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Learn to fly at Leeming
“ A continuing shortage of capacity in its flying training organisation has led the UK's Royal Air Force (RAF) to return to training pilots on Hawk T1 aircraft, three years after it retired the analog cockpit-equipped jet from this role. Later this year, the RAF will begin training fast jet pilots at RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire using Hawk T1 aircraft from 100 Squadron, which is normally tasked with flying dissimilar or aggressor training missions. An RAF spokesman told Jane's on 21 January, "100 Squadron is not being re-roled and will continue to deliver operational training and dissimilar air combat training. However, as one of several innovative measures, the RAF is planning to use spare Hawk T1 capacity in the squadron to assist with pilot training. This will maximise throughput to the front line while the Military Flying Training System [MFTS] continues to grow." An RAF source confirmed to Jane's that approximately six pilots a year would be trained at RAF Leeming from "this summer". The Hawk T1 variant entered RAF service in 1976 but was retired from the advanced fast jet pilot training role in June 2016 with the disbandment of 206 (Reserve) Squadron at RAF Valley on the Welsh island of Anglesey. All UK advanced pilot training then migrated to the 'glass' cockpit-equipped Hawk T2 at RAF Valley. Hawk T1s were retained in the dissimilar and operational flying training role with 100 Squadron and 736 Naval Air Squadron at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall. The RAF Red Arrows aerobatic team also operates the T1. The UK expects its fleet of some 80 Hawk T1s to be retired by 2030. Just under half of the fleet is used on a daily basis, with the rest held in a spares and maintenance pool. The RAF source said 100 Squadron's aircraft were being used for fast jet training because of a recent surge in recruitment.” https://www.janes.com/article/85879/...ing-on-hawk-t1 |
'Innovative'.
Utter balls. |
Originally Posted by unmanned_droid
(Post 10369665)
'Innovative'.
Utter balls. |
Well I learnt to fly at Leeming in 1965
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Originally Posted by sharpend
(Post 10369765)
Well I learnt to fly at Leeming in 1965
|
If only we had access to a large multi-national fast jet training program somewhere in North America, for NATO pilots.....
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206(R) Sqn is not correct. They are still currently the Heavy Aircraft Test Sqn, AFAIK.
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Originally Posted by camelspyyder
(Post 10369794)
206(R) Sqn is not correct. They are still currently the Heavy Aircraft Test Sqn, AFAIK.
As for the blurb, replace "innovative" with "desperate" and I suspect you are getting closer to the truth! Really worrying thing is that the day is getting ever closer when the RAF simply wont have the capacity for even these innovative measures. |
Well someone's interested...
Freedom Of Information Dear Ministry of Defence,1. Can the Department confirm its plans for the use of Hawk Tmk1 in the Air Support Role out until the end of FY27/28? This specifically requests clarity be given wrt the following areas: 736 Naval Air Squadron (NAS), 100 Squadron (Sqn) and The Red Arrows. Key questions are as follows: a. Clarify its position wrt any decision to extend 736 NAS operating the Hawk Tmk1 in the Air Support Role for an additional 18 months (iro November 2021). Please comment on TUPE considerations relating to contractor staff (Babcock), and FTRS aircrew. Please provide details of any IAC submission placed, including option submitted, in late 2018 along with the findings, recommendations and decisions. b. What effect, if any, would an extension of 736 NAS have on the Forward Available Fleet (FAF) for 100 Sqn from April 2020, and what risk to the FAF in FY26/27 due to the depth fleet capacity to support requirements? Response to include the planned depth phase flow by aircraft serial numbers, intended use across the Hawk Tmk1 community and numbers of aircraft at unit level out until the end of FY26/27. c. What is the latest position on the current HIOS contract with BAE Systems wrt Hawk Tmk1 support? Please provide aircraft serial numbers, planned maintenance phase flows, airframe hours of ALL remaining aircraft by serial number, and projected end of fatigue life for each airframe. d. What is the status of the HIOS contract for the period April 2020 onwards? Please provide all non-commercial in confidence details. e. What is the current disposition of the Hawk Tmk1 fleet numbers, maintenance phase flows, airframe hours of ALL remaining aircraft by serial number, and projected end of fatigue life for each airframe. f. What is the funded Annual Flying Task (AFT) position for Hawk Tmk1 for 736 NAS, 100 Sqn and The Red Arrows each year out until the end of FY26/27 or disbandment, if earlier. g. What is the breakdown of AFT allocated against each Hawk Tmk1 user in sub-para f? For example, out of 4,200hrs on 100 Sqn, how much is for: Close Air Support (CAS), Air-to-Air Adversary Training, Refresher Training/Conversion, Crew Continuation Training, Air Exercise Programme and Defence Engagement? For 736 NAS this could include Maritime Trials, Adversary and Fighter Control Training. 2. Please direct as required through sS staffs, ensuring as a minimum the following areas act as respondents:Navy Comd – DACOS Av Staff HQ Air – A7 Staff HQ Air – 1Gp Hawk DE&S – Hawk Fleet Manager DE&S – Hawk In-service Delivery Manager Yours faithfully, Robert Toland |
Originally Posted by sharpend
(Post 10369765)
Well I learnt to fly at Leeming in 1965
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cheers |
Clearly MFTS IS the bag o' nails many on here have been claiming for years.
Has a T-6 flown in mil marks at Valley yet? You know, one of the TEN they think is all they will need chopper2004, And an equally strong rumour has NO future at all for 736NAS post 2021... |
So if 6 pilots per annum are going to be trained on the Hawk T1 at Leeming, how/where will they do their weaponeering? Of course it was different when 4FTS was an AFS and all weaponeering was taught at TWU, but ever since the shotgun wedding of 'mirror image' and the ending of traditional TWUs, things are less clear. Particularly since all Valley weaponeering is now merely synthetic in nature.
Are these lucky 6 going to do some fast jet AFS at Leeming on the Hawk T1, then convert to the T2 to meet OCU entry requirements or will there be sufficient exponents of triggernometry to include a weapons phase at Leeming? 'tis indeed a crock - as those with any experience predicted it would be. And how goes ME pilot training on the Phenom, assuming that there haven't been any more mid-air collisions? I see MFTS is still trying to recruit BFTS instructors for Valley. What a surprise....:rolleyes: |
Whilst not a former pilot, I understand enough from my years of service to say ... What a bloody FARCE!! |
Originally Posted by BEagle
(Post 10370645)
So if 6 pilots per annum are going to be trained on the Hawk T1 at Leeming, how/where will they do their weaponeering? Of course it was different when 4FTS was an AFS and all weaponeering was taught at TWU, but ever since the shotgun wedding of 'mirror image' and the ending of traditional TWUs, things are less clear. Particularly since all Valley weaponeering is now merely synthetic in nature.
Are these lucky 6 going to do some fast jet AFS at Leeming on the Hawk T1, then convert to the T2 to meet OCU entry requirements or will there be sufficient exponents of triggernometry to include a weapons phase at Leeming? 'tis indeed a crock - as those with any experience predicted it would be. And how goes ME pilot training on the Phenom, assuming that there haven't been any more mid-air collisions? I see MFTS is still trying to recruit BFTS instructors for Valley. What a surprise....:rolleyes: I reckon that it is just going to be, what used to be called, a "Fast Jet Lead In" course, with Donna Nook or Holbeach for Air to Surface firing and lots of free upper air with Linton closing. The boys and girls who win the prize of doing this training will be taught be real RAF Fighter Pilots, not pensioners or civvy pilots from a time gone by. Real, serving, blue suited, current people, with intimate knowledge of what the front line wants, without commercial pressures and more importantly, without the civvy PFI contract to provide a way to hide behind and weasel out of missed (not AWR) targets. I saw a documentary last week, on the Paras, where the staff pointed out that they chop people on the basis that if they allow a poor or borderline student to pass, they might have to depend on that person in a real fight in a few months time. Their friends on the front line might have to depend on that person much sooner. How can the instructors look their mates (or bereaved family) in the eye, if a poor quality candidate is allowed to go to battle and subsequently lets the side down? I think that the same can be said for the current fad of civilian or FTRS(LC) aircrew teaching at 4FTS. Those guys are not going to war with a former student on their wing. The RAF have a choice here, teach what the students need to know, or have them taught what the lawyers and beancounters agreed that MoD would pay for. Not even close to the same thing. |
It gets better I'm told.....
- The first guy arriving directly on the Typhoon OCU direct from Linton - The first guy doing the entirety of his pilot trg in the synthetic environment, presumably straight onto Typhoon / F-35 Does make you wonder what desperate state of MFTS affairs is driving this 'innovation'.... Then again, I've heard that some VSOs are privately briefing that the only part of the UK Flying Training System that isn't completely and utterly FUBAR'd is the one that operates a legacy aircraft, at a soon to be extinct riverside location. National Audit Office report to come, shaming MFTS, some might hope........ |
BEagle To answer your questions. 1. EFTS started last year on the Prefect about a year ago. 2. Rotary training for ab initios started last week (hybrid courses finishing off those that did not get a chance to finish on Squirrell finished just before Christmas on the Jupiter/Juno). 3. Phenom ab intio course starts in February 2019. 4. T2 training has been going on now for several years. 5. Texan got it’s military release to service at the end of 2018 and is still on track to replace Tucano later this year. 6. The T1 training and ENJPTS training are needed for the uplift of Typhoon squadrons announced in SDSR2015 that UK MFTS was not originally supposed to provide for. Plus the build up of Lightning II increases the ‘thirst’ for baby FJ pilots. 7. Some multi pilots have been outsourced to a large commercial provider - again due to the run on of C130J, the purchase of P-8 and possibly some other ISTAR assets needing to grow. I am the first to agree that the introduction of UK MFTS has been a bit of goat at times, but it is definitely starting to ‘fire on all cylinders’. There are also enhancement options in the pipeline to help cope with the extra demands of the SDSR2015 announcements. New training systems nearly always have teething issues and the introduction of new aircraft from unplanned defence reviews enhance the effect of the teething issues. But, continually sniping at a system I would suggest shows what little you know about capabilities introduced 20 years after you left the Service - Hunters and Gnats with practice bombs, rockets and guns would not prep our people for 4th and 5th generation combat aircraft!!! Also, please give those that are involved in training the next generation of the RAF some credit that they might actually know what they are doing, rise to the challenge and come up with fixes like every person has involved in RAF flying training for the past 100 years. The B Word |
I am as confused as the next person about this "innovative" solution. Clearly the trend, in both training and operational flying, is for less and less actual flying with the synthetics picking up the slack.
On that basis the decision to bring back Hawk T1 from the dead kind of defies belief! In Beagle's defence it does kind of feel like the RAF IS rolling back the years with this, and as another poster said, just introducing a legacy hoop in the system. So why are we doing it? Why cant the 28 Hawk T2s at Valley cover this requirement? I dont think the shortage is airframes, so it must be either teaching staff or maintenance issues, or something else? Or are the naysayers on here right, is the quality of throughput from the highly synthetic training just not up to scratch and the RAF is effectively running a side by side trial?? |
Originally Posted by Typhoondriver
(Post 10370825)
It gets better I'm told.....
- The first guy arriving directly on the Typhoon OCU direct from Linton - The first guy doing the entirety of his pilot trg in the synthetic environment, presumably straight onto Typhoon / F-35 . The Typhoon OCU would not accept a student who has not flown enough hours in a Hawk or similar type. I can see how our (non typhoon) NATO Allies might be able to send a Pilot to learn how to fly the Typhoon, without having gone to Valley, but only if they have been flying something else with similar performance. Without having flown either, I think I am on safe ground to declare that the Tucano is not of similar performance to a Typhoon. No fast jet OCU would accept a trainee Pilot who has not left the ground under his own control. |
Warren Peace,
Whilst in no way wishing to defend the bag 'o ****e that MFTS has clearly turned out to be, I think your rather hysterical rant is rather deflated by the fact that 75% of the instructors at 4 FTS RAF Valley ARE real, serving, blue suited current people.... |
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