Surprise, Surprise.
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10816792/Air-safety-fears-as-RAF-short-of-hundreds-of-technicians.html

"It's only maintenance!...and they're paid the same as Chef's and Clerks! We probably don't really need that many anyway..."


I wonder when that type of statement will emerge from the powers...?

I've shut the stable door, but there's no sign of the horse...

Oh of course, dear. So that's alright then - there's nothing about which to be concerned. There, there - Mummy knows best.....:uhoh:

Indeed, how very patronising.

Number of warm bodies against established posts is just one measure and quite a crude one at that. These figures do not address the issues of experience-on-type nor whether the established number of posts is actually sufficient for the tasks at hand nor the likely service distractions which so often come in to play.

I really do feel for my former colleagues and wonder at what point commanders can draw a line and say "I have to stop, or at least reduce, my outputs."

Once, I remember hearing an OC Admin Wg, in all seriousness, saying "It would be so much easier if we didn't have to bother with flying"! :eek:

It seems her wish might be coming true at this rate! I honestly believe the rot set in for engineering when we got rid of Apprentices and started 'multi-skilling'. You can bet that as a percentage we are even shorter of the highly skilled Trade Managers.

FRIs for engineers then?

LJ

Slightly off topic, but:
That's like the OC Admin Wg that said of a CAS mandated, pan-RAF flight safety day to which all but essential duty personnel would attend "I'm not releasing Admin personnel, flight safety is nothing to do with Admin Wg" - or something along those lines.

I also see Hammond has announced females are going to be allowed to serve in combat roles, possibly from next year.
The cynic in me wonders if the move is more of an effort to plaster over the shortage of frontline troops due to the less than enthusiastic response of people to join the reserves, than anything to do with equality.
It still amazes me that the think they can sack frontline troops and expect them all to sign up as reserves.

From the point of view of someone whose career in Aircraft ground support ended a while ago, I seem to have spent my service life hearing of the imminent demise of the Aircraft Tradesman. As an ex Halton Apprentice, watching the regular political assault on professional training throughout my career, the continuous degradation of real training, in favour of "on the job" training, and the denigration of anyone who criticises, as a matter of "old thinking" is sad to say the least. My training allowed me to understand what it meant when a JP5 pilot told me that the aircraft was flying half a ball right. It gave me an understanding of the principles of flight, the science of metallurgy and a real interest in how it all came together to make a functioning aircraft.

Technology is a wonderful thing, and just as I hope, we never replace the man in the cockpit/flight deck, the man on the ground also has his place, a respected profession, that can be extremely fulfilling when training and knowledge succeeds in ensuring that military operations can be carried out confidently by our aircrew, in the knowledge that the people who maintain their steeds are equally professionally trained, tested and competent. Sorry if I ramble a bit, I hope it makes sense.

Smudge

"Once, I remember hearing an OC Admin Wg, in all seriousness, saying "It would be so much easier if we didn't have to bother with flying"!"

Sounds like the OC Admin at Lossiemouth in the 1980s who, during a TACEVAL, ordered all servicing and turn-round of aircraft to cease overnight and the personnel used to guard the airfield. The aircraft were all still there next morning but they were unable to carry out the full tasking. Rumour control stated that the Staish was not pleased.:=

LJ/RP - that/those OC Admin Wings needed a kita - or sacked (why did Staish not haul them up short?)- but then I had the advantage of a budgie on my jumper

...it makes perfect sense, Smudge. :ok:

I would like to think that this day and age, there are very few Personnel Branch Officer and ORs who would adopt the apocraphal attitude as expressed above; however I also know of a recent OC BSW (OC Admin in old money) who was particularly unsympathetic about the deployed personnel from his station and repeatedly refused to visit them on their dets. Result? OBE and promotion...

Smuj, it seems the RAF still do 'apprenticeships'. 5 months at Cosford followed by 2 years on the job and then a further year at Cosford (if they make the grade...).

That's not a great deal different to the Mech and Fitters course of old durations.

Sounds quite a bit different from the 3 year apprenticeship I did in 1953. However, requirements change and I suppose they need different skills these days. I remember one of our practical tests for passing out was to build a radio from scratch - build the chassis, wind the coils, make the dial, calibrate and line up, etc. I can still send and receive morse code at 15 wpm. Had to be able to strip and rebuilt all the radio equipment we were trained on. Was one of the finest training schemes in its day.

Bob C

From some of the information I was getting a few years ago, the 5 months at Cosford would teach you to diagnose a fault down to LRU level, and nothing more. If swapping a box didn't fix it then who was going to work out what to do next?

As the level of system complexity went up, the level of training required appears to have gone down. If "the computer says no" then you are left with fewer choices as the system in-built test is supposed know everything that could go wrong. System designers have probably made this a selling point "we have better reliability and all you need is a monkey to swop the box the computer tells him to".

Gone are the days of belling out cable looms and back of the fag packet diagnosis, although I have heard of cases where it was not so much "what is broken so we can change it" as "what do we have in stores that we can swop".

In 1988 the USN/USMC was introducing a new "do everything" computerized avionics test bench that was suppose to replace most of the existing test benches at Intermediate level (squadron sent us the LRU and we chased the fault to the component on the board/wiring harness/whatever, as well as fixing the test benches).

The specific statement from the Lt Cdr who was telling us all about this wonder-bench was "it is so good that a supply clerk could run it. There won't be any need for the expensive electronics training we've been paying for".

That was when I knew I had to get out - because the few of us left would be working double-shifts to make up for the bench's failure to meet the advertised capabilities (and to fix the benches) and the leadership would take years to finally admit it and re-institute specialized electronics training.

I left in June 1989.

As a Air Radar fitter (18 months BE + 15 Months fitters course) I was well equipped to fix the various problems that occurred on the various aircraft that I worked on. After 14 years I left and entered the computer industry where I found that there were diagnostic programmes to identify any problems. Magic, I thought, this is going to be easy, just run the diags and fix the problems that were pinpointed. Of course I should have known it would never be that easy. Oh, sure sometimes it was just that easy, I was soon employed in the Technical Support, my RAF training and experience as a troubleshooter soon being recognized. In truth the diags could identify the obvious, but when that failed to identify the issue then it required an engineer with knowledge and experience to go beyond the software and sort it out. There was no doubt in my mind (and my employers) that the RAF training had equipped me and my generation with the ability to resolve problems that those trained just to rely on the diagnostics simply couldn't match. I do worry that not training people in the basics and relying on software is very shortsighted and eventually will impact on serviceability and flight safety.

PM575

Where will SERCO get its cheap work force from when there will be no trained technicians with a pension to recruit. The sums won't add up when they have to spend some of the money they receive for their contracts on training, and paying a decent wage!

From 1961:


£20 per week in 1961 is equivalent to about £20300 per annum today.