A&C - Firstly, my sincere apologies for taking so long to reply - I've been on a short break and haven't been checking PPrune thoroughly for a while now.

The composite repair courses I attended were associated with the Swanton Morley based NDT course I was doing back then. The (excellent) techs at the NDT school were working on how to check composite structures and any repairs to them - this was aimed (at the time) mainly at the GR5 wing, but as good people, they were making sure that they understood the wide range of potential composite structures and repairs that the NDT techs might encounter. So, no, the courses weren't glider specific.

I do know that other special composite repair courses were being delivered to the RAF, both generic and type specific. I sat through any number of presentations from senior RAF engineers setting the courses out and telling the RN how far ahead the RAF was in being able to repair and test composite structures.

As far as the RN was concerned, their artificers were being trained on both generic and specific repairs for composites, starting around 1982 with the arrival of the first composite Main Rotor Blades on Sea King and other composite items planned for incoming aircraft.

As an Air Engineer Officer, I was extensively trained on composite technology and applications, as well as repair principles, so that I could properly direct and manage my skilled workforce.

Of course, all these courses were designed to allow us to carry out the approved schemes set out in the Repair Manuals, using the composite repair kits that arrived with the composite structures. If, in emergency, we had to carry out a non-standard composite repair, we would have been expected to scheme it, seek approval from our Engineering Authority (who would have got approval from the DA) and then carry it out, making sure that it was fully recorded on the Airframe Log Card as well as the Work Orders.

The point I've laboured here for some time, and I make no apologies for repeating it, is that it appears probable that the RAF introduced a large fleet of composite aircraft with inadequate support arrangements. Moreover, there appears to have been institutional failings in the management of the maintenance of the ATC fleet. This is now being (successfully) covered up.

It's a scandal, and should not stand.

Best regards as ever to those sorting this out at the coal face - they don't deserve this.

Engines

Putting it clearly......
 

As ever "Engines" - a clearly expressed statement. I'm worried that now they have started to dribble a few Viking Gliders back into the air, and we have about three Vigilants at Topcliffe, that the major scandal has been largely and successfully covered up, despite the fact that a lot of the Vigilant fleet is STILL today languishing in redundant VGS Hangar space, waiting for some mysterious contractor to come and de-rig, to transport them back to Grob in Germany completely free of charge to Grob, where they will be re-worked to MkII standard including new engines and glass cockpit, prepared for sale to another Air Force !!!


A lot has been said about responsibility of contractors in the lack of skilled oversight of this whole GRP fleet from the date of change from RAF Eng maintenance. However, as the problems of oversight, repair and design authority for repair schemes was there from inception circa 1990, we have heard NOTHING from anyone about how this is to be investigated and begin a process of holding accountable those responsible for the mess that was created by total ignorance and incompetence.


We now need to motivate some of our MP's to develop a non-BREXIT hobby, to begin placing some very pointed and very knowledgeable questions in the appropriate committee's of the house, starting with the Chair of the Defence Committee, and perhaps one of the expenditure committees, to shake out and force out a more taxpayer accountable version of the total failure to look after what was a brand new fleet of aircraft in 1990.


Is it not possible for knowledgeable people within our forum to draft some equally competent parliamentary questions and evidence that will cause a bit of fluidity in the bowels of ex RAF Snr Officers who operated within the safety of RAF Cranwell HQAC and other places ????

Hear hear! I couldn't help pointing out in my recent air test of the T-61F Venture T2 that although most of the Vigilants (which replaced the Venture) are grounded, most of the Ventures are airworthy!!

I really can't see anyone in Parliament having any appetite for opening up an investigation into something 27 years old that affects none of their constituents.........

Everyone who pays taxes should take notice !
 

That's the nub of a lot of problems in this country, taxpayer apathy until some issue directly hits them !

ATFQ re: post #3673

After I had trawled through rafts of drivel on that Twitter thread I found the video clip.

It is indeed good news to see someone going first solo, the sad elements to this are that what was such a relatively routine item gets such massive publicity, and also that when I was on the VGS's this was a routine event, usually first solo's at least once every weekend on every VGS and on courses quite often at least one every day..........

congratulations to that individual in the video though...........

Arc

When I did Admin Officer on a Vigilant course at 637, we did more than one a day from about wednesday.

Arclite, Well said.............I'd love to see the stats after they have been running a year and do a comparison with 5 or 10 yrs ago !

That might be pushing the definition of 'completely refurbished' - from what I've heard it's £100k plus per airframe including Southern Sailplanes cutting out and redoing undocumented repairs and an exercise to identify and document (but not fully repair) skin cracks. Now extrapolate that for the portion of the fleet that they aim to put through the process. Three years and counting, millions of pounds of public money spent and there's just a handful of aircraft with patchy servicability and precious few cadets airborne to show for it.

And 3.5 years since the first post on this thread - I presume that they have still not ordered any new gliders :rolleyes:.
Nothing like having any sort of fleet replacement plan is it ?
They would have been 3.5 years into the 5 year waiting list and it would probably have been cheaper to buy new a/c !
I know what some posters will say but at the end of the day they will have to replace the fleet eventually or just stop cadet flying permanently.

Canconym
 

You have pasted a quote that seems to be from me. It is not something I have said so please could you remove and reference to me in that quote.

Thank you.

-longer-ron
 

The glider industry is a small one and the manufacturers are not able to deliver large quantities of aircraft, I would guess 5-7 a year is the delivery rate on new gliders is the best the RAF could expect.

The problem is the surge in demand can’t be met without increasing staff, training those staff, blocking orders from other customers and paying large EU redundancy packages to those workers you lay off at the end of the production surge.

So as a business proposal it’s not a very good one, not surprising that the manufacturers are staying away in droves!

Agreed - but the problem does not go away !
Other countries have 'managed' their fleets !
So 5 years at least down the line for delivery and still not counting (if you see what I am getting at )

As with many of my posts on this thread, I have to start by saying that I was in the ATC and got a little gliding in at Manston in the late 60s and early 70s.

Before we start looking at how to replace the fleet, I do wonder why the RAF has to own what appears to be the world's largest fleet of publicly funded gliders. (Happy to be proved wrong here, by the way). I honestly can't see the justification, especially in these financially challenged times for defence. It's been justified as a recruiting tool and also a way of promoting 'air mindedness', as well as the RAF itself, but honestly I think its time is done.

I'd be as sad as many others to see it go,and I know that, in the past, the ATC has done great things for many young people. But, in my view, the RAF has shown that it's not especially good at providing airworthy aircraft for young civilians to fly in. Those serving can accept the risk - I wonder whether the RAF's dismal track record with this fleet poses an unacceptable level of risk for any new fleet.

And please, spare me the 'we've learned lots of lessons and we have made many changes designed to make sure that this doesn't happen again'. Or even worse, 'now we have the MAA this can't happen again'.

Here's the question - would you let your child fly in an RAF maintained glider?. I wouldn't. I wouldn't fly in one myself. Sorry to those working with the aircraft now, but I just think this whole thing has gone too far over the edge.

Best regards as ever to those charged with trying to sort out things,

Engines

Longer ron
 

There is a way forward and I think it will go something like this........

The air cadet flying will get rolled into one contract, once there is a fleet of gliders to maintain (40+ and rising ) a competition for a contract to maintain & run the current fleet of gliders & powered aircraft, a phased replacement of the gliders would be part of this contract.

When the pound was very strong back in 2015 a new k21 was about £100k once all addons were included - flying instruments for example. The £ has fallen since then. As far as I know the gliders are low hours, but it seems to have taken an inordinate length of time to decide what to do and who will do it. Also just as building gliders is effectively a cottage industry so is inspecting and repairing them.

Always going to be a 'drip fed' delivery with (say) K21's,but somebody with a brain might start ordering and then put the new ones into storage for a while until sufficient numbers are available to use by a couple of units.
Conversion to (say) K21's would not be difficult as they are easy to fly.

rgds LR

PS forgot to add - they could be bog standard airframes on civvy reg as well.

Longer ron
 

Operation on the civilian register is not avalable to Aircraft that are used exclusively by the military.

The UK CAA is unhappy with the Grob Tutor operation and this is likely to leave the civil register soon.

This will require a move from EASA 145 oversight to MAA oversight along with the costs involved.

The airframes for the current gliders should have been bog standard.

But why put new gliders into storage? The problem is it will be a very slow drip - 1 or 2 per year.

@Chevvron

I meant 1 a day 'average' on the courses, agreed that most went from Wednesday onwards as exercises were completed...............

Usually we had between 8 and 12 students on a weekly course. I think 90% of those flew solo in the week, the remainder either didn't make the required standard to go solo or returned to us to complete (if they lived locally) or were passed to their nearest VGS to complete if they did not live local and were beaten by weather for instance.........

Overall I would say 97% of the starters were finishers............. that's a pretty good conversion rate.

@Longer Ron

I agree with all you are saying 100%. My opinion of the suitability of the K21 is well documented here elsewhere on the thread.......although I still feel that the K13 would be even better :}

Best wishes for christmas in Bonnie Scotland...............

Arc

@ Cats5

Military flying operations usually re-equip with a type at a time so that standardisation/conversion training can be carried out in a structured way.

I think Longer Ron was inferring that store enough to re-equip a unit at a time..........

Actually, since the precedent has been set with MOD buying Vigilants from the civil register to top up the declining or insufficient numbers of new purchased aircraft there would be nothing to stop them buying a mix of civil registered K21 and new builds to make up the numbers more quickly.........., a refurb of second hand aeroplanes would be cheaper - especially if it was done by people who knew what they were doing..............

If there was a real interest in doing it that way I think that there could be 3 or 4 VGS units re-equipped within 24 months............

My personal view now is that the longer term plan from those at the top (I use the term loosely) is to cease VGS Ops altogether - maybe replace it with a bit of 'lightweight' Civilian gliding on an 'ad -hoc' basis maybe through the RAFGSA (although they too, are a pale shadow of their former selves).

Arc

Well as a retired civilian gliding instructor, who was trained on a T31, and ended up teaching on the K13, I am not so sure that for ATC purposes you need an expensive kite like the ASK21. I have flown the 21 (in 2007 - to see if gliding was like roller skating, something you never forget) and I admit it is a magnificent trainer but it is GLASS with all the attendant problems you get with repairs. The good old K13 was a much simpler machine and easy to repair - tube fuselage, wooden wings etc. Why not get Schleicher to knock off a hundred or so K13s , at what would be clearly be a lower price and quicker to make than the 21 ? Cadets in my time did well enough with the T21 and T31, Remember we are not training glider pilots here just getting kids into the air. In the good old days we used to repair our T31s with minor damage during the week ready for next weekend. I was Technical Officer in my club and I know about these things.

It's hard to find a good K13 these days - most of them that are sold are bent - and importing doesn't help as these gliders don't get the BGA weight concession which may well matter with the strapping teenagers of today. There is also this little matter: https://members.gliding.co.uk/librar...ection-042-07/

I think you need to move into the 21st centuary Oly463 K13's have not been built by Schleicher since 1980 and even Jubi of Oerlinghausen ceased licensed production in 1992. They had a fantastic workshop which I visited when landing at Oerlinghausen in a T21 which we aerotow'd across from RAF Gutersloh in 1988. We watched some of the craftsmanship going into the wooden wings of a new build k13. Unfortunately the craftsmen have become very scare in the modern era and construction was slow and expensive. The club at Gutersloh had two new Jubi K13's in the fleet. One of them is now at Cranwell and reaching the end of it's life because of the 3 yearly mandatory inspection and the glue issue. It is getting increasingly difficult for the club to find engineers/inspectors with the correct skills in wood and welded steel tube to maintain it. in the not too distant future the club like many others will have an all plastic fleet.

Hold your horses! I wasn't suggesting that second hand K13s be sought, I'm not daft. Any new ones built now would have more modern glues used. I remember having to have the tailplane of my Oly 2b rebuilt from scratch, as the glue used twenty years before had started to let go. A very expensive CofA resulted.

The Olympias which I flew were all built from the kits which had been in store since 1937. The glue used was that used for military gliders built by Elliots and presumably long life was not expected for those machines. Its use certainly caught up with the 100 Olys built post WWII by Elliotts, and that was unfortunate. But nothing like this would happen if new wooden ships were to be built now. Adhesive technology has moved on. As for skill in building I doubt it is all that hard to find people who could do this work and train others. It isn't rocket science. Elliots had built wardrobes pre-war but built hundreds of gliders far more complex than a K13.

Even De Havilland got it wrong with the early Mosquitoes when they started to fall apart (in the air!!) in tropical climates. They soon fixed that though.

I maintain that a programme to build NEW K13s in quantity would be the most economical method of getting the ATC back into the air. Modern production methods and the economy of scale would both save money and TIME. and TIME is of the essence here I think. Glass ships are expensive and slow to make. Going that route spells extinction for flying in the ATC,and if they can't offer flying who will join? The ASK21 is fine in a gliding club where as soon as you go solo you move on to a single seater. In my time this was the Slingsby Tutor, a truly terrible aeroplane, but if you could fly it, you could fly anything they threw at you afterwards. I flew 22 different types of glider all told, and none were quite as awful as the Tutor.

If the intent is to give post solo cadets further flying they should be encouraged to join a club maybe supported by some kind of scholarship or subsidy to the club.

On a point of information: does anyone know how many ex ATC trainees actually joined the RAF, or is the ATC just a big youth club with a bit of flying (maybe) thrown in?

We need a bit of lateral thinking here. There was gliding before glass.

I agree; I've said several times on this thread that Air Cadets do not need glass ships but rather something in the low performance mould.
I trained on Sedburghs and Cadet Mk3s, then later when I had a bit of experience, the single seat Prefect.
Any of these would be more suitable for cadet flying than an ASK21 or similar.

Olympia, not sure what the exact figures are but I think it's between 20 and 40 percent of entrants to the RAF are ex cadets. A few years ago due to the number of ex cadets joining the RAF and the fact that they were already trained in teamwork, drill, uniform maintenance etc enough was saved in Basic Training costs to effectively make the ATC cost neutral that year.

What are these attendant problems? The civilian glider world has been successfully repairing composite airframes far more complex than Vikings or K21s for over fifty years now.

And while we're at it let's get Jaguar Land Rover to quickly knock together a hundred or so Series IIa at Solihull? I'm sure it wouldn't take much to tool up a new production line...

There is absolutely no reason, other than a lack of expertise or drive to "get the job done", that this can't be the case for GRP gliders. At international gliding competitions it is by no means rare for a glider to be damaged one day, have a couple of guys work through the night to carry out a repair, and for it be ready for the pilot to fly the very next morning.

Who would build these K13s? Schleicher? They haven't build a wood and fabric glider for 40 years and Rudolph Kaiser has been dead for a quarter of a century. They have the capacity to build about five gliders a month and have a years-long waiting list for their world-leading ASG29/32 and ASH30/31 gliders, alongside a steady stream of K21s.

The Canadian Air Cadets use the SW 2-33. A rag and tube fuselage with a simple all aluminum wing. Simple to make and maintain with enough performance to teach the basics of gliding. That is what an Air Cadet program needs, not some expensive fragile glass high performance soaring machine.

There is nothing fragile (or frankly high performance) about the Viking. They are very sturdy aircraft. It is only a mismanagement of ongoing maintenance which has resulted in this perception of composite aircraft being ‘complex’ or ‘fragile’. There is - and has been for decades - a wealth of knowledge in the UK in repairing and maintaining composite sailplanes, which as far as the Air Cadets are concerned, has been all but completely ignored in favour of ill-suited and ill-informed DA oversight.

Building new K13s truly is cloud cuckoo land, even if Schleicher will allow it. This is in spades if the MOD is commissioning them. Read the description above about Jubi.

Schewizer ceased trading in 2012.

PS production of the SGS 2-33 ended in 1980.

No-one makes a similar glider these days. They are all glass, and provide a much better level of protection to the pilots in the event of a seriously bad arrival.

I still think that if the MoD put out a contract to build 100 K13s there would be a taker. The skill levels to build wooden aircraft are well below those needed for glass ships. If I was younger I would seriously look at a business plan to do this.

So you do nothing but moan, and meanwhile the ATC ceases to do any flying. That's not what I thought this thread was about. We were more enterprising when I was flying. Our club needed a new winch, so I got together a team and built one. What has happened to the great spirit of entrepreneurship we Brits used to have?

I repeat - The ATC do not need a glider as sophisticated as the ASK 21. They are not a gliding club. try and get hold of that idea please. I'm not suggesting that we go back to the days of the SG38 or even the T31. The K13 is the ideal machine for the job. I know, because I have sent dozens solo who were trained in it. The Capstan was a disaster, the Bocian was lovely but very expensive, the Blanik was noisy - I could go on and on about training gliders, I have flown most of them - K13 is the BEST.

There would be no taker.

Yes the K13 is a perfectly competent training glider, but the K21 is a big step ahead in terms of performance, handling, comfort, and above all safety. I know which one I’d rather have a crash in. The same goes for the Viking.

And most importantly, it is not a ‘sophisticated’ glider. In modern (for modern read ‘the last 30 years’) terms it is a simple airframe. GRP repairs are routine and a non-event for anyone competent enough to repair wood and fabric. Only the RAF and Old Bolds on here think otherwise.

I wouldn't disagree that the K13 was possibly the best training glider of its era but doubt very much that it could be produced today at a sensible cost.

Back in the days of Pegasus Gliding Club at Gutersloh, a K13 became an insurance write off due to a ground incident. Damage was severe and included a broken main spar. Two club members bought the wreck, borrowed plans from Scleicher and, over months, rebuilt it. I recall they calculated that, after they had sold it, they had been working for something like 30p/hr.
The only job they didn't do themselves was the new mainspar which was built by an ex Scleicher employee who still had the jigs.

Skill shortage
 

While I see the attraction of a simple wood, metal tube & fabric glider to the enthusiast I can’t help thinking that the skill set needed to maintain these aircraft is even further removed from the modern RAF than the skills needed to maintain composite structure.............. and wood & fabric is less durable.

The ASK13 was only economic for Schleicher to manufacture because many bits were farmed out to local handymen to make (wing ribs etc) and there were quality control problem that showed up later. Under EASA they would cost more than a ASK21, there are significantly more man-hours and little difference in materials.

A competent maintenance organisation will prevent recurrence of the previous VGS problems, and civilian registered DG Acro's aren't falling out of the sky through maintenance problems (or age related structural ones).

I can't imagine that operating a mixed fleet of Grob and ASK would be a problem, there was a mixed fleet or Cadet 3 and Sedburgh for many years, but the short solution from here has to be getting 'as-new' Vikings back in the sky for the next 10+ years.

I doubt that those responsible for the scandal and the pedestrian sorting-out process will ever be held to account, but that's another story.

Given the forthcoming court case, involving the same people, I think this is THE story!

If a glider were to be designed for the Air Cadet requirement and nothing else, it would need to be designed for easy and quick maintenance, and provide all the protection that modern gliders do. Composites have the advantage of being resistant to weather, fatigue and minor damage in a way that wood, fabric and sheet metal structures do not. The expense with composite repairs comes with the man hours required to restore the surface finish to 'as it left the mould' standard.

What is needed is a glider which provides performance equal to, or better than, the T21 and T31, with the durability and crashworthiness of a glass glider, whilst avoiding the need for multi-thousand pound repairs for relatively minor incidents. A broken canopy on one of our club's fibreglass gliders was £4000 to replace. The blow moulding was about £1K; however by the time the old canopy had been cut off the frame and the new one bonded on, filled, painted and the direct vision panel fitted, another £3K had gone.

A construction method which may offer the solution is to use folded honeycomb composite (Fibrelam) as on the Edgley Ea-9 Optimist. Expensive moulds are avoided, crash deformation can be predicted and if two dimensional canopy or simple screens used, the costs of most common repairs are kept sensible.

http://www.retroplane.net/forum/files/optimist_195.pdf

https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightP...20-%202845.PDF

If Edgley hadn't gone out of business, it appears Fibrelam training glider may have actually been built: https://www.faulkes.com/edgley-sailplanes-ltd

Sorry but not even remotely close to reality. Almost none of the 2-33’s are hangared, they are set leveled on a saw horse and tied down outside all year. Good luck doing the same with any of the glass ships. Rag and tube repair has 80 years of successful maintenance in bush, ag, and other very demanding uses. The metal wing of the 2-33 is simple and easy to fix and most importantly is damage tolerant and easy to assess, unlike composite structures

The point of Air Cadet gliding is basic flying experience for young people. What the program needs is a simple to maintain, simple to fly, hard to bust, basic glider !