72 Sqn trouble
 

Saw this on Facebook and thought it might cause some debate

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....40804fa493.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d08599e807.jpg

Are Facebook/ pprune really the ideal venues for airing these types of issues?

Yes!! The Dasor system does not work and allows middle management and senior officers to "paper over the cracks" whilst effecting zero change.

This dasor could read across to many fleets at the moment.

Sad times.

My thought exactly... But if the powers that be have fingers in ears and are la-la-la-ing, the professionals being put at risk may feel they have nowhere else to go.

CG

I can sympathise with those in this situation. In the 80s I worked on an RAF training unit with similar issues. The courses got well behind the drag curve (putting the Boss's future career path in danger) so it was announced that to get maximum usage from the available aircraft there would henceforth be two shifts, early and late.

We all ended up working both shifts....and some weekends.

In this day and age stuff like this should be long gone. I'd never have thought it'd be going on in the RAF of 2021.

It seems that continuity (or the severe lack of it) has been a major problem for a long time. This from ten years ago :-

'No blame' Over RAF Tornado Crash - PPRuNe Forums

plusçachange...

If not Facebook and PPRuNe, where? If a student and/or QFI died as a result of this situation you'd be the first screaming for heads to roll.

This should not be swept under the carpet and hidden. Ascent is being paid an inordinate sum of money to provide this service, and to hear their PR you'd think all was rosy. It is not and as a contractor they need to be made accountable and to sort it out.

Time for AOC 22 Gp and CAS, yes, CAS, to get up there and get to the bottom of this.

A totally outrageous situation, never ever saw anything remotely like this in my days as a QFI.

Maybe this is just what it needs. Public airing of the issues and red faces all round with any luck. The problem I foresee is the UK has previous form in shooting messengers rather than fixing the problem, especially where someone is making serious money out of the problems.

None of this should surprise anyone. It was always a foregone conclusion that MFTS would fail spectacularly - it could go no other way. The reason is this - prior to MFTS, the MOD ran its own FT system, and the driving force was Standards. The system was honed to provide the best quality training possible. This is no longer the case. MFTS is now run for a profit, plain and simple. Is there anyone who seriously believes that a profit driven system will provide a better prodect than a quality driven system?

Now, when you start to drill down into this, the reasons are clear and obvious. Ascent is a 'Special Purpose Vehicle' - a company 'invented' to run the MFTS contract. It has no other purpose and is not bidding for anything else..so why would they care about their reputation? They only existed to get the MFTS contract, and they achieved that. Job done. Also, Ascent is just another way of saying "Lockheed Martin and Babcock'. These are 2 companies that are not known for being charities - they exist to make a profit, and quite right too, why shouldn't they?

I have heard many describe the Ascent management as thoroughly incompetent and clueless. In fact, I have never heard them described as anything else. However, whether they are or not is dependant on what yardsick you use to judge them. Bear in mind they are not (poorly) paid to care about standards. They do not care about quality - quality costs money. They are paid to help Ascent make a profit and to defend the contract. They want to provide the cheapest solution they can to maximize the corporate profit. This means buying as few as possible of the cheapest airframes they can. It means employing as few people as possible and pushing them as hard as possible. It means minimizing flying and cutting corners wherever possible. Judged against this remit, the management suddenly look a lot less incompetent. They are doing what they are paid to do. The real issue is that this was blindingly obvious to everyone apart from the Senor officers who decided to implement this system. The sheer incompetence and dereliction of duty of those officers cannot be overstated.

Ascent have provided H135 for rearcrew training that are too small. H145's that 3 years after arrival still cannot teach overwater winching. Phenoms that are inferior as trainers to the aircraft they replaced, Hawks with insufficient engines...so these Texan woes are only to be expected. The MOD have got precisely what I and so many others told them they would get.

To the issue at hand. The DDH has 2 choices here. He either has the moral courage to do the right thing and to be seen doing it, or he protects his career. He should ground 72 Sqn immediately and launch a full and open investigation into the claims made here. If there is an accident and this is not addressed, he will quite rightly go to prison. I also have no doubt that he is was already aware of everyhing said here, but just kept looking resolutely out of the window rather than addressing the issue at hand. The genie is now out of the bottle and he no longer has that option. I pray the Press pick this up.

The parents of the students on 72 Sqn should all call the Stn Cdr at Valley and demand an inquiry - a public one. They should be calling their MP's and demanding a full public enquiry. They should be writing to newspapers.

The MOD wanted this system, and they must now accept responsibility for abject failure that it is.

For the uninitiated perhaps you could explain the following:

a. Who are these 'schedulers'? In ye olde days the program was hacked out 'in house' ie on the squadron. Don't tell me the RAF now suffers from the same affliction the airlines do ie workloads and lifestyles determined by a spotty-faced clerk who knows all the rules but never has to live with the reality and the consequences of their output.

b. If there so little flying going on, and with an ever shrinking front-line, what is filling these 11 hour days?

Many thanks

Since when has 72 been an (F)? I thought that that was reserved for a defined small number of squadrons. Or is this another change to the RAF that I have missed?

Mog

Nomenclature is determined by history as much as it is by current role. II(AC)Sqn does very little by way of army co-operation these days.

Smoke and Mirrors Mogwi
How to make the RAF appear more potent with the stroke of a pen..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._72_Squadron_RAF

The number of roles offered on Ascents employment vacancies show it’s definitely not a competitive employer

They have had QHI and QHCI vacancies at 202 for many months - they cannot fill them. The pay, terms and conditions at Ascent are dreadful. They survive (sort of) from the willingness and desire of those leaving the forces, and also the ex-Cobham people, to remain in the same location. I am willing to bet you cannot find anyone who can say, with honesty that they are proud to work for Ascent. It pays the bills and keeps them where they want to be, and that's it. That said, a LOT of Ascent people have quit since MFTS started, and I have not met one who did not find far more rewarding and lucrative work elsewhere.

Back in 1976, it took a fatal accident involving a solo Hunter student before 'fatigue' became an issue. If I recall correctly, the working day thenceforth was to be no longer than 8 hours.

I've done a fair bit of flying training scheduling, both 'strategic' (e.g. course scheduling) and 'tactical'. Strategic was OK, provided that fellow instructors had given me their availability (i.e. not on leave, on a course etc.) so I could build the course tasking in plenty of time and tell the squadron our day-to-day needs for the following week, bearing in mind GDT/ODT/CCS and other 'service diversions'. All went swingingly until some Boss tried to insert his "I'll get smartie points from this" personal wish for a co-pilot to captain course for some chosen one into the game plan, which buggered the whole plot. The only other problem was when some instructor or other would suddenly announce that he wanted a week on leave despite having already been scheduled.... That was all done using chinagraph boards....and then came some infernal IT system which made scheduling MUCH slower. At Brize it was known as STARS and was utterly appalling!

'Tactical' scheduling was the sort of thing needed for exercises. First go and talk with the Engineers to find out availability of jets, then Sqn ops to find out how many crews were available and also establish the RS requirement. Then build the crew call-out sequence; Rule No. 1 being to allocate the Boss to the first available jet to keep him out of the way! Again that went well until some eager beaver Flt Cdr wanted everyone in at Taceval Part 2 startex, which totally blew the plan if peacetime fatigue rules were to be respected.

'Tactical' scheduling was also need for day-to-day UAS planning. At around 16:30, speak to engineers and find out how many aircraft would be available the following day, also check the diary to know which students were coming. Try to match students to their normal QFI where possible, then check weather to see what effect that might have. With the assistance of one of the students, write QFI and student / exercise no. on magnetic plaques and put them on the board, allowing time between sorties for brief/debrief, dual to solo, duty QFI in tower allocation etc.... Quite a multi-dimensional art and often opitmisation rather than total solution was the only outcome.

Sorry for rabbitting on, but the art of successful flight training schedule is not something learned overnight, nor can IT systems cope adequately with the plethora of competing inputs with which the programmer has to deal.

Timetabling in any setting is often described thus: "For those who have done it properly, no explanation is required; for those who haven't, no explanation is possible!"

CG

.....so just what are these competitive salaries being offered by Ascent to Hawk and “Texan” QFI s. ?

.. and 72 WAS a fighter squadron, last with Javelins, its now an FTS, so why do they persist with F ?

IT systems can. Just not the ones generally bought by the MOD and their contractors for 5p off their mate.

Even it the military world a CHIRP report could be filed.

IT systems don't do nuance.
Way back when Finningley was the Nav trainer, and I was the occasional Met. Lecturer, to see "Sgt Mac" [if memory serves] juggling real time problems of timetabling involving lecturers/ students/ classrooms/leave/sickness/detachments and flying programme interfaces armed with a whiteboard and pencil and paper was an education in itself.

The point isn't to let the IT system schedule. It's just a better scheduling board. But a bas one is definitely worse than the old board!

There's mention of a chronic shortage of aircraft on the early part of page 1. However, four additional Texans were delivered to Valley during the first week of last November. Since their arrival these four airplanes have not seen the light of day, and indeed have been placed on the CAA register.

This seems strange. Can anyone explain why this has happened?. The initial order for ten airplanes, was, IMHO was way too few, MoD penny-pinching, as usual?.

No, not penny pinching by the MOD. The training solution is entirely owned by Ascent - the military get no say in how their people are trained. Ascent selected the aircraft and decided on numbers.

As I said earlier, they have no interest whatsoever in the standard of training - at Ascent the cost is EVERYTHING. They provided the cheapest platforms they could, and the minimum number.

They have now had to order more Texans and more 145’s as their plans were complete crap. They are staggeringly incompetent when it comes to any ability to provide training, but my goodness they understand profit.

1. What was the date of the narrative in the first post?

2. Is Ascent more focused on profit or cost?

Just as an aside, the case for fatigue is well made in the narrative. I'm not sure that any case has been made for 'mental health' problems, the use of this (somewhat vague but trendy) phrase rather devalues the serious problems that seem to exist.

This is unbelievable! Which senior officer/MOD wonk negotiated this contract with Ascent and how do we back out of it?

What annoys me even more is that they resurrected 1 FTS at Shawbury when they could have converted DHFS back into 2 FTS as it should have been.

And it my time it flew Wessex, so should it be 72 (H)?

I beg to differ. There is a well-established medical link between fatigue and depression - if you are fatigued you are 4 times more likely to become depressed, and vice versa. It is all there in the literature. The reporter describes people being ground down, staff becoming distressed, animosity and resentment between students, all indicators of low morale or, as the medics might have it, low mood. I think that is actually a good case showing impact on their mental health which adds weight to the scale of the problems, not devalues them.

Trendy it might be, but the trend has led to armed forces, regulators and airlines across the world taking mental health seriously. That move has been long overdue.

Unless I am very much mistaken, here on planet earth in 2021 employers are required by law to have a variety of systems and policies in place to protect their employees, including, inter alia, whistleblowing and health and safety protocols.
In recent times, the scope and scale of personal liability of management and responsible persons has grown markedly, and as has been mentioned, can include prison.
Whilst I have no issue with the original poster airing the issues here, they might be better served by using the existing means at their disposal, which can mostly be invoked anonymously.

I recall the late Phil Pynegar's suspicion of such schemes... "All very well, but a bit of a shocker getting a call starting with, Ah, Flt Lt Pynegar, about that CONDOR you sent in..."

Bit of a bummer if that happens when you are having a serious pop at the senior management, eh?

CG

There is a world of difference between being depressed and depression, being unhappy with your lot is NOT the same as being ill although I believe it can be a precursor. It is very unhelpful for those who are suffering from mental illness to confuse understandable emotional reactions with symptoms of illness.

Dont know relevant this is to the current discussion, probably not very, but to someone who has been out of the game as long as I have, it is staggering to read what has happened to the RAF in recent years.

When I went through nav school in 1969-70, I recall it as a time of intense activity, a year crammed with flying, classroom work and survival training etc, with little time to draw breath. I remember that at the end of basic nav training at Gaydon we had a wash up where were asked for suggestions which might help improve the course. I suggested that perhaps one afternoon a month might be left free so that we could carry out routine admin tasks such as going to SHQ, visiting stores to exchange kit and that sort of thing. The DS were shocked by the suggestion and I was told in no uncertain terms that there was no chance of fitting such a period into an already crowded training programme. It now seems that far from an afternoon a month to do a bit of admin, some of these poor sods are getting so little flying they could be given a month off and told to go away and find something useful to do. Heartbreaking.

TTN - in today’s RAF, it’s more like one afternoon per month being allocated to flying!

My lad, nearly 17, has had his heart set on flying in the RAF since he was a nipper, following family tradition. As of now, I cannot recommend that path to him.
Sad times.

Commercial Reality Check Guys !
 

30 per cent of professional pilots throughout the world are unemployed with little to no chance of finding work in the medium term. 17 % of professional pilots are furloughed with little to no chance of significant numbers returning to work in the short to medium term. Those remaining at work are braced for further job losses and deep cuts to their terms and conditions of employment. While a 11 hour working day is a long duty period its not exceptional and 12 1/2 hours is a regular typical flying duty in the civilian sector. If your only flying 140 hours per annum you have it easy. 100 flying hours per 28 days is the summer target for the airlines and these hours are spread through deep nights, very early starts, late starts with time zone disturbances thrown in. You report 12 QFIs to 12 student QFIs and 22 students. That divides up to less than 3 students per instructor which seems very reasonable and manageable. If students are not flying often enough and your concerned about continuity and safety, then as the QFI you do not send them solo and if the course foot print over runs so be it. If your concerned about flight planning software and other dispatch issues deal with them your not flying much you have all the time in the world to resolve these problems. While the report highlights domestic problems within your Squadron these concerns should have been managed domestically in house using the established chain of command. This report should not have been published in an open forum and it borders on mutiny if it has been published by a military officer. It certainly brings the service into disrepute. Frequent shift changes not getting home when you expect to get home bluntly "thats life in a blue suit" please be thankful that your on salary right now, that your flying a wonderful aeroplane with a ready supply of talented highly motivated and aptitude selected students. Your the QFI you know what the problems are fix those that you can, recruit colleagues to fix those that you cant and when you have done all that you possibly put the kettle on have a cup of tea and chill out. Seriously enjoy being on salary.

....but please use you’re where you mean you’re not your.!!

I see it made the Daily Mail today,