RB - you are lucky that your particular sqn has not suffered because of lack of flying.Others have !
The engineering is one aspect of this sorry mess but there are almost certainly other agendas tied up in this affair,it has happened at a very convenient time for 'cost saving' (as if that ever works with mod !) - the volunteers have been left out in the cold and it will be interesting to see the 'background/make up' of the future instructor staff.
Either by accident or design (or a bit of both ?) it has been a very convenient grounding whilst the whole gliding organisation is redesigned !

Grob no longer build gliders, and are no longer the type certificate holder.

http://www.grob-aircraft.com/tl_file...der_change.pdf

What are all these hidden agendas? On one hand those in 2FTS are accused of not being able to organise anything, while simultaneously arranging a most bizarre method of cost cutting by spending loads of time and cash?

Any agendas will become clear in the future !

But to start from near the beginning -why would an 'organisation' like the RAF put a bloke like Muddleton into a post like 2 FTS when he has a proven track record of absolutely zero people skills !

Like it or not money and politics run everything in our lives !

rgds LR

Typical MOD 'cost saving' !

edit - sorry should have added - 'future cost saving' planned would probably be closing of airfields and thereby saving any support costs for running the doomed VGS's.

Would think taking in the OC's of 6xx, 6xx, 6xx to Syerston and telling them they are being folded into one site would be far simpler than grounding every aircraft, stopping cadets from gliding for 18 months, drafting in many engineers, letting recovery contracts then doing exactly the same in the end anyway.

JM sat the board in front of a diverse range of 1* & 2* with the other candidates for the job. He must have told them something good wasn't just shoehorned in by mates rates.

Some people are put into post to do a particular job/achieve or help to achieve a particular goal - I have seen it many times in industry...of course it could all be coincidental !
I have never heard anybody say a good word about him - which speaks volumes !
As a previous poster said - one needs good communications dealing with airworthiness - even a couple of slightly wrong personalities can have a huge impact on any results.
I have direct contact with an airworthiness team every 3 months or so on average - one has to have a good relationship with them and try to work with them.

rgds LR

O dear. What a mess. Looking at the swamp in which the Air Cadets have bogged down, I do sympathise with all the youngsters who have enjoyed the camaradie, the events, the discipline, and the adventure yomping , yachting, etc etc. ....but find it not easy to get off the ground due to unfortunate circumstances.

A few years back I was horrified when there were two midairs involving young people in Grob Tutor aircraft, due partly to an unqualified instructor flying with serious health problems, and also due to flying in crowded airspace when alternate areas were available. Though lookout may have been somewhat obstructed by the canopy framework, these same machines have been flying safely in the civilian environment for years.

Please let me offer a way out for the young people. My club, and many other civilian clubs, do offer flight training in gliders to youngsters at special rates. Some kids and their families have made the transition already. No uniforms, no marching, just flying and the achievement of knowlege and skills. Would these Air Cadet organisations be willing to contact the civilian clubs, and arrange for their youngsters to get off the ground at last? We are insured, you know.

Cats_five
 

The change of ownership of the type certificate is neither hear or there, if the type certificate holder can't make a quid or two on the deal to take over the Vikings and get them back on the civil register they won't .

My point was that since Grob no longer make gliders, depressing the price isn't something they will be concerned about. In theory whatever is done to get them in the air again well involve buying spares, but I wonder how big the spares stock is? Can major parts still be made if necessary?

@Cats - anything can be made. Few items available off the shelf though. Depends what we are talking about - my impression is that the issue is not airframe parts as much as airframe repairs that are at issue here...........

@Mary (chicken hearted Granny glider pilot :}) - if you read this thread end to end it will explain why your ideas have not been actioned previously (nor likely to be in the future

@Longer Ron - I am loving your conspiracy theories - and would not be at all surprised if they didn't have at least SOME basis in fact.............

and with all this chatter there are still no dates for return to flight (either type) and no declared strategy published for future basing - lets hope for a good Xmas present on those items..........

Regards All

Arc

Mary M. You said: "A few years back I was horrified when there were two midairs involving young people in Grob Tutor aircraft, due partly to an unqualified instructor flying with serious health problems, and also due to flying in crowded airspace when alternate areas were available."

Fact: the instructor was not 'unqualified', he was a Qualified Flying Instructor.

Remember that it was not only the Tutor that was flying in crowded airspace when other areas were available: so we're all the other aircraft; no one had to be there.

Let's not open that can of worms, but we can replace Mary's opinion of "Unqualified" and "flying with Serious injuries" with

From the accident report.

Cats_five
 

As far as I know parts are not a problem, most of the parts are standard items and are available.

The radios are of a type that Marconi would have known and will have to be replaced in a few years due to the 8.33 legislation.

The airframe comes out of two tins in liquid form and those skilled in glider repair can fix just about anything ( type certificate holders now get a bit funny about scarffing main spar booms but most other things can be done) as has been demonstrated by the three Vikings that had the hangar collapse on them back in 1990.

I have to wonder why these three aircraft did not get retuned to RAF service and speculate that a still metal-centric RAF contractor failed to understand that these aircraft could be repaired economically and continue in service.

I understand that some problems have been caused by manufactures improving parts and giving the improved parts new part numbers that are direct replacements for the old part number, I am told that lack of knowledge of glider industry practice and insistence that obsolete part number items are fitted has resulted in problems over he last few years.

More likely that the gliders were uneconomic to repair on paper. For the company that did repair them to be able to do so at their leisure when other work was quiet, and possibly with access to serviceable airframe parts from other damaged G103s to cannibalize, is a very different situation. Think of all those Cat C and Cat D cars that go back on the road despite main dealers having said they are beyond economic repair.

Even if the gliders were only repaired and sold at cost, the opportunity for future spares and maintenance support might have made the return to use cost effective.

What must not be ignored is that composite work in the aircraft industry is a growing market and that skills and experience in this field are in very short supply. Many of the glider repair companies have found that manufacture of composite sub-assemblies to aircraft standards (e.g. for motor racing, submersibles, wind turbines etc. ) is a more lucrative business than fixing gliders. Any organisation that thinks it can jump in, pay bottom dollar wages to people with no understanding of these aircraft, how they are made, repaired or used, and make a success of it, is both deluding itself and the customer.

I remember visiting Slingsbys at Kirbymoorside once where, alongside gliders they were building composite boat hulls and even parts for submarine conning towers for Vickers at Barrow!

Mechta
 

It might be the case that they had been considered uneconomic to repair but the MoD are usually inclined to pay top dollar for defence related stuff so I suspect that is not the case, add this to the general lack of composite knowlage in the business and you see a picture of aircraft getting written off without good reason, you do have to remember that in 1990 composite technology was not understood outside a few glider repair shops.

The glider business is accustomed to glueing aircraft back together but powered aviation is by and large stuck in the metal frame of mind, off the top of my head I can think of about six powered aircraft written off by insurers that have been repaired and shown a tidy Proffit in doing so.

I will second your statement about composite skills being in short supply, one of the companies trying to get the lions share of the glider recovery project is offering wages £10K+ below the current market and to my mind are demonstrating they don't understand the cost of the skills needed to carry out this work, it follows that if they get the contract this very sorry farce will continue due to lack of skilled manpower.

Out of all of this I still don't see RAF Engineering having been asked to develop any in-house glider-repair expertise. That being the case, I very much fear we could well be back to the same situation in a few years time! Without at least some in-house technical expertise, how will the RAF be able to quality control/audit the quality of the new contractor's airworthinees work? How can they have the skills and experience to work on super-high tech complicated jets, yet apparently be completely foxed by very basic light aircraft technology?

It is this basic shortfall that seems to have led to the current situation having developed to the extent that two whole fleets having been grounded.

Imagine if an equivalent situation prevailed on the flying side (i.e. CFS and Syerston unable to check flying standards on the VGSs because "We have no expertise with gliders - we only deal things such as Tutors, helicopters, multi-engine and swept-wing jets") :ugh:

Flug

Flugplatz
 

The RAF have no Tutor engineering input, that is all done by the civil contractor who puts the complex GRP repairs out to another EASA 145 company. So far this combination has delivered the goods ( the prop problems were not of their making !)

This company combination is one of the companies bidding for the glider recovery program.