Glad you liked it Phantom. Re the glass/analogue debate, personally I think it's advantageous to be training in a glass cockpit from the outset. Many of the future pilots who will train in the G120TP will only ever fly glass, and not just in their military and later civil careers. I've flown quite a few LSAs that were purely glass, not even standby analogue ASI and altimeter. Even the standby instruments on the 120 are digital!
I still think that the first ten hours should be in something really basic, like a T-61. The long wings really help develop co-ordination due to adverse yaw, while the monowheel sharpens up anyone's footwork on the ground, plus the analogue ASI and altimeter can be covered up in the circuit, and the engine even shut down in flight (both exercises are excellent confidence-builders). BUT, to put analogue instruments in a modern turbine-powered retractable would be a retrograde step, IMHO of course.

Oh, and FWIW, I thought the G120TP to be a very fine flying machine!

The announcement by the MOD yesterday on the award of the MFTS £1.1billion Contract to AFT (Ascent Flying Training).

Headline MOD 'Infographic' ...

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/...psmq5cvt9m.png

Image Credit : MOD

More info here ...

MOD MFTS Contract

But no news yet around any 'interim' arrangements until AFT are fully up an running.

23 Prefects (Grob G120TP), 10 Texans (Beechcraft T-6C) and 5 Phenoms (Embraer P100) ... 230 Students a year ... which I assume is a total of RAF, RN and Army Students ?

This did make me smile in the Press Release ...

... Well that's good then :rolleyes:


Thanks to ORAC for picking up the announcement yesterday ... :ok:

Good lord who thought up the name 'prefect'? 'Tutor' sort of made sense but what did a prefect ever teach? (Cue all sorts of fagging jokes - 'go & warm the toilet seat for me boy' etc). Who would wish to fill their logbook with 'Prefect T1'?

I assume that they were attracted by the close spelling to 'perfect'. Surely that can't have been reason enough to give it a daft name?

It also seems to be a very small number of ac to train 230 pilots a year even assuming excellent availability. Quite where they're going to find all the instructors, civil & military, is also a big question. I hope they intend offering market rate salaries & not 'pension offset' ones especially if they hope to fill the Valley slots.

By the early 90's the Tucano fleet had increased to 130 aircraft.

We now require just 10 aircraft to replace them.

:ouch:

Ken ...

I suspect that 230 number might not just be Net New Pilots ... Hopefully someone will elucidate further.

Coff: from the NAO report on Mil Flying Training (12 Jun 15):

so the 230 looks to be the total number of all aircrew, front end & rear crew, which makes the students per ac ratio marginally better although the rear crew trades still need to go in one sometimes.

Ken, I believe that anyone in reciept of a service pension may find the pension abated (reduced) if the combined pension and new (service) pay exceedes their previous pay scale.:oh:

OAP

OAP
 

I doubt Ken was talking about FTRS/military pilots. Ascent will potentially be employing civilian (albeit it ex-military) QFIs.

BV

BobViking wrote: And when the supply of ex-military QFIs dries up, as inevitably it will, what then? Whence will come the snake-oil salesmens' next instructors?

Even in the lowly GA world, more and more FIs are being picked up by the airlines as airline recruiting gathers pace. Now that the RAF has let its previously excellent flying training system fall into the hands of mercenaries, how will future instructor requirements be sustained.

Doomed, I tell ye, doomed you are!

Thanks Ken ... I thought as much :ok:

So if we assume 150 Student Pilots annually ... and apply a Chop Rate of X% (any offers on a speculative CR% ?) ... then it would be interesting to speculate on the number of FJ or ME first tourists joining the OCU's in a year. Feels like low numbers to me :(


Sorry for using 'Chop Rate' above ... but I couldn't come up with a more New World PC 'Descriptor'.

And I think BEagle's observation on sourcing future Mil QFI's is very apposite ... But I doubt we'll get an answer to that one for some while yet ...

Mind you the RAF has had a 'Prefect' in the past :E

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...5B-Prefect.jpg

Prefect is a terrible name. Surely they could have come up with something better than that.

It's nicely inconspicuous; perhaps named by a Douglas Adams fan?

212 :ok:

And the Avro 'Prefect' was developed from the Avro 'Tutor' ... History/Heritage Box Ticked then ;)

Without Google the Avro Prefect would be almost unheard of outside the RNZAF museum environs so perhaps an apposite precedent for the Grob Prefect as the ac that follows the Tutor?

I still thinks its a silly name.

Concur fully with Beagle's comments re RAF QFIs, there is a severe shortage in the ME world (can't comment on the FJ or RW fleets), we no longer train them in sufficient numbers since the UASs went predominately FTRS so we don't have enough for our own current needs & consequently the supply into the future will surely dry up which doesn't bode well for Ascent's recruitment plans even if they don't offset salaries for pensions (for ex-mil QFIs).

You reap what you sow.

If Ascent is unable to staff all of its civil posts will the military be expected to make up the shortfall? Could this actually lead to an increase in the number of mil QFIs in the future? With the manning cap & the extra ac & sqns post SDSR would there even be enough pilots to make up the shortfall?

BEagle and Coffmanstarter,

Your points about military QFI's...

I thought that a document released a year or so back on the exact numbers of aircraft and staff confirmed that 75% of all instructors and 100% of AFTS instructors would be serving military?

Since then we have had SDSR2015 which increased the need for qualified aircrew and MoD announced that they were negotiating to increase throughput of MFTS, yet the very same numbers of aircraft appear in that infographic?

Odd.

10 T-6? Yet the equally privatised RAAF equivalent is going to utilise 49, for a much smaller outfit.

Even odder.

10 Texans to me (I'm just a cadet so feel free to ignore my opinion) seems ridiculous, is this assuming 100% availability and 0% attrition of the fleet through its lifetime?!

Hawk98: you might be 'just a cadet' but you've spotted what ought to be the obvious flaw in the plan! Either you're a very astute & wise young man or Ascent have planned a little below the optimum number - or both!