2 Gp Star yet again!
 

It was nice to see the Lyneham rugby team being delivered to Lossie by their own personal C-130 yesterday!!!

It's funny that when we need to deploy to the Gulf we have the joy of a 12 hr coach journey down to BZN as no AT is ever available.

Nice to see them looking after their own hey!!



:mad: :mad: :mad:

Ivor,
Suggest you look closer to home for blame and a rant.
C130 crews often queried the mentality of it all.
The normal reply was something along the lines that the pax's base would not provide sufficient crash cover for your pink little bodies or was not 'open' at that time in morn. Sadly though, and this may shock you so I hope you're sitting down comfortably, the common reply was that your 'management' saved money by bussing you down:-(

Nice initiative by the Lyneham guys, local training etc, hope they kicked your sorry ar5e (!!!!!!)

Total Bull$#!t EESDL.

ISK have exactly the same problem yet they are a 24 hour base with sufficient 24 hour crash cat coverage :*

MadMark!!! :mad:

Ivor,

If it was down to us, we'd come and pick you up. However, if you've any brains or experience whatsoever you'd know that in this day and age of strict rules and auth'ing, crews can't do as they please. Which works both ways in your situation and that of the rugby match. I'd say it's a definite that they've been dropped off on the back of a preapproved task.

I suggest you have a winge elsewhere and dry your eyes :ok:

Iva Hardon

If you look at the pax list, you would see that there were some of your very own station's duty pax back from out east. The rugby team jumped on to save the travel costs.

EESDL - My Old,
Lossie have been happy to open on almost every occasion they have been asked when our own or other locals are coming home, it has nearly always been 2 Gp or DTMA that have scuppered the event due ac, crew duty, inflexibility, i've got more occurences than I care to mention. Lossie has even had fillets added to the runway to enable fat jets to turn round on the runway.

Its nice to see 2 Gp looking after their own and inserting the bat on most occasions when it doesn't suit them.

After all, we are all in the company but some look after their own a little more than others!!!!

Ivor

PS Highblahdrifter,

I suspect that the only reason that some Lossie pax were on board was to legitimise the sortie to bring the Rugby team up here. As I said, 99% of the time we end up travelling by coach and nothing is available when we enquire.

Ivor

Amazing the arguments that you can start when you're bored!

I think you'll find it was a training task that was going that way anyway.

:rolleyes:

Ivor: ''I suspect that the only reason that some Lossie pax were on board was to legitimise the sortie to bring the Rugby team up here.''

Yeah right, Lyneham have pax from every station hanging around the terminal just in case they need them as an excuse for a high priority sports trip !

Unless you want to appear more stupid than you do already, I'd keep quiet now.

Hoorah!

Nice to see we can still look after our people without chasing IIP's and EO Diplomas etc.

What was the score, and did they fly the lads home?

Love many, Trust a few, Sour grapes are bad for you!

Here you go,

43 Pax on C-130

13 Lossie based +

30 Members of the Lyneham Rugby team!!!!!!

We have never been able to rustle up a herc for a lowly 13 pax before!!!

able to legitimise sortie with some pax that happened to be passing through I fear.


Ivor

bring on the carnage!!!!

Ivor Fynn well done m8. At least if you'd 'phoned the Sun/Mail/Keswick Reminder/Whatever you'd have got some cash.

This way they get the story for nothing ... do we really have to wash (what may or may not be) our dirty linen this publicly....

Excuse my inexperience here (being an Air Defender) but can someone tell my why when the Jags came back from a recent exercise, the C-130s actually routed over CS before landing at Lyneham? The PAX weren’t entirely happy about the coach journey home. Was it the station penny pinching or was it lack of cover/reluctance to open the airfield?

Maple

The fact is that the crew (and normally the station) have absolutely NO say in AT routing. We are well aware of your final destination and know that you often have long bus journeys which is the last thing you need after a flight in Albert. The tasking/itineries are written by those jolly busy chaps at group, with input from DTMA.

The fact that you don't go to your home base may be due to opening hours, paying civvies overtime, crash cat, customs, crew duty, movers, or a number of other excuses!

Hope this helps.

Thanks Lockstock - it's probably an age thing, but since budget holding and contractorising came in it seems to me that all the 'flex' to help out 'our own' seems to have gone out the window-not a great way to show 'the Team works', to borrow the RN's advertising tag-line

Morale might be low, but at least we're all CCS and RAFFT current!

The bottom line here is that someone has to pay for us to go from a to b and if the various budget holders, at ISK and the like decide that sending you on a bus is better value for money than asking us to come fetch, and believe me it is by a lomg way, then that is exactly what will happen.

Maple I have been involved with the type of move you describe and have when my Captains have enquired info from Ascot Op's is that CS will not stump up for out of hours fire cover which screws our crash cat needs.

No consolation I know but we suffer just as badly on a regular basis with the retrictions on opening hours, all cost driven I might add, by our extremely helpful pals in Kokineli............nothing beats a full day awake to then depart Lyn at 0100 in order to get the A/C in and out of Akro with as little disturbance to the "party":}

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

Ivor Fynn
 

...I fancy some golf in wee poo pong Mcplopland next week....any chance you could arrange for a GR4 to fly down south - solo of course - and pick me and my clubs up?

Main Base Policy
 

I am sure there is a DCI about it.

Tasked to take pax and load from a Scottish airbase to somewhere in Europe, over a weekend. Have trainee aircrew on board so need extra legs. Ask Sqn if they want to be picked up rather than taking the bus. Get approval from Gp to add extra leg for trg. Airfield opens, everybody happy.

A few weeks later, need to nightstop UK for training, over a weekend. Same airfield won't accept us.

A few weeks later, tasked with recovering personnel from a different service, from somewhere in Europe, over a weekend. Personnel are based close to a Scottish airbase. Airbase won't open as its not a station move. Personnel are delivered to nearest civilian airfield.

The reason we have always been given for having to go from Waddo by bus to BZN (or worse - South Cerney) is that the system does not have the flexibility to 'process' us anywhere else.

As for dropping-off -- same problem inc Customs......

In addition, I guess the shiny fleet need specialist unloading equipment to remove the freight. This is certainly not available at Waddo. Although we do have the NATO TCA option who although they scare me fartless will at least pick you up at home plate and deliver you at your destination (for NATO Force Command Exercises only).

Sonic,
Both excuses are bollox, if we can happily pick you up from wogga wogga land with the help of a MAMS team and the obligitory scuffer we can certainly pick you up from Waddo:ok: As regards Custom's us ALM's carry all the required paperwork and your stations plod can act as liason which seems to satisfy HM Customs.

The lack of loading equipment is a definate problem but for the standard flat floor move it is another red herring.

It's simply a cost thing so level complaints at your budget holder:E

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

One of the main driving factors behind the 'main base' policy was consumption of airframe hours. Also, returning loads from theatre(s) and delivering to outlying bases often requires a crew change at Lyneham, using 2 crews for 1 task. Not very efficient, from 2 Gp or the Stn's point of view.

With regards to the rugby team, you'll most likely find that the task used MCT hours - giving up our own (scarce) training time - incurring costs that would have occurred anyway. Not that I agree with using our precious trg hours in this fashion, but that's another issue.

16B

I once went flying on a Fri afternoon; the idea being to do some AAR in the North Sea, then pop into Waddo on the way home to pick up the Stn Cdr and some Air Marshal he was brown-nosing at a meeting before carrying on to the Covert Oxonian aerodrome. All went swimmingly until we lost an engine in the climb.... Sorted that, dumped, RTBd.

"Looks like Kelvin and his chum will have to come back in their car then, Boss"

"Err, no. Sorry, but he's insisting on being picked up by air"

So, as well as having to start the engone change, the groundies also had to generate an a/c from cold. We got a scratch crew together and eventually headed off in the direction of Waddo. Land, taxy round, pick the git up, fly home.

It must have been an urgent reason indeed for such a private taxi service? Was it hell - he went straight to Happy Hour.

Meanwhile, the driver drove the car back empty. Now, the meeting had actually been at Cranwell. So, had they driven back direct from Cranwell - rather than being driven north to Waddo to wait for us - they'd probably have got back earlier.

And the groundies worked long into the night to A/F our jet as well as doing the engine change on the other one.

An efficient and reasonable use of resources.......?

Ivor, come back and have a whinge!

Let's face it, the reason PPRUNE is so popular is because you can have a whinge......but then you can still be dragged down to HQ like a naughty schoolboy (another story)
Once you've had a whinge, then actually find out 'why' - and make sure that the reason they gave you is countered for the next time you go Crab Air.
When you realise that some civvy bean-counter, who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing, actually holds the purse strings and your reasoning/rational amounts to the square root of f all, then either live with it or leave.
I made my decision at Christmas - I'm off mate, don't forget to turn the lights off!!

You still haven't told us the important bit......who won?
Don't tell me you're one of those overweight gits who actually moans about everything, including the price of fish..........

PS It would not have surprised me if Gp missed a trick with your flight but find the reason out first, then whinge:-)b

ABIW,

You are quite right about it being up to the host airfield whether they open or not, to allow you or the shinys to drop us off where we live, and Waddo is as bad as the rest of the air farce for saving money by not opening at weekends etc.

However, what is annoying is when one budget holder (the man who decides whether or not to open the airfield), decides to keep it closed (on a Monday & Tuesday, not even a weekend). This ensures that another budget holder (Sqn), has to pay an extra 2 days subsistence to 60+ people so that they can stay away from home for longer.

I would also be most grateful if someone could explain, in simple terms, what the role of DTMA is? The one and only time, that I am aware of, recently where they have been involved, it was DTMA's decision to send a jet back to BZN when there were in the region of 180 Wadd persons on board, along with many other FJ personnel. It was a sight indeed to see about 8 MT coaches outside the terminal at 7am.

If the military want to move something, the Defence Transport Movements Agency is responsible for making it happen. That's anything to be moved, whether by land, sea or air; whether on military means or through a civilian carrier. This extends as far as the Pickfords van that moves you on posting (DTMA pick up the bill!) They even own their own port for all the shipping moves they conduct. As far as the AT fleet is concerned, DTMA are the strategic tasking authority, meaning that they have the say on what is carried by AT where to and when. In new-fangled weasle-management speak, 2 Gp is a service provider and the pax are DTMA's customers... in an over-arching, proactive, paradigm sort of way.

Back in the days when the AAR element of the AT/AAR world had a bit more autonomy, it was quite common to bring back some of the trail-support personnel in the back of a VC10K without too much interference from movers, watchers or any other no-you-can't-ists. But rarely did the Gp planners think about planning the jet into anywhere other than Brize.

But it didn't take very much effort to check whether there was sufficient fuel/CDT to take the FJ mates where they actually wanted to go. Having once been on the $hitty end of the stick myself waiting for MT from Wattisham to brave the Cotswolds, this was a particular bugbear of mine and I invariably tried to secure approval to land at the customers' own base. This was invariably accepted if it was do-able; in those days we had a reputation of being a 'can-do, will-do' outfit not under the leaden hand of the truckie world. We just used to tell them "You get the crash cover and customs sorted, we'll drop you off!". As well as suggesting that "We don't want to hear the actual crash cover when we call up on arrival.....so have a quiet word with the Air Traffickers, please, if you get my drift ;)"

Sadly, these days there just doesn't seem to be the flex as the inbound jet might be needed for another task very soon after arrival - something which an intermediate landing elsewhere simply wouldn't permit.

Mind you, our independence of spirit was occasionally a bit much for some. On landing at Gutersludge once, the co-pilot mate who was looking after the cabin (before the jobsworths banned such things) was interested to see someone in KD coming up the steps.

"Yes, what do you want?" he enquired.
"I'm Fg Off xxxx, the DAMO"
"The DAMO - what's that then?"
"Duty Air Movements Officer. Now, where are your pax, the manifests, the ALM....."
"Listen mate, we're tankers. So just f*** off, will you!"

At the risk of a little thread-creep....ol' 'erc chum of mine (Roger, loved yachts, surname rhymes with Ed*nbr*w) spends a night in Goose en route to Germany to take back the obligatory RB199 and assorted air experience ground power units to FJ base. Over beers in the Mess he gets completely fed up with the constant whining from the Tonka boys over truckies always going u/s about 30W and diverting into Lye, hopping off the jet with a cheery wave and disappearing into the mist. Funnily enough, at about 30W, Roge is monitoring the co from the comfiest bed in NATO when the prop low oil light comes on. After a precautionary engine shut down, he now has the perfect excuse to follow the banter-rich scenario painted by his steely-eyed pax. NOT A BIT OF IT. Bravely eschewing the ire of station and Grope, he soldiers on to Bruggers and goes u/s.

You see, AT are really a helpful bunch who would rather see the job done, but often get hamstrung by the taskers et al.

By the way, Roge got a massive rocket up his jet pipe for his trouble and was invited to fly baby navs around at FL390 soon after....which just goes to show....something.

Z

Good bloke, Rog. I went through 99 Entry at RAFC with him, then ULAS.

In 1982 he was the 'sweeper' Herc following our F4s out to Akronelli via a pit-stop in Brindisi, there being no tankers at the time. After shutting down at Brindisi we wandered over to the Herc - to find RE with the bunk mattress on the tarmac by the jet blissfully sunbathing whilst listening to his walkman. A somewhat cool and colourful image which surprised even the fighter mini-wheels on our wave!

Ar$eCoat must be the only 'airline' which dumps its passengers even further from their final destinations than even Ryanair....

Lyneham won!
The entire team were sick on the way back allegedly!
Whether this was due to the flying or the 80 bob the night before I'm not sure.

The other Sunday I took about a dozen pax to Lossie from Brize so the quote:

"We have never been able to rustle up a herc for a lowly 13 pax before!!!"

Is blatantly B0LL0CKS!


LM

Lunch monitor,

I believe that is an exception rather than the norm!!

But thanks anyway.

Ivor

Nope
 

Nope

Oct 03 Picked up and dropped off at ISK

Feb 04 Picked up ISK

Mar 04 Picked up ISK

So,

I can assume that the 130 that came to pick them up the following day was just another routine Trg Flt, that just happened to be going through Lossie.

Ivor

Yes, it was a frame that had planned to go north for training but had cancelled part of the sortie due to wx.

By the way, we don't look after our own down here..... Crews trying to get out to BSR could just jump on the fortnightly frame change from Lyneham with all our clobber and thence into a minibus at BSR straight to the tent. Or.......we could be denied this method and instead be made to bus to BZN for the great shiny dick dance.
No point in making life easy.


:rolleyes:

Tedious, Ivor, very tedious!

Your point making shows some immaturity and perhaps a lack of understanding.

For me, I happily recall a return indulgence from Calgary in 1992 with 2 tired teens in company. Having arrived at check-in, we were informed that the flight was full with an Army move back to Germany from that Albertan Prairie place where they play tank battles. Desparate to get back to UK (and not wanting to pay full whack) we waited and waited while the Movers told us that they had never failed to get indulgees home! Eventually, the Tristar Captain informed us all (indulgees and troops alike) that he planned to make an unscheduled stop at Keflavik at 0300 to pick up gas so that he could guarantee getting all of us and our bags out & home via Hannover (to dump the Army off) before flying back to BZN.

So, I think the truckies are marvellous and pragmatic, sympathetic and damn fine chaps!! Let it be said!

What was the Rugby Score? Which is surely more to the point, Lossie guys!

Maple 01

I believe I was the skipper on that flight. I phoned 2 Gp to ask permission to land at your place. I was told "No Way".

As AT captains, we are not allowed to exercise judgment. I would love to be able to drop guys at home bases - more hours towards my airline job!!!! (passed my Air Law today - hoorah!).

As the title of this thread suggests, it is 2 Gp and your own TLB holders that stop this happening. Often, it is just the lazy git on the ASCOT ops desk who can't be ar**d to change the itinerary.

It might be worth a call to find out if it is an OCU crew, because they may well prefer an extra leg for trg value.

We are on the same team.

Ivor

Recently after bending into Seeb on our way back from 6 weeks away on Ex we found 20 Canberra grouncrew who had been left by their aircrew with no planned AT to pick them up. We took them back to their home base without any second thoughts of weather they were OUR :mad: OWN or not!! Must just be you:}

Lyneham won, excellent!!!!!
Now, let's see if the next opposition actually have a runway at their 'airfield'..............

Remember a similar 80bob feeling coming home in Albert when we were picked up from Leuchars.........I think Lyneham lost that time....

Although we won the time Albert took us to Conningsby, kicked their sweet, sorry, ar5es. Wanted to fly in myself but skipper wouldn't allow it (in case co got injured), Conningsby's FJ execs turn up to cheer but were nowhere to be seen at the final whistle.......

Got my own back against the Sport Prevention Brigade when a slip pattern through Akronelli happened to coincide with the 10s comp. Captain this time, so end result was crew only just able to climb the steps following morning.

Hell, "when I'ing" already and I have not even bought my sand bags yet.

P-T-Gamekeeper: Your profile says: 3500TT, 1000 PIC C-130J Captain, but you've obviously learnt bugger all about things outside the flight deck in that time. I'm on the phone to the ITOC lots. If you like, I could chat to Obi and either Kev/Al and see about getting you inserted at ASCOT for a month or so in order that you could show them just how it should be done. After all it would give you a nice easy break for a while and you'd help improve the system soo much for everyone else. Cough:mad:sser.

Alternatively have a chat with your policy man. With your vast amount of knowledge and experience about "...the lazy git on the ASCOT ops desk who can't be ar**d...". I'm sure that he would be sympathetic to your thoughts... :hmm:

opso not an ex-aeop by any chance? Lynham ball about 2 years back?

Three or four years ago I managed to persuade the Ascot Ops controller to revitin us through Colt on the way back from Incirlik (ahh ...happy days:D ) to drop off some Jag boys. Their exec sorted the crash cat/customs, just like Beags mentioned earlier. Offloaded them on the ORP with half the engines still running and was away towards in Oxon in no time. Everybody happy.

Found out later the poor guy at Ascot had a roasting for letting me do it. Whoever that was - Soz mate!

Anyway, back to swanning round the world, on tasking made up by me, for my own convenience, at everyone elses expense.