Post 3980 -David Thompson refers


Well yes 4 Cadets have gone solo before Christmas, but i'll let you into a secret, the Cadets won't be going solo after Christmas ! As the 1 Vigilant there cannot leave the circuit, they can't do Ex 10 Stalling, thus they cannot go solo QED !!! I'm sure that the hierarchy will not be promulgating that good news !

Enigma - care to expand on that gem.....

I was hoping these were Viking solo pilots. :(

And there has been a fatal accident in the past where someone walking on an airfield was killed when struck by the wing of a landing glider. :(

Good grief where is the FLARM mounted that it overheats? The Grob 109 where I fly has no such problem with it's FLARM, neither do all the gliders that have them on above the panel directly under the glasshouse of the canopy. I'm wondering what else might be overheating as well.

If the paperwork was incorrect then the airframe can't be proved airworthy so by definition isn't - for example have all the ADs been complied with? I'm guessing that since the Vikings are not on the G Register they have far, far too much paperwork.

Would have thought that if an Airbus A380 can be on the G register (BA has 12 on it, G-XLEA to G-XLEL) it should adequate for a simple glider, even if it is owned by the ATC.

Security fences KENLEY
 

Another storm in a tea cup.
The RAF do not control Kenley (it is part of a City of London Common).
The usable common used to stop at the airfield boundary (outside of the peri track). As Frelon knows the boundary was a simple (intact) low post and wire fence. Someone at the City of London Commons dept decided to move the boundary to allow pedestrians around the outer half of the peri track and thereby creating an ongoing potential 'situation'. In practice casual walkers are easily spotted and can also be intercepted by one of the several trucks that are in general use (as was before the great pause).Also the 'main' usable part of the airfield is away from the edges therefore a walker has to 'stray' some way before becoming a problem. Had we still got the original pillboxes on site the ATC could have utilised a Cadet with his RAF Marksman badge to neutralise any intruder and also add another level of skill to that badge. This situation should never have been allowed to happen as the RAF have an ongoing lease. The C o L could have marked out a path well away from the p-track and thereby not created a situation that is now going to be difficult to control especially as there has been a lack of operations due to the pause. Some other nerd decided to 'landscape' the original e-pens including the famous one near Hayes Lane showing the Spitfire being straffed on the 18th Aug raid. Having ruined a complete and original wartime location they then later 'listed' what was left (you could not write the script).

Does anyone know when the numerous VGSs that are closing are actually due to disband?

I thought they all disbanded last year rather than being 'due to disband', otherwise why was I invited to the disbandment dinner for 613 VGS Halton?

A and C,

My "you couldn't script it" merely refers to the fact that we, the taxpayers, are shelling out over £100k per glider to get them back into service. They didn't cost anywhere near that when purchased new!

If that is not a complete nonsense, then I don't know what is.

However, as is always the case in the public sector, no-one is ever held accountable and it is the innocent that suffer: in this case the cadets.

Nonsense it may be, but a replacement fleet would cost double that per unit. Rock and a hard place.

The 'soft place' of putting them on the G-register would no doubt have seen all the fleet back in the air by now, but naturally it needs to be ensured that the TEMPEST clearance of the gliders is still valid, so we are where we are...

Like it or loathe it, in the same timeframe on the recovery, the scores stand at:

Serco - 1
Marshall's - DNF
Babcock/Southern Sailplanes - 25

Thread Title?
 

Is it time the thread title was changed to

Air Cadets Mostly Grounded?

Somewhat disappointed by the news above but not surprised by the incompetence and waste surrounding this issue.

Perhaps I could offer a bit of perspective here, that might help us get our heads around just how bad this scandal has been.

When the fleet was grounded in 2014, it comprised 146 aircraft. Now, after the 'new plan', and spending lots of tax payers money, the target is to get 73 Vikings and 'up to' 15 Vigilants back in use. That's 88 aircraft, so 40% of the fleet has gone. And once the 15 Vigilants go in a couple of years, we're left with exactly half of the original fleet (73 out of 146).

I've been firing in a series of FoI requests to get a better handle on just how we got here, but the basics remain:

The RAF has been flying school children in non-airworthy aircraft, possibly for many years.
They only found out in 2013 when the MAA audit prompted their engineers to do no more than they should have been doing for 20 years. Maintaining aircraft in an airworthy condition. (And don't make the mistake of trying to blame the contractors - if you contract out a service, you don't contract out your responsibility for making sure they're doing he job properly. The RAF didn't do that. They've already admitted that one).
OC 2FTS then spent the first 18 months pursuing a completely unachievable series of plans, each of which fell over as soon they were published. He clearly had absolutely NO idea how bad the state of his aircraft was. Which means his engineers didn't.
Eventually, CAS had to step in in late 2015 and tell him what was going to happen, which didn't include fixing all the aircraft.
Half of the fleet has effectively had to be scrapped or given away free

So, full replacement of the fleet was never really on the cards. This has effectively been a case of 'the glider fleet is completely f****d, what can be salvaged from the wreckage?'. Now we know. Just half the aircraft, at a cost of (warning - big guess here) - at least an extra £7m.

How bad do things have to get before people are held to account?

Best Regards as ever to those trying to fly cadets under what have to be extremely trying circumstances,

Engines

Engines - the scandal reiterated
 

:ugh:Well said that man. Why is it that the cover up has been so well executed ?

Practice, dear boy. Plenty of practice

I'm interested - where does the figure of £100,000 per aircraft come from (and where is the money going ?).

Regarding the misinformation a little way back by 1.3VS, a photo was posted on Facebook by a glider pilot this week of Membury Airfield,
http://i63.tinypic.com/2cro715.jpg
and my guess is that the grey areas each side of runway 13/31 (the solar farm) provide a more accurate answer as to how the investment in the airfield is funded.

I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous post!

The figure I've seen is £100k per glider, which is comparable to a new K21 once instruments etc. are added. However if you want 60 K21s (or just about any other type of glide) it will take time - lots of it. And if you want mods forget it, Schleicher almost certainly won't do that.

Putting them on the G-reg probably wouldn't have made much difference, as I understand it paperwork is either missing or in a total guddle and it would have to be right for the G-reg as well, though quite possibly there would be less of it. However each glider would have to be minutely inspected, all ADs correct & present and all undocumented repairs re-repaired.

TEMPEST?

Now only 60 Vikings to be recovered as part of the new 'Air Cadet Aerospace Offer'.

Post 4000
 

So after almost 4 years, 200 pages, literally 4000 posts we have a grand total of what 12 aircraft back?

From the world's oldest Airforce comes the longest grounding.

Not something to be proud of.

...of the least complex aircraft in their inventory.