Latest Faceache update from present CAC said that next Commandant has been decided, although name etc hasn't been released to the masses formally yet.

My 'mistreatment' occured on 17 May 1967. The only damage visible was a broken main skid so the Officer i/c (the late Chris Rollings who put up 'B' Cat wings whilst still a Cadet W/O) initially wanted to fly her out of the field where I put her, however getting a winch in there was going to be difficult so we pulled the fence of the field (which adjoined the airfield) out of the ground and towed her back to the hangar.
When MGSP inspected her however, they assessed her as Cat 5; normally a write off but as she was a presentation aircraft, she was sent back to Kirbymoorside to be rebuilt.
I next flew her again at Halton on 20 May 1968 almost exactly a year later and last flew her at White Waltham on 13 Jun 1976 where my logbook says we managed a trip of 32 min; not bad when Heathrow arrivals were passing overhead at 3,000ft amsl limiting the height you could climb to!
So as you say, after (effectively) two re-builds, she should be in good condition.

When the 'Flight' magazine archive was searchable I found this article about the presentation of 275 to the Cadets.
VX275 presentation.pdf
Arguably she's a T21 and not a Sedburgh not having been purchased by the Air Cadets.

Muppetofthenorth - I do hope your information is correct.

Great to see those Belgian kids having fun.

Lots of flying, lots of happy smiling faces !!, not huge amounts of expensive kit, just adequate, in the right amounts.

Well done Royal Belgian Air Cadets !!

Arc

So good I watched them twice !!

VX275, now there's a blast from the past, I last flew in her at 613 Halton on 7th Sept 69 whilst on a gliding scholarship, whilst I was a CCF cadet from Newbury. Stalling and Spinning with Mr Bird as the instructor. Those early days led to a 40 year air force career and 10500 hrs on Wessex, Hercules and VC10. Who would have thought that I would now all those years later be OC at my local ATC unit and hopefully when we are up and running again sending my young cadets gliding.

RAF Stafford , the RAF Museum Reserve Collection in June 2017 . Could this be Mrs Hepple ?
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5523882820.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fa9dbfbbe0.jpg

Apologies for the size of the images and if anyone would like copies please PM me .

Definitelly Mrs Heppell (corrected spelling)
The basic T21 fuselage appears to be the same design as that used on the T4 Falcon 111 of 1935, the original swept wing being replaced by an elegant straight wing which was an upscaled copy of the Grunau Baby wing.
According to Wiki, the sole prototype T21 first flew in 1944 but was rejected by the RAF and post war was sold to the London Gliding Club. They suggested various improvements resulting in the T21A which first flew in 1947. Only one of these was built but the RAF ordered an improved version for ATC Gliding Schools to be designated T21b Sedbergh TX1 having been originally given the Slingsby type number T28, the first T21b flying in Dec 1947.
226 T21bs were built for the UK civil and military market plus overseas sales so VX275 would have been a T21b from this production run.
In Oct 1966, I flew a T21 at Lasham which was named 'Daisy' (no BGA number as far as I'm aware) and which I was told at the time was the sole T21A, the only perceptible difference from the standard 'barge' being an elevator trimmer which I must admit, could have been fitted later.
It was 7 months later that my actions (trying to be 'clever') caused VX275 to be rebuilt by Slingsbys.

The one difference from the other Barges Mrs Heppell had was a shorter mainwheel box. You only noticed this when lifting the tail to stop the tailskid wearing out when crossing tarmac, you couldn't lift 275's tail as high as the others without the nose skid grounding. That and the fact that she had a presentation plaque on the cockpit bulkhead.

Had a stencil either side of the nose in the days I flew her.
I managed to rip the mainskid off (ground looped) so the bit above about the mainwheel explains that because I certainly didn't try to ground the mainskid for braking.

63 ex Air Cadet Vigilants have been purchased by Aerobility using a grant from the DfT and will be re-engined with Rotax engines and Garmin avionics in order to achieve CAA airworthiness requirements.

What about all those 'non airworthy' airframe repairs?

https://ukga.com/news/view?contentId=48392

Fear not all can be fixed to the satisfaction of the CAA and the aircraft sold on with a warranty.

Sooooo why did the MoD not do that for the ACO several years ago then?

I guess that will forever remain one of the great mysteries of aviation...

They couldn't find anyone at MOD with the 'guts' to sign it off; all too close to their pension and automatic promotion.

Guys,

The reasons for this sad and wholly avoidable episode aren't a 'mystery'. The way to fix this didn't require 'guts', and it didn't need anyone to 'sign it off'. Perhaps I can help explain.

In 2014, the RAF found itself unable to establish whether its Viking and Vigilant fleets were airworthy. They found out because they badly failed at the first hurdle of becoming certified as a 'Continuous Airworthiness Management Organisation' (CAMO) - this new system had been introduced by the MAA some time before. 2FTS were unable to get that certification, as they lacked almost all of the required capabilities, systems and people to do the job. Meanwhile, the Engineering Authority found that it couldn't present a sufficient case for 'Type Airworthiness'. To repeat a point I've made before, the reason that these organisations were unable to do this weren't the 'new' MAA rules (As Tuc and I have often pointed out, the vast majority of the MAA's regulations are clearly derived from previous airworthiness regs.) The reason was a long running failure across all levels and departments to carry out the basic tasks of managing a fleet of military aircraft. These failures happened at all stages, starting with rushed procurement to spend 'in year funds', and continued through into service with a failure to maintain the fleet, including inadequate inspections and surveys of what was going on. It's certainly not a mystery.

In my view, what was even more remarkable was that when the whole thing came to a juddering halt in early 2014, 2FTS had absolutely no idea how serious the situation was and then spent 18 months failing to get a grip of it. To my mind this indicates a systemic lack of understanding of basic airworthiness management at the higher levels of the RAF. Subsequently, wholly misleading press releases and Ministerial statements were made in an effort to hide the seriousness of the situation. Given all this, 'signing off' the fleets wouldn't have required 'guts' - it would have required a moron.

It's been a true scandal, and reflects badly on those who led the various engineering and technical organisations that utterly failed to do a their jobs, which in turn led to children being put at risk in RAF aircraft. One has to hope that lessons have, this time, been actually learned.

Best regards as ever to all those good engineers who have stepped forward since then and done their level best to salvage what they could out of this mess,

Engines

Thanks Engines, you paint a sombre and unedifying picture of a dysfunctional system that couldn't organise the proverbial piss-up if it wanted to. What I would plead for is that every one who reads your posts realises that the scandal that is ACO gliders is but one tree in a Service wide forest of dysfunction. The same incompetence and negligence exposed here extends throughout UK Military Aviation. The results have been explored in the far too many fatal accident threads that besmirch this Forum. Sadly there will be more. What is the point of experienced and highly qualified members like yourself and tuc dissecting the likes of Mull, Nimrod, Hercules, Sea King, Tornado, and Red Arrows fatal accidents to reveal the common denominator as here, ie loss/lack of airworthiness, if no meaningful reform is enacted?

Even if the MAA could have presided over a return to airworthiness of the Vigilants as the CAA has done (and I personally doubt that it could), it would not wish to do so. Any undue attention drawn to military unairworthiness invites questions as to why it is so prevalent. That in turn draws renewed focus back onto Haddon-Cave's so called Golden Period of UK Military Airworthiness, which of course was anything but. The reason these simple aircraft, and far more complex ones, became unairworthy harks beck to that era of deliberate and malevolent attacks by RAF VSOs on UK Military Air Safety. They merely wanted access to the ring fenced monies that funded the continuous process that is airworthiness, but in accessing the former (to cover VSO incompetence) they destroyed the latter. Rebuilding the structure to start down the necessary path of reform requires a fundamental change for the MAA and the MAAIB (or whatever the latest sign writer's efforts might now read). They both need to be made independent of the MOD and of each other. Until then the lie that Haddon-Cave bequeathed us, and the MAA views as sacred text, still stands. Unairworthiness will go on infecting the military air fleets and avoidable deaths will simply continue.

Self Regulation Doesn't Work and in Aviation It Kills!

I'm surprised that this latest news hasn't drawn more comment. If I could just add to the excellent posts of Engines and Chug.

At the time the systemic failures came to a head;

1. Gliders and Hawks shared the same Type Airworthiness Authority.
2. Neither had a valid Safety Case.
3. Hawk XX177 (Flt Lt Sean Cunningham) and Glider grounding would both have been avoided by implementing the mandated (in all aviation contracts) Defence Standard 05-125/2, and its accompanying Specifications 1-20.

If you want to go back further, the same applies to Tornado ZG710, Nimrod XV230 and many more.

There's a lesson there but MoD doesn't want to see it, its reaction being to cancel the Def Stan without replacement. The result was that Gliders had no appointed Design Authority. This news release tells us that under the new arrangement, Grob is once again the appointed DA to the new owners, and lo and behold it will take a year to resurrect the build standard, allowing the aircraft to be recertified, made serviceable and even upgraded. As stated so many times here, the solution was simple. It just needed MoD to follow its legal obligations. It didn't, but many postholders made false declarations that they had. As they did in the Sean Cunningham case, and all the others. After so many fatal accidents, so much wasted money, and the Nimrod and Mull of Kintyre Reviews citing the same failures, that MUST have been a conscious decision. Overseen by MoD's 'independent' MAA.

Really enjoyed reading the last handful of posts as it sums up the fiasco nicely and perhaps justifies allowing a prune thread to run on for some years in order that as the facts unfold a clearer truer picture emerges? Of course there will be many vested interests who would like to see pprune removed altogether but while many posts may be inaccurate or just plain wrong I think it provides a public service and aviation is the better for it.

This is the new Commandant. This an interview given as an A4 force commander.

https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisat...ion-commander/