Tristar ZD949
 

Gents


This former RAF jet, which has been parked up at Cambridge for some time was yesterday cut up and has been leaving by the truck load today. :{

Ah yes! Glass cockpit upgrade aircraft. How did that go again?

Well... Successful part of a TriStar fleet enhancement that never happened due to the decision to spend £Billions on the FSTA.

OAP

ZD949. Thankyou for all your great service. Tanked from it and gave from it. A truly Great airframe, like all of its type. :D

OAP

ZD949 fiasco....


October 2006 - Marshall Aerospace is awarded a £22M contract to upgrade the RAF TriStars' avionics and FMS including a 'glass cockpit' as the 'MMR upgrade'. This should have been a relatively low-risk programme as it used elements of the C-130 cockpit upgrade already underway for the RNAF.

November 2007 - ZD949 arrives at Cambridge for the trial installation with a planned completion date of Q3 2008 at which time the second TriStar would begin conversion.

2008 came and went.

2009 came and went.

January 2010 - ZD949 finally makes its first flight with the MMR upgrade.

October 2010 - SDSR indicates that the TriStar will start to leave RAF service in 2013; TriStar MMR programme is to be discontinued.

December 2010 - After 100 hours of flight test, ZD949 finally passes MoD review and is due to be back in service in Spring 2011.

2011 - Due to the change in out-of-service date now planned for the TriStar and with the A330MRTT due in service by the end of the year, ZD949 remains at Cambridge in a pristine state under 'storage' and is to be 'reduced to spares' - a euphemism for being scrapped - as it would be too expensive to convert it back to its original state.

October 2011 - A330MRTT now 'Voyager' fails to meet release to service date; now expected to be 'sometime in January 2012'.

January 2012 - Voyager still not in service.

February 2012 - Voyager still not in service.

March 2013 - Voyager still not providing an AAR service; 3 x VC10 have to stagger on until Sep 2013.

September 2013 - VC10 retired, but Voyager still not providing a complete AAR service.

March 2014 - TriStar retired, but Voyager still not providing a complete AAR service.

May 2014 - ZD949 finally scrapped having never been returned to RAF service during a wasteful, expensive 7 year programme.

...and Voyager still doesn't have a working AAR Mission System.....:rolleyes:

"Hecha en España = No funciona!"

Beagle is correct. The saga reflects badly on the whole FSTA programme IMO.

OAP

It went well and it was successful?

My word.

Seems like if it wasn't for those pesky FSTA types, the RAF would be enjoying the services of an upgraded and reliable Tristar fleet, 9 aircraft on the line , good to go and dispatching with great reliability. Can't believe they didn't go for it......

Pretty aeroplane though.

Beagle, I thought I'd read somewhere that the voyager was now cleared as a 3point tanker, doesn't that make it fully AAR capable now?

Now don't be pessimistic, BEagle.

That timetable would be seen as a roaring success in some parts of the MoD.

OAP, the saga reflects badly on MoD planning assumptions and A330MRTT development issues rather than PFI per se. Which I agree is bolleaux, but that's beside the point.

Arty Fufkin, hardly. There are still significant issues concerning the entire Mission Planning System, which simply Does Not Work. So, as I understand it, for in-flight AAR deployment trail re-planning they're having to faff about with the nonsense of 'RAPS', bits of string and whiz-wheels, rather than using the MPS which was supposed to have been supplied 3 years ago......:uhoh:

Whiz-wheels!!!! They'll be bringing back navigators next! ;)

So it's doing UK AAR, deployed AAR, AT including ETOPS and into theatre. It's also doing trails to the same level of competence as the VC10 and Tristar but with significantly better offloads.

Tough crowd!

Arty, part of the enhancement was a fleet increase to 15 airframes. I personally wonder if anyone has had control of the heavy side of RAF forward thinking since about 1990?:sad:

OAP

Nice one BEagle, summed up to a tee!:ok:

Was at Brunty on Sunday and heard that the Tristars there had been sold in America with the first one due out in the next few weeks. Anyone else?

Like I said, it was a lovely aircraft and it would have been great to have a large fleet of updated, serviceable airframes. The jet was largely misunderstood by most of the RAF I'm my opinion, probably because of sniping from the VC10 fraternity (particularly the nav mafia),but not helped by the fact the the Fleet has no young blood on it until the mid 90s.
A very capable aircraft....for it's day, but performance wise, well outclassed by the A330. I really don't see how it could have continued in service, the glass cockpit mod would never have improved fleet availability, and increasing the fleet to 15 would only ever have served to shorten the supply chain to the width of the apron!
The curtain call was the point at which it was deemed too unreliable to conduct any AT tasking that was not Herrick. At that point, it didn't matter how cheap it was in comparison to its replacement, if you're paying not a lot for F£&k all, you're paying well over the odds.
If reliability was a possibility ( and it would need to be a certainty) I'd agree that there should be 15 tri motors at BZZ rather than , what...8? voyagers. I just don't see that that was ever going to be possible.

Stand 'em up!

The trouble is Arty, while you argue about relatively minor improvements (that I would largely dispute), the cost of FSTA is sending the rest of the RAF to hell in a handcart. The truth is, that a well managed enhanced TriStar fleet could have done the job for a fraction of the cost of the FSTA. Maybe, with TriStar, we could have afforded an MPA capability as well!:oh:

OAP

Gents


There is footage of the demise of this jet.:{

Better offloads than the TriStar....? Do you mean 'bigger' or 'faster'..... I think the TriStar with fully serviceable belly tanks could carry more fuel.....

sigh, yawn, here we go again! "For a fraction of the cost of FSTA..." How much then -do you even have the faintest idea, OAP? I'm as sad as you to see a fine old bird being cut up but you're confusing (again) the low capital cost of very old airframes with the (eye-watering) cost of running them

ps, No, dark side he said offload and I suspect that's what he meant. The tri might theoretically be able to CARRY more, if it wasn't ramp wt limited, which it would be many places but would burn the extra and more, unless the refuelling was to take place above it's base.

Sigh yawn Shottie, you do not have to join in if it bores you! Of course, no one would dispute the cost curve of maintenance. However, TriStar was so cheap, you would not believe! As I have said, I give it 5 years before the FSTA goes off the rails! £££££££££££££££££££££££££££££

OAP

You sure about that Beags?