RAF looking at the possibilities of replacing the complete Chinook fleet.
 

With new.

https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/uk-eyes-wide-ranging-chinook-replacement/142042.article’s



In the meantime... psst wanna buy one?

https://gsaauctions.gov/gsaauctions/...91QSCI17131601



..

Been on the cards for a while. The MH-47Gs, errr, I mean ‘H-47ERs’ will act as pump primers to certify cockpit and avionics architecture and address any lingering airworthiness issues. Then I would imagine the remaining Lot 1 aircraft (including -718j would be replaced by new build (ideally Block II) F models with some UK ASE and comms, and the later attrition buys, Mk5s and Mk6s are new enough to get (another....) cockpit and systems upgrade.

718 wants to go to a museum if it comes off.

The RAF museum had a replica fuselage walk through exhibit which they intended to replace with BN
when it retired. That was before they started to turn the museum into a cafe with a few aircraft......
Have not been back recently.
mmitch.

Where on earth do you see a café with a few aircraft?? This is Hendon or Cosford you're talking about, right?

A complete Chinook would be a great exhibit to replace a couple of others there however.

Hendon. They even fitted shortened Sunderland wing floats supports so it allowed more cafe space... they would have shifted the whole aircraft if they weren't worried it would collapse.

Have a look at the before and after shots in post one.

https://www.key.aero/forum/historic-...afety-makeover

The latest is the Hampden rebuild is going there, but they have decided not to rebuild the wings, so it will be displayed wingless and split in two so you can see inside.

https://www.key.aero/article/hampden-fuselage-hendon

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford...ought-back-to/

That whole hangar has been rebuilt and it's now the front of house for the whole museum. It houses quite a few more exhibits than what it used to. I'd say it was due to there being more to see that the floor space is at a premium now, hence something has to give. Does it matter that the floats were shortened in 2018, and the struts are in storage and can be refitted if the cafe or aircraft ever moved? Also it makes for a nice setting to be able to sit under the Sunderland to have lunch. And for H&S reasons you wouldn't want people splitting their heads open and suing left right and centre.

Also the Hampden - as far as i can see, it's never been displayed, and the only problem with not being able to fix the wings is having the space to cover them?

So I'm not entirely sure whether this is all much ado about nothing.

Are you by any chance the RAFM CEO? Because you are trying to defend the turning of the RAF's premier museum into North West London's largest creche. The rebuilt BoB Hangar may have more exhibits but that includes far fewer aircraft and some of those you can't see because the 'kiddies play areas' hide them. For the sake of losing two tables (and 20 seating places) in a floor area that can seat (I estimate) 200+, the Sunderland floats can be reinstated and a display peninsular placed underneath to protect the museum from injury claims by the terminally accident prone. I do hope that the struts (and wire braces) are clearly labelled by several means and stored safely at Stafford because when that closes (inevitably) they are liable to be misplaced/sold/stolen. The safest place for them is attached to the wing of a Sunderland, preferably the one they came off.
As for the Hampden wings, they are in several very crumpled and corroded lumps on the racking of the museum's conservation centre at Cosford and it would take the staff there several years to restore them. As for the space to cover them there will be more than enough once they finish recovering the Wellington which is currently sharing the floor with the Hampden's fuselage.

i'm not defending anything - just trying to provide a bit of balance to the above.

Hendon is a nicer, more modern place now. Like it or not, they have to cater for the future generations - if that means having more cafe space for families and kids play areas, then so be it - where is the next generation of future RAF personnel going to get its' inspiration from? I do sincerely hope you're a parent of young children, so that you can understand why there are places for them to burn off a little energy and to sit down and feed them.

There are 3 more huge buildings that house aircraft (if you include Hangar 2) from all eras, so complaining about the Sunderland really is a moot point, especially when the initial complaint was about aircraft making way for cafes when the whole site is packed with aircraft.

Wasn't there some sort of grand plan to build a 'tower of planes', akin to an ice cream cone, to hold all or some of the Battle of Britain aircraft.
Is that still on the cards or gone out of the window?

Plastic replicas in a Tower of Babel. That went out the window with the apparent abrupt demise of the previous regime, to then be replaced by Madame , with such edificies as a calvacade of hats...........

Anyway, back to on topic...
It’s no surprise that an ageing fleet is going to cause serviceability problems. A short-term solution could be to remove a number of the oldest, least economically viable airframes form the Fleet. This would have the advantage of increasing the pool of spares and releasing engineers to work on the remaining aircraft. A, say, 10% reduction in numbers would probably have very little impact on the number of aircraft available at front line....indeed there would likely be a short-term (1-3 year) improvement in serviceability, which might see the Fleet through to the arrival of the new aircraft.

Is there need for a fleet of c.60 aircraft plus medium lift Merlin and potential Puma replacement and how old are the 16 extended range aircraft? Genuine question and not Crab bashing.

Why would we need to replace the Puma?

There is an active LH sales pitch to offer 189 or similar as a replacement. Can CHF provide the medium lift capacity needed across MoD? Unsure so maybe a limited buy of an LH product is needed to secure some jobs and offer a medium size platform, and Blackhawk is dated now, wouldn't represent a good buy, so not the option and FVL is too far in the future...possibly.

Because they won’t last, they’re nowt like a Wessex as one was told back in the mid 70’s..

If you were at the RAES conference this week you would have heard the usual specious argument that ‘sending a half empty Chinook is not efficient’ trotted out. On one level, it’s of course correct. But on the WLC basis it’s utter nonsense - sending a Chinook half full once in a while is massively more efficient than paying the support overhead for another aircraft type. The issue is why we need Merlin and Puma. In the SH role, Merlin is an expensive, large and asthmatic aircraft, with a fraction of a Chinook’s capability and little advantage (if any) over a Puma in high DA circumstances. The Puma is smaller and cheaper - and size can matter in an urban environment. CHF, the RN, and AW will screech ‘marinisation’ but it’s really only a shrill note of protectionism. The key to LitM is the planning, not the platform. Give CHF a Chinook Sqn and get over it - retaining the SQEP and giving them a significant capability boost. Replace Puma with FLRAA, make it usable off QEC, and suddenly the UK is in the SToM business and able to execute 250kt plus vertical envelopment missions. I was disappointed, but not surprised, by the industrial and military protectionism displayed this week.......

I suppose new build would be the way ahead, though I bet there are a few Vietnam war aircraft still floating about that have been through zero hours rebuilds. I mean the US retired one in 2017 that was built in 1962 and the 5th Chinook into service, so it is feasible.


https://www.dvidshub.net/news/369362...-museum-flight

Not sure I completely agree. One thing we are and have always been short of is ‘quality’ medium lift ie Chinook. Reducing platform numbers does not really help this problem. Just ends up being less with less and the same high demand. Rather than concentrate on numbers, define the requirement; then judge what you can do with what is left and make this the policy....

I know it's an old one but maybe the RAF should apply the 'MRCA' policy - 'Must Refurbish Chinook Again'.
(Was originally 'Canberra' in place of 'Chinook')

Shows that calling the change from Mark 1 to Mark 2 some 13-15 years after it (finally!) entered service a "Mid Life Update" was way short of the mark, eh? Do hope any refurbishment/replacement programme is better-organised and better-run than that fiasco (shouldn't be difficult).

I think you’re referring to the introduction of the Mk 3

Having a large fleet doesn’t necessarily translate into front line numbers. I doubt whether we field more than a dozen or so at any one time. We might just about be able to double that in an emergency....but not for very long.

Nope - that was a completely different goat-cluster. I was Chinooks from 1989 to 1997, which included the period of the Mid Life Update; definitely just the change from Mark 1 to Mark 2.

Basic problem. It was called an 'update' when it was an 'upgrade'. Huge difference, primarily in resources allocated. And then FADEC joined the party, as it was delayed so much it missed the Mk1 boat.

Similar to Mk3. When it was a simple Mk2 follow-on buy, it was basically a minor task. As soon as HQ wanted a split Mk2/3, planning blight should have been declared as there was nobody to take on the task.

No hindsight involved. It's easier to list those who didn't warn senior staff. The 2 Star happened to be the same one as RMPA/Nimrod 2000/MRA4. It's a small world in that part of MoD.

Goat-cluster is harsh on goats.

tuc:-
Indeed, let's call it for what it is, a VSO cluster! Chinook Mk2, Mk3, Nimrod Mk2, MRA4, they all have one thing in common; the bullying, incompetent, and negligent VSOs who presided over those scandals. They go on being protected while the UK Military Airfleets become ever more infected by a pandemic of unairworthiness. If Covid-19 had indeed been deliberately released on the world by a malevolent state you would be ill advised to take advise from it on how it might be stopped, yet that is exactly the fate of UK Military Airworthiness.

It was deliberately subverted by RAF VSOs set on plundering the Air Safety budgets to pay for the results of a disastrous AMSO policy. Their actions have been officially covered up ever since and the resultant airworthiness related fatal air accidents that inevitably followed were blamed on hapless 1*'s, SO's, and most scandalous of all, deceased JO's! That cover up has been upheld by the RAF Star Chamber ever since. And the guardian of UK Military Airworthiness, the MAA (an MOD subsidiary that is of course completely "independent" of the MOD!), perpetuates the myth that the very time that subversion occurred was a "Golden Period" of Air Safety! Birds of a feather?

Just like Covid-19, aviation isn't interested in good intentions. Given half a chance either one will do its best to kill you if not checked. Lack of airworthiness is a sure way to help aviation do just that. That is why Air Regulation and Accident Investigation must be independent of the MOD and of each other.

Self Regulation Doesn't Work and in Aviation it Kills!

Looking at this you can see why it might make sense

https://www.defensenews.com/global/a...ing-new-helos/

Chugalug2 - and the MAA just keeps generating more pointless hoops to jump through in an effort to prove that paper-safety = real airworthiness (it doesn't) with more bow-ties and safety cases than you can shake a stick at. Keeps career officers in a job but not much else.

Absolutely! The problem for the MAA is that the Regs had already been pulped and the corporate memory forcibly removed before its foundation stone, The Nimrod Review, was well and truly laid. That of course was based on the lie that the very time that the VSO attack on the MOD Airworthiness System occurred was a "Golden Period" of UK Military Airworthiness. If that were so, then the Good Lord protect us from any lesser periods!

So the MAA kicks off with a Year Zero and attempts to rebuild the UK Military Air Safety from its shattered remains. As the man from the Nationwide BS commented, "it doesn't work like that!", and it never will. The only organisation in the UK with an uninterrupted knowledge and expertise in Airworthiness Regulation now is the CAA. Apart from the urgent need to wrest Air Regulation out of the maw of the MOD, the advantage of doing so would be to sister a reformed MAA (with a new civil Director General) alongside the CAA. I have no doubt that neither party would welcome such a marriage, but it would give access to the expertise and knowledge that the MAA is so lacking in. Only then could the long painful rebuilding of airworthiness in the UK Military Airfleets begin.

Ditto all the above with the MilAAIB (or whatever the latest signwriting variant is now hanging outside the front door) to the AAIB. Then, and only then, can Military Air Accident Investigations be able to gain full access to all the evidence previously withheld from BoIs and SIs by commission or omission. We can then expect some real horror stories emerging into the cold and un-cosy outside world.

I imagine there will be some considerable resistance to my suggestions above, not least because the MAA would have to admit that their foundation stone was made of sand and the cover up would have to be uncovered to reveal the dross that lays beneath.

Hmmmmmmm........... No Comment

No, I will say something, the CAA is a shadow of its past, gutted from what was an excellent and knowledgeable institution often manned by licenced personal that knew their business, this has been replaced by a shambolic and vastly undermanned organisation of civil servants on the whole that was cut to the core as services transferred to EASA and are now expected to regain those lost skills and knowledge with a vastly undermanned staff.
Areas once the backbone of common sense and safety have been thrown to the wind like confetti, an example is the Light Aircraft Maintenance Programme or LAMP as it was known.
True it had its faults, but it was the backbone of maintenance in setting minimum inspection requirements on aircraft and ensuring the GA fleets in the UK were maintained to a set standard, all be it what could be seen as a minimum, but never the less a standard.
Gone, now you might think what are we using now, the manufacturer’s schedules? No, we are having to write our own maintenance programmes, which really means several things, standardisation is gone and the ability for different companies to maintain one aircraft with the minimum of disruption to a standard has disappeared, programmes could be written to do even less and err towards being financially oriented against safety.
Additionally the main driver behind this appears to be to be to protect the CAA from being sued by pushing the responsibility for airworthiness onto the "customer" as opposed to the authority, It also makes it harder for companies to maintain a visiting aircraft, the idea that the maintenance company that looks after an aircraft has to provide their maintenance programme they have spent monies on producing to a competitor, so that they can use it sort of throws the idea and legality of intellectual property to the wind.

Even the CAA so called less regulation is creating more as one finds oneself having to write maintenance programmes for all the aircraft under ones control, and that is an individual program for every individual aircraft as well as changing the format of the schedules, but also rewriting the companies exposition and then re applying to continue to do the same thing........ And don't ask about Licences.

The CAA are not the be all and end all of it, and no matter how much paperwork you throw at it, safety does NOT improve, in fact the opposite, those that never did the job correctly in the first place will simply ignore the latest paperwork trail and carry one as before, while those who are diligent will find themselves with more onerous legislation to plough through with no advantages.

Hey that was almost a rant.... :)

I'm very glad that you did decide to comment, Nutty, thank you! If the outlook for UK civil regulation is as bleak as you say, and I for one have no reason to doubt you, then all the more reason for the CAA to get its own house in order, before our dear EU friends (as I understand is the approved way of referring to them) ban all UK civil aviation from their airspace. It might start by trying to lure back those who saw a future for themselves with EASA. It might also just be that there arises an equal and opposing force repelling them by our dear EU friends. Who knows?

I don't for one moment see the CAA as any sort of Regulatory panacea. Those of us who have had to earn a crust while under their benevolent bureaucracy can vouch for the never ending bumph and extortionate charges they are minded to levy. In their favour though, I very much doubt if they have ever deliberately sought to subvert and suborn their own airworthiness regulations and thereafter protect the perpetrators, thus obstructing any possibility of reforming the dysfunctional system their malevolence would have caused.

It is no solution to shrug our shoulders and say that UK civil and military airworthiness is going to hell in a handcart but what can we do? I'll tell you what aviation will do, take its toll of human life as though it were Christmas! I hope that we can agree that Regulator, Investigator, and Operator must be truly independent of each other to ensure Air Safety, or it cannot work. At the moment that is precisely the situation in UK Military Aviation. Until we can ensure that independence, avoidable accidents and needless fatalities will continue unnecessarily.

Air Power, the whole raison d'etre of military aviation, will suffer accordingly. One day the RAF will once again be pitted against a comparable opponent. Too late then to discover that there is something wrong with our bloody aircraft!

It all comes down to money in the end - you can underfund the CAA and wonder why it starts to struggle or you can cut costs in Mil aviation because doing it properly costs a lot - then you paper over the cracks with...errr paper, neverending reams of more complex requirements, none of which address the actual issue of airworthiness but simply make it look like so many people working hard must be making things safer.

More a case of cause and effect I'd say. The CAA has been reduced by the rise of EASA to which much of its expertise and knowledge has gone. Even so it remains AFAIK self funded, much to the pecuniary distress of aircrew and engineers alike.

Military Airworthiness budgets were plundered by RAF VSOs in order to pay for spectacularly incompetent AMSO policies and was fatally damaged by their malevolent excesses. The MAA thus inherited a busted flush and no amount of mission statements or Golden Periods could revive this forever pining Norwegian Blue.

The essential ring fencing of Air Safety budgets was breached year after year. Skilled and knowledgeable engineers were replaced by untrained and inexperienced apparatchiks who knew only to tick the required boxes to ensure that Safety Cases were broken, one after the other. The resulting canker infected fleet after fleet. Yes, it was about money but only because that Air Safety ring fencing was deliberately torn asunder by RAF VSOs.

The result is as you describe, a bureaucracy kept busy achieving little or nothing. The long term effect will be to reduce this nation's Air Power such that our ability to prevail in a future Air War will be hugely compromised. Even Fat Hermann never achieved that. The cover up must end and those responsible brought to book!