MoD contracts industry to draft recognition manual for RAF P8 aircrew
 

The MoD, in the form of DE&S has put out to tender, via FATS 5, a contract to draft a brand new Visual Recognition manual for ships and aircraft, for the use of RAF P8 aircrew when attending Fleet Replacement Squadron in the US.

Surely an RAF core task?

Sun.

What’s wrong with the USN manual?

Not Invented Here?

Not seeing many windows...:}

https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incomin...A-Poseidon.jpg

Apart from the large ones in front of the engines, not to mention the EO/IR turret

What a waste of money! Recce has always been handled very adequately in house over the previous decades, so why pay extra for some company to do it?

Surely thete’s An extant RAF doc from Nimrod days they could GFX and use as a starting point? Seems a bit odd to want to create something from nothing..?

Ship and A/.C recce.....
 

....was always splendidly covered by the master AEOp recce instructor on the Nimrod OCU.
A small dit - out in the straits west of Gib in yet another NATO ex cruising around doing surface surv and reporting.
An F18 poles up along side our stbd wingtip and hangs there close in. Reports to his opcon (and ours) "it's like an airliner, kinda concrete coloured with pink and blue roundels and kinda pods on the wingtips and a big one on top of the fin Is it a hostile?
Me "opcon will you please recall this idiot on my wingtip and get someone in the ready room to teach him some recognition of his friendlies in this ex. Listen son, marks out of ten for a/c recce? - not very many, now GO AWAY and stop getting in our way".
Whoosh and he was gone.
The chaps on our flight deck thought I was being a bit harsh. But what if we'd been in the gulf and he was armed?? I'd take a small bet that a similar scenario occurred from time to time in GW1 and 2.

The Ancient Mariner

BAe could only charge £ 1mm for xeroxing it - this way they can spend 5 years and well over £ 250mm................

plus of course there will be a hierarchy of committees, coordinators, specialists etc etc in the Mod who need the work

Re-Inventing the Wheel
 

Here we go again re-inventing the wheel. Back in the bad old Cold War days the PI (now Int) Branch had a recognition materials cell at JARIC (now long gone). They used to produce cards and books on a comprehensive range of land, sea and air equipments that were available for free to users. The maritime ones included pictures of ships and submarines from all angles, including above. Some of these survive in the Medmenham archive at Wyton. Note top self: do we offer these documents for free to the new generation of P8 crews or flog them at large cost to the approved MoD contractor? Why don't some people ask around before putting out a tender?

Sums up the state of MOD at present, pathetic.

Folks, please don't confuse politicos and treasury bean counters with people who actually give a sh*t.

You can't argue with his description though. Shame it wasn't the brown one!

What happened to the DRJs?

Can't you get those handy little "Observer" books anymore?

I'm with AM on this. Perhaps we should attempt to prise Eddie Pratt out of retirement, although I suspect that some of his top tip recce features ( the Hormone helicopter springs to mind) would not pass muster with the PC brigade, especially Stateside.

As an aside, if the primary role of the AEO on the Nimrod was to keep the sun off the Tac Screen, does that still apply to the P8, which does appear to have fewer windows :rolleyes:

How much money have they got? I've probably got a book in the loft I could sell them.

I have a few books in the loft, plus the notes from 50 hours of recce ground school at MOTU (although I suspect there isn't much call to recognise a Sverdlov these days!)

Just got rid of my set of mini Jane's and Warships of the Soviet Navy, all amended and up to the date I ceased to have an interest.

Back in the 50s I had a Merchant ship equivalent of Jane's by Lt Cdr Talbot-Booth. An amazing book. Enter with the mast configuration and you could drill down to the name even. Of course it needed regular updating with post war building.

It may well have been done in-house in the days of the Nimrod, but do we still have the people capable to produce an up to date version?

Numbers are not what they used to be and it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the relevant info has been binned.

Recognition Journal....
 

....it would seem that it no longer exists - when did it vanish? It used to cover a/c, ships (inc subs) and armoured vehicles.

The Ancient Mariner