limits to operate.
We all know how the Gliding got 'paused' and how difficult it is to 'un pause it' due regulations, plus lack of suitably trained and current staff.
The AEF operation has been made even more 'complicated' by insisting on a cockpit warning system, plus has to operate under an Air Traffic service.
Neither of these is a substitute for the real basic airmanship operation of LOOKING OUT. Once you try to substitute a basic VFR rule with anything requiring 'equipment', and an Air Traffic service you merely add yet another level of conformity that has its own level of serviceability and operational limitations.
The AEF issue no doubt was influenced by the fatal accident some time back.
However this rather overlooked the fact that there was a human failing element that predominated over a system failure and rather like the Shoreham Airshow situation it is difficult to impose yet more rules that do not really rectify something that should be covered in NORMAL airmanship.
If you fly VFR YOU LOOK OUT and if you fail to do this then you are negligent. Relying on radio and 'warnings' is no substitute ever.

If this is FLARM any complications will be created by the AEF operation. These days there are hundreds of gliders with working FLARM many of which are flown by technical numpties who never the less manage to install a working FLARM which doesn't affect any of the other bits of gadgetry.

Requiring it and the ATS might have something to do with these:

https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/6-20...-february-2009
https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/5-20...t-14-june-2009

It can't be this, or anything else which has been known about / mulled over for sometime, because the grounding happened very quickly on Friday. It was 'announced' to all and sundry late in the afternoon by the fastest possible means.......Facebook!!! Meaning, there were cadets who went to bed all excited about flying the next day, only to be disappointed in the morning.

If it was the need for a cockpit warning system, you would think there would have been a release to staff first, followed by a grounding in the coming weeks. Then again.............you can't beat knee-jerk to disappoint kids!

Is it the AEF that has been paused or the Tutor grounded? As I'd swear I saw a Tutor take off today.

It’s mostly only weekend ops that are paused.

To be fair, it soon becomes clear to anyone who talks to her that what she doesn’t know about aviation can just about be fitted into the Grand Canyon. Probably couldn’t give a cogent explanation if she wanted to.

A quick glance at flight Radar 24 in the last few minutes reveals G-BYUM and G-CGKK and G-BYXM all Grob 115E's registered to Babcocks being flown in the Wittering area. So not much wrong with the aircraft it would seem.
Funding Perhaps ???

Yeah well the radar controllers only work mon - fri don't they (unless I've got out of date info) it's just weekends with no radar so they can't fly.
I think I read somewhere that radar services are 'contracted out' and the twit who assigned the contract didn't think they'd be needed at weekends 'cos it cost too much.

It has been proven numerous times that see and be seen has its limitations. It’s not as failsafe as you might think.

chevvron,

I think that you'll find that it's the other way round. Radar is performed by the RAF and the Tower is contracted out Babcock staff.

A lot of Tutors are nothing to do with the AEF's. University Air Squadrons, CFS, RAF Elementary, that is a lot of Tutors.

https://www.pprune.org/military-avia...or-9-ship.html

Some are free to practice 9 ships. Would prefer they flew students and cadets but no doubt some career hungry officer wanted to show off to the Magisterium in London.

Bitter? Mines a pint please!

See and be seen 'limitations'
 

Everything has 'limitations' but keeping a very good look out is a very good way of avoiding Air Traffic and 'systems' limitations, and is the only way when they both get overloaded.

You're probably right. I know it was some sort of cock up with the contracts though. Incidentally I think you'll find 'Babcock staff' = retired RAF personnel.
As for Tutors, I thought they were 'pooled' nowadays with AEFs and UASs being co-located thus each unit drawing from the same pool of aircraft.
Doesn't the EFTS still use Slingsby T67s or am I out of date with that too?

I guess those are the aircraft with long range tanks as that particular 9-ship took-off a little over three years ago. :)

Chevvron,

Actually, from the pr article I saw (I forget where) the Tower air traffikers all looked too young to be retired from anywhere. Most of them, certainly the female boss, transferred with the contract when the units moved to Wittering from Wyton.
I expect that all Tutor maintenance is centralised, which under current curcumstances will give more availability to instructor and elementary flying.
No Slingsby T67’s left anywhere in the RAF, they all went Tutor years ago. In fact the RAF Elementary squadrons are about to convert to the Prefect T1.

So, waffling apart, do we know why AEF flying has stopped, however temporarily

Not a lot of aviators amongst the hierarchy now either I gather.

Is it so that no Region Commanders have wings these days?? o tempora o mores .....

I know the poster said it was taking them a while to cross, but they can't still be at it four years later, shirley?! ;)

Dammit, Ninja'd by cows...

If no one's saying anything my vote is on someone screwing up paperwork/legals/contracts.

All i can say is i'm glad you're not my financial adviser.
All the non recovered airframes would of had some capital value no matter how many flooded the market at one time, there are plenty of eastern European gliding clubs would snap them up following the Blanik demise and shortage of affordable 2 seaters.
Say a mean price of G103 Acro is 24k for a well used one, flood the market with a disposal of assets and you'd get 16-17k all day long for each one..remember they've all got 9000+ hrs left in the world away from the VGS, thats 75% of usable life left
Spend the reputed 100-120k plus on each Membury recovered airframe and you'd only get 5-6k extra return on the gliders.

WOW, yes, you could probably sell them for those figures to that particular market but would any club in the UK or elsewhere in the world buy one knowing their history? - or lack of history as records have been disposed of - too much time and money to be invested (not £100K admittedly but still too much for the average club).

But, until they're actually sold off neither you or I won't know what the interest will be or what price they'll achieve because let's face it, the G103 isn't the most inspiring basic 2 seater to fly, central and eastern Europe prefer the Puchacz.

If you're thinking commercially of how much the taxpayer will get back in to the public purse in selling off the surplus, those to be sold off won't even cover the Gp. Capt.'s salary for the duration of the 'pause' or other expenses accrued by all concerned in pursuing an outcome.

As for financial advice, I've always provided my own thanks and it's served me pretty well - mortgage free by 40, retired at 50, (OK, I run a small business as a hobby, part of which is supplying essential equipment.........to keep the RAF flying), sh!tload of cash in the bank, let's say enough to put a cheeky bid in for the whole fleet of G103's if they became available.

North Denes airfield just north of Great Yarmouth is for sale if you need somewhere to put your spare money. Right next to the racecourse so a potential source of income there and there must be a market for a flying school or sightseeing trips in the area.

Chevvron - you know what they say - how do you end up a millionaire in aviation.......start with ten million.

I know North Denes, and I've thought of asking when it was operational whether I could take an aircraft in but as I recall there wasn't a chance.
As to opening it up again for fixed wing (it's about 500m of grass) I don't think you'd get agreement from the council especially as the 27 threshold is not far from a busy main road (and a few houses).

I'll have a look next time I'm in Great Yarmouth.....but not with a view to buying it.

Hi Chevron I am sure you are right, training units provided with radar services by contract do not usually produce radar services at weekends. However I am not convinced that UAS/AEF flying is mandated to be under any sort of radar service, though following the Tutor/Tutor and Tutor/Cirrus glider mid air collisions of Feb and June 2009 one of the recommendations was that a traffic service when available should be used. I am based in the Cranwell/Waddington area and is not unusual to see Grob 115's flying from Cranwell when Waddington and it's LARS are nomam'd as closed and Cranwell Radar not manned. Twas spookily quiet last weekend.

Am I missing something? What kind of radar surveillance is needed for a bunch of up round and down operations? Which ATC gliders wandered far enough away from mummy to be of any interest to anyone else? My airmaps clearly show gliding sites (a big double cross) and 'areas of intense gliding activity'. Why would anyone in the GA or RAF wander into these zones except in an emergency. Is there going to be any AEF activity at gliding sites now that all the aircraft are U/S?

Only twice in my career in gliding did we have any intrusions - at Meir a helicopter pilot who was lost and making a precautionary landing in fog - and the day at North Weald when a heavy mistook our field for Stansted (I think our runway might have been longer than theirs) and was down to 400 ft before he realised his mistake. What good was radar doing that day?

Sorry, missed the posting date. Pint of Mild and a slice of humble pie please!

I thought it was the AEF for which ATC (radar?) was deemed necessary. If so, I cannot say that I am surprised. When Old Sarum was an RAF Station with a large grass airfield with no marked out runways, we used to operate ATC gliding and light aircraft together quite happily. In fact, several of us did our PPL training when ATC gliding was taking place with no problems and no air traffic control.

Then, during an Easter course, in moves the AEF with their Chipmunks and and their own air traffic controller. Gliding had to stop whenever there was a Chipmunk movement within 5 miles. The gliding instructors and cadets were getting very frustrated as the launch rate was so poor that any serious training that week was looking impossible. The poor controller tried to be flexible and let one Chipmunk take off with a T31 well established on the winch launch. If the AEF pilot had done what most of us were trained to do, keeping straight until 400', I am sure that there would have been no problem. However, for some reason, the Chipmunk pilot carried out a hard left turn much lower than this and flew straight into the launch cable. Fortunately, the cadet in the back seat was completely unhurt. The glider was unaffected.

Depending on the airfield, all it needs is some local rules to which all parties sign.

It's possibly to do with the former VR(T) Officers that fly them now being renewed as Queens' Commission for Air Cadets - the new "plastic" commission. The problem is that G Reg aircraft flow by VR(T)'s who maybe did not hold a CAA Licence but were covered by a waiver allowing RAF Officers to fly them within RAF Rules/Pilot ratings etc.,. But new Commission is not regarded as an RAF Officer commission thus illegal for RAFAC Commission to fly the G Reg Babcock Tutors . There may be another reason, but this one the Commandant DOES know about as they've had a lot of issues created by this stupid plastic imitation commission including lots of resignations !Even she says, they wouldn't have started it if they had realised the problems it created . So who knows, maybe another own goal ???But she has got a CBE for her role in cocking up the flying side of AIR Cadets,- perhaps think of a new name for them instead so as to satisfy the Advertising Standards legal description etc ??

AEF pilots retain their VR(T) Commisions and did not transfer onto the new Cadet Forces Commission for the very reasons of accountability under the Armed Forces Act 2006.

Let's go back a few years when the RAF managed to kill some children in mid-air collisions. Any sensible person would look to manage that risk, regardless of whether little Jonny's mum signed a bit of paper that morning. Of course many of us are speculating about the latest grounding but it's not entirely unreasonable for someone to play the red card if they aren't convinced about the risk they are being asked to sign-off.

Regardless, this is an RAF issue and not their customer, HQ Air Cadets.

Quote......WOW, yes, you could probably sell them for those figures to that particular market but would any club in the UK or elsewhere in the world buy one knowing their history? - or lack of history as records have been disposed of - too much time and money to be invested (not £100K admittedly but still too much for the average club).

I can look at the F700 for any Viking I've flown and know to the minute the hours flown and the exact number of launches.

Quote.....But, until they're actually sold off neither you or I won't know what the interest will be or what price they'll achieve because let's face it, the G103 isn't the most inspiring basic 2 seater to fly, central and eastern Europe prefer the Puchacz

The only reason there's lots of Puchacz flying is cost constraints. Give them the option of a Acro over a Puchacz and it would be Acro every time

WOW - I'm not disputing that total hours/launches may be known but the fact remains, and it is a fact acknowledged by 2FTS/MoD, that these aircraft have an incomplete maintenance history.
There are currently two threads running on PPRUNE concerning RAF aircraft where maintenance practices, diversifying from the manufacturers procedures, have resulted in significant instances - one a 3+ year 'pause' in air cadet gliding, the other an ejection seat malfunction.

And with that, up to the point that they're inspected, repaired where required due to undocumented, unapproved repairs and modifications, their value remains questionable.

Regarding G103 (in all its incarnations) v Puchacz - in the context of Air Cadet training, the Puchacz is unsuitable, it's not as robust as the Grob, it doesn't have the winch speed latitude and it has its stall/spin characteristic.
But, in my opinion, the Puchacz handles far better, is much nicer to fly, has better airbrakes and is a much better stall/spin trainer, the G103 feels leaden by comparison, especially trying to aerobat it.

K21 would have been the best choice for Air Cadet gliding but as has already been said, it was never going to be.

[QUOTE=Olympia 463;10030370]Am I missing something? What kind of radar surveillance is needed for a bunch of up round and down operations? Which ATC gliders wandered far enough away from mummy to be of any interest to anyone else? ....... Yep looks like you did, the thread has moved on to speculation regarding the sudden stopping of AEF flying in Grob 115 Tutors announced late last Friday 19 Jan 2018 They do not require a radar service either though the receipt of one is recommended. I have occasionally encountered and joined ATC gliders in thermal and wave many tens of miles from the nearest ATC launch site. Mummy was nowhere to be seen.

Back in 1969 I spent a couple of days in the area and North Denes was very busy with fixed wing traffic. I was at the stock car stadium and the 'short' north-south runway running right alongside it was in use with C150s.
I think the reason it's been rotary only for the last coupe of resurrections is because the airfield was operated unlicensed by the helicopter operators but with licensed ATC and still had iaps for the helicopters.
I know of a chap with a PC12 who asked about 8 years ago if he could go in there in spite of the short main runway; naturally he was refused.
You could still operate aero tows, SLMG/TMG and microlights there even with the short main runway though.
Wikipedia gives the runway lengths as 09/27 480m and 18/36 360m. For comparison, Netherthorpe is licensed 06/24 553m and 18/36 382m so not a lot of difference.

chevvron,
I'm fairly familiar with Netherthorpe and at least North Denes is flat (Netherthorpe's 'arrestor' system, aka the hedge, has been put to good use several times).

I guess anyone on here would hope that North Denes will remain an airfield but that'll be for the new owner and the council to decide.
I think it's up for about £2M so it would take a shrewd investor to make it pay, some good facilities there though for aviation or other businesses (but then there's lots of unoccupied (and new) industrial space on Great Yarmouth's industrial estates).

Would there be enough custom for a flying school?

Back to Air Cadet gliding and at the current rate of recovery it'll be at least another two years before all 60 Vikings are available, there's time for a couple of defence reviews along the way.

But without the rest of the paperwork being correct & up-to-date the number of hours & launches is pretty useless. And given the problems with the rest of the paperwork, I find myself wondering how reliable the F700 is?

cats - Indeed, these aircraft's recent maintenance programme and history has been akin to that of a back street garage.......but without the history, because that's acknowledged (by 2FTS) as destroyed - who let the contractor destroy essential paperwork? going back to market value, without that provenance the asset value is markedly reduced.

Good stuff about aircraft paperwork, but we must always remember that to be able to conduct and verify maintenance and servicing the aircraft must first be declared airworthy, as that is what facilitates serviceability.

It was not a case of simply sending the gliders to whatever repair shop. First, the airworthiness baseline had to be stabilised. To MoD/MAA, that is a major task, especially when there is no Safety Case and at the same time trying to hide the fact the failings apply pan-MoD - a political consideration post-Haddon-Cave. That would have slowed process. I cannot speak for the quality or performance at the various contractors, but their task is relatively insignificant.