iRaven

The Jet Provost was originally built by Hunting Aircraft Ltd and operated in its TMk3 and TMk4 variants - the T Mk 3 entering Service in June 1959 whilst the T Mk 4 entered Service in November 1961. The radically redesigned BAe Jet Provost Mk5 entered Service in 1969.

The HS 125 was the original designation of that type but later variants were BAe 125's - both were operated by 32 Sqn.

The HS 146 became the BAe 146 prior to production commencing and as such entered RAF Service on 20 June 1983 according to my Log Book (ZD 696). I collected the first aircraft from BAe.

PS Before the Pedants leap in - 10 Jet Provost Mk1 Aircraft did comparative trials at 2 FTS Hullavington in 1955 - the first Student to go solo on a Jet Provost was Plt Off RT Foster on 17 October 1955.

Had the good fortune to work with BAE till the last, great guys but I think the blame lies in design not nothing to do with the fact it took them 3 hours a day to remove a panel due to stupid work practises that if somebody capable of using a screwdriver and undoing 5 fasteners would ensure a walk out from the unions. BAE have there own self to blame and there work practices are shocking . Good riddance they have screwed the UK to far the lazy bastards

In post #1 it lays the blame for MRA4 failure at the feet of the project manager...I'm a project manager for the company in question although nothing to do with that particular programme...It's not the job of the project manager to ultimately decide if a project should continue...My job is one akin to a conductor keeping the various parts of my orchestra in tune and on time...At various times in any of my projects I present a snapshot of where I am to people a deal higher than me up the food chain (review board/steering group) to decide if what we are doing still holds benefit, still meets the requirement, isn't being achieved by another project elsewhere (not likely in MR4 scenario!) and should it continue...as a PM it's not my decision to proceed and I abide by the boards decisions and react to their advice...it should be noted that the customer has representation at these reviews and must sign off on the results...So the MOD could at any time decide that the project isn't worth it anymore and close it with justification. Outside of these boards there are built in 'go/no-go' gates on the larger projects where in smaller reviews failures will show up...The production of the data for all of these reviews is produced by various people so it's not a case of one person being able to draw up the figures and hide damaging facts...

The detailed requirements for a complex project like the MRA4 must have been difficult to tie down...The devil is in this area and once you think you've got them they move around again...Once baselined they become configured and controlled items so it would be easy to see who was changing them and where the overspend was coming from if you had access to the change control documentation...

I think I spend time here because I enjoy the wit and repartee . . . I also quite enjoyed my time in the RAF, the people, the aircraft and what we did with them. Nostalgia's not what it was.

There's not a lot of entertainment around and the TV is full of repeats. So taking the opportunity of pointing out that the view is much better when the head is extracted from the @rse is good fun (for me anyway, and it's only my opinion I'm responsible for).

ExRAFRadar,

Your call, if what you really want is a Pilot only forum.

However it won't make engineering any better! As I have often said in my career as a "lowly oik",when you get two pilots you always get three opinions!

So 18 years on and at 22:12 on a Saturday night you have nothing better in your life to do than to post on Prune :confused:

Could almost understand the quiet night in thing if you were still serving but 18 years on, **** me I know for sure there is better in store for me come next year :ok:

KF,

Another civilian with nowt better to do on a Saturday night :p

And another one SFFP...... People can take advice or leave it, it is their choice so dont worry about what us oldies have to say if you dont want to listen but we like others before us can help.I for one have given advice to people on life here in nz they took it or left it

Vim Fuego

Excellent post. I have no feelings one way or another for BAeS, but you articulate well the problems any project manager has, especially the moving feast, decision points and who sticks their oar in. Very often the project is effectively frozen for years awaiting a relatively simple decision.


On MRA4, I'd like to hear the opinion of an MoD project manager on the NART report of 1998. Reading it, it is patently obvious that the project needed immediate re-endorsement on both slippage and cost escalation grounds. And that the problems it listed had been well known for at least 6 years. One assumes that approval was given - a number of times! That decision making process must be recorded.


Is it not time for a searching public inquiry? Every time something like this happens, the MoD's line is "It is in the past, we've improved and moved on". But, invariably, the moving on involves promotions for those who screwed up and its the same old faces in charge of the asylum. Why not kill two birds with one stone and have a joint MRA4 / Chinook Mk3 inquiry? After all, the management oversight on both programmes was provided by exactly the same people and they demonstrably knew of the problems at the start of the programmes.

SFFP and the "ignore list".

The perfect marriage.

Caz, I agree. Either that, or early retirement would fit the bill perfectly!:ugh:

Caz,

Was hoping you might grace us with a comment on the fantastic outcome to the Mull enquiry :ok:

Asked for it, it's not an option so just over a year to go before I become a civilian :ok:

Vim Fuego

That was a good post.

But surely over a 10 year period, 120 months (hence my "simplified" comment about Gantt Charts!) someone must surely to God have asked about the over-run. The chart must have gone three times around the room - a veritable "elephant-in-the-room" situation! It's there but no bu**er wants to acknowledge it.

I have some minor Project Management experience: Moral Courage to tell "The Board" what they do not want to hear is one desirable pre-requisite - in my opinion - of a Project Manager (PM) - or whoever ultimately represents the collective viewpoint of all the PMs invlolved to the Board.

Unless of course, and this is a commercial reality in the West I guess, there is a strong, strong pressure, to keep things "moving along", bringing in the cash and keeping the shareholders (& other stakeholders) happy.

If the posts are forcibly moved, then the customer pays - in more ways than one ultimately e.g. R Day!

I posted this after seeing the reactions of some of my colleagues - I felt so, so sorry for them. And angry on their behalf. As I am sure BAe employees felt too.

For me - nearly three decades served - I am happy to go.

But I would have stayed for an MRA4 post.

It would have been interesting to sit in on some of the reviews to see what was being said...However as I said earlier the customer would have been well represented on those boards and if anything didn't agree with them then they would have been in a strong position to find that the programme would not have been meeting at least the time line element of the requirements...

Impossible to say without the documentation, minutes etc in front of you...I have to say I was flying on Nims when it began and was still flying, albeit on another type, when it was cancelled and it beggered belief that it had the legs, with the spending taken into consideration, that it did in my opinion from my position then...

If we're honest then the MRA4 should have been cancelled years ago and well before we spent $4Bn on it. Yes the MOD probably tooled around with the specifications but flying in a straight line is probably not one of the things that they got wrong.

The decision to purchase MRA4 was primarily political - by the last Conservative government. The decision to continue with the farce was Noo Labour. Overall then, this had little to do with military capability and everything to do with greasing the palms of contractors and the workforce.

The point I think is that the UK could probably get away with this nonsense when the government was prepared to spend a reasonable amount on Defence. The current bunch are not (perhaps they could bail out BAES from the International Development slush fund), still want to use the armed forces and labour under the utter illusion that British Industry automatically builds the best equipment in the world. In some cases they do but we need to buy what we need on the basis of its merits.

covec said:
"Moral Courage to tell "The Board" what they do not want to hear is one desirable pre-requisite - in my opinion - of a Project Manager (PM) - or whoever ultimately represents the collective viewpoint of all the PMs invlolved to the Board."

As a (seasoned) Quality Manager I have had to state the unwanted news many times and endured the ignorance of my advice by several company Boards.

In the end, for the more important items, I have the luxury or resorting to feeding External auditors and Regulators (note the capital "R") to "repeat" my findings and support my internal reports. (How I manage my managers)

I feel, and obviously without first-hand knowledge, that RAF "Project Managers" seem to have very little experience of what to do if a Project slips and are likely to sit back (Numb-struck?) and misguidedly wait to see what happens as they expect the civilian Contractor to "sort it". (perhaps often without adequate direction from their "customer" bosses?)

What I call "the Numbnut effect" (it happens outside too) is likely to happen more and more often now that the Customer has less and less effective managers in post or even in training. This lack of project expertise is further compounded by the regular movement of these semi-experienced staff between projects/posts.

I feel they (in which I mean all MOD) are on a spiralling course of terminal decline due to their current financial starvation, dozens of years of perpetual mis-management and so-called "business ethics" training (to prepare officers fo the outside world?) which cannot mix well with military ethics, training and purpose.

I would say this amplifies the need for permanent civilian or permanent staff Project Officers as the way forward on all projects.

...and No. It's not always BAe's fault!

The Bad News
 

Gents
Reading this thread with interest. A few years ago I was posted to the Ministry of Daftness as a Sqn Ldr and ended up as Customer 1 for 3 programmes - all of which were "in trouble". Very early on I had to attend a meeting at Wyton - which was a bunch of civil servants (some very senior) chaired by a RN 3 star. I sat "on the sidelines" for about 3 hours until one of the senior civil servants stood up and briefed one of my projects as "in the green" (using that bloody awful traffic light system). At that point I felt compelled to stand up and tell the Admiral that the previous speaker had, at the very least, been disingenuous! Wow, how unpopular was I - but it needed to be said. Interestingly enough, I had not seen that civil servant - or his minions at any meeting I had with the company (EDS) responsible since I had taken over as Customer 1 (sorry Bob B). So, it's not always the Service blokes that are responsible!:=

37 years in and I cannot recall an instance where we ever purchased anything that came in on time, on budget and did exactly what it said on the tin.

The common denominator in all of this is the Officer cadre, no chips here guys none at all but we ask those folk to go and do something that they are out of their depth attempting.

If I go to buy a TV, computer, camera, car etc etc I KNOW before I go that the salesman is going to try and hoop me into buying the stuff he wants to unload and make the most money on.

It's no accident that the Internet is awash with websites to help the unsuspecting navigate their way through some of these major purchases, clucking bell Which Magazine has been going for years for precisely that reason.

Is in any bloody wonder when we send Flt Lt's and Sqn Ldr's etc to take on the piranhas of big business that we get hooped.

Is it any bloody wonder that when we then post said officers every 2 years because it's good for their career paths we get hooped.

None of this is rocket science and we can try and blame any manufacturer we like but the plain and honest truth is that we do it all on our own all of the time.

Until we can face up that then the process will continue and big business will rub it's hands with glee every time some poor unsuspecting sap in light blue/dark blue/green walks through the door.

C17???????

Reaper??????

E-3D???? And we bought it to cover the shortfall of another British guff - NimWACS....

aren't those three all American?
Certainly not BAE Systems products....

With regards to Posts 60 & 61.

The first is from a point of knowledge.

The second is rant, as ever; knows all about everything (crewroom, that is), and opines over matters of which he has no real knowledge (eg RAF Club, BAES, MoD Procedures etc). P**ck! A man that knows all about nothing. Looks forward to his retirement, and total severance from the RAF (aside from the pension). A SNCO with a huge chip. A Mess bore.

No doubt I'll receive a charming , and well-sarcasticly scripted re-buff. To which I will respond in advance. F-off.

Sorry, but I needed to.

The C17 is/was a lease agreement and is/was dominated by Boeing's methods of maintenance and maintenance management - not the RAF's (I believe this is still so) And very productive it has been too. It should be held as an example of how the RAF's ancient and traditional methods can be replaced by something that works - and, many would say, works very well indeed.

Another project to look at is the US Army's Lakota Helicopter Project where 300+ helicopters were bought "Off The Shelf" from BBK/Eurocopter.

Even if there are misgivings about how the EC145 variant performs the reason they were purchased was to be able to flood any "Homeland" (how I dislike that word!) incidents with usable cheap ANG/Reserve Service helicopters that can do a job of work. That purchase was not about replacing the Huey but supplying a lot of helicopters from already produced commercial stock.

That purchase is proof that the military dont need everything made especially for them, and that some things are already useful tools - even without modification.

I know of many other operators who have put much, much more mods onto their EC145 aircraft - and I'm not talking about leather seats and ashtrays.

Jin,

No you won't Sir, way to polite for that but if you could point out the flaw in my thought process :ok:

LJ and Downsizer I happily concede to those items which highlights the lack of detail in my post and overall knowledge, but I suspect you knew where I was coming from :ok:

@jamesdevice

Re: US aircraft - please read Post#61.

The B Word

in other words the only equipment we get that works, is that which has already had the developmental risk aspects handled by someone else.
i.e. off-the-shelf purchases of items which have been developed elsewhere.
I find it interesting that all the recent purchases of mine/IED resisitant vehicles for Afghanistan have been effectively "off the shelf" overseas designs (though some were assembled in the UK). BAE / Vickers didn't get a look in

Seldom
 

Seems like you're making everyone as happy as you are.

I can understand you being pissed off, but most contracts for large machinery, civil engineering projects, ships, oil rigs et al tend to overrun - especially if the customer makes changes.

I have intimate knowledge of this happening on one particular project concerning the RAF and BAES, the goal posts moved quite a bit and even when the project was ready for delivery, much of the hold up was caused by different parts of MOD/RAF not getting their 'i' dotted and 't' crossed.

Sad fact of life. Simply, it's not ALL anyone's fault. It's just life. Using non-professionals to negotiate contracts is not sensible or efficient - that is the RAF's responsibility pure and simple.

Redundancy is a part of modern life. I've been redundant 3 times and it's OK, there is life afterwards. All the anger in the world won't make a jot of difference.

Enough breath expended.

Eng,

I am not pissed off, in fact I could not be happier with my lot, seriously I am as happy as a sand boy and I am not being made redundant :ok:

If you go back and read my post you will see we are singing from the same song sheet. Industry has it share if we are apportioning blame but the military is completely feckin inept when it comes to buying stuff hence it almost always goes pete tong :(

Dengue Dude


Don't forget double full-stops. An IPT "Management Board" (17 staff, only 2 of them my senior and most non-technical) delayed approval for a high priority job for AFG for 6 weeks because I'd put a double full-stop at the end of a sentence in my technical spec. :ugh: That's 17 staff, out of a 39-strong IPT, MoD could do without.

(SFFP - I still delivered ahead of schedule (12 months +), under cost (by over 300%) and to a far better spec, because I'd ignored the "Management Board" and already conducted final trials on what the User actually needed, not what the URD said. Their eventual approval to enter development was as meaningless as their little self centered "Board").

Seldom
 

Where appropriate, please accept apologies.

I suppose the point I was trying to make is each 'side' has its unfair share of incompetents (for diverse reasons).

It's as frustrating 'this' side as it is from the other. As Tucumseh says, you achieve DESPITE bloody committees, not because of them.

Enough said.

Either way, best of luck to those made redundant, it truly isn't the end of the world, there's a whole world out there that wants self-motivated, intelligent individuals, so you can be intimidated by them too just like the rest of us ;)

2 sides to the problem
 

Firstly a confession - I worked, as an employee for a company supplying equipment to the MRA4 flight simulators - yes, there was a very nice building at Kinloss fully populated with 2 full-flight sims (motion sims for the cockpit), 2 FTD cockpit simulators (same as full-flights without the motion) and 2 rear-crew simulators and a bunch of PTT and other kit. These were all accepted and in full service at the time of program cancellation. All are now scrapped.

The problem was two-sided.

1) The MOD was unable to write a spec worth a bean. You might as well said we need some simulators to train the crew, once you've built them we'll tell you what is or isn't any good.

2) The contractors (everyone from BAE down) were desperate to win the contracts, so promised the moon... for next to a penny. And then charged whatever enormous number they could for any change order the MOD was backed into a corner to put in writing.

As far as we (the engineering team involved in developing the sims) could tell the entire program was run the same way.

At the time of cancellation I was personally involved in a quotation to update a part of these same simulators that had seen only acceptance crew through the doors, to the tune of $1-2M for a system that had only been operational for 3 years and was ALREADY obsolete. This update would have replaced the original system with something costing twice as much, to do the same job. This is a very tiny slice of the what was happening across the board.

-GY

I can't speak for what the RMPA office was told to do, but the policy of that MoD(PE) Director General (2 Star) was that project managers were NOT to contract anyone to write specs for simulators or trainers. If you didn't have anyone in the team to do it, tough. On my programme, at the same time, no-one had a scoobie (including myself), so I "contracted" Boscombe to hire recently retired aircrew as consultants, and bury the cost in "materiel". When the Director sought reassurance I was not contracting anyone to specify the trainer, I just said yes. If I'd have followed his instructions, the aircraft fleet would still be parked in a hangar somewhere - not unlike Chinook Mk3 (same 2 Star).

Rigga,
They had a lot of problems with these at first as no US military helicopter previously had air conditioning fitted, so USA PLC ommited it from the Lakota even though the manufacturer advised against it, then suffered a lot of avionics failures due to overheating..

read

UH-72A Lakota Overheating Problem

When I started working on the project I was assured that it would have first flight in 4 months, it never flew in the 2 years I was with BAe.
Around the same time an aerodynamics engineer was asking, whether the aircraft would possibly land with the torpedoes still in the bomb bay, as this was important due to the C of G problems (it was too far aft). There were many engineers running around with their hair on fire, figuring out how much fuel to pump around the tanks to maintain an adequate C of G under all conditions, all seemingly due to the necessary positioning of the new wings and engines, which with a new fuselage would have ideally been positioned further aft.
The heavy flying controls, the inadequate autopilot, it all seemed to lurch from one crisis to another, although I was assured these things were just part of the trials and tribulations of building aircraft.
I spent many happy hours on the Nimrod, or being taken places by them, but to say I was concerned about the issues, and how they were handled would be an understatement.

NutLoose:
"Rigga,
They had a lot of problems with these at first as no US military helicopter previously had air conditioning fitted, so USA PLC ommited it from the Lakota even though the manufacturer advised against it, then suffered a lot of avionics failures due to overheating.."

Yep. I know. One of my Type Ratings is BK117-C2 (or EC145). And I don't work for military helicopter operators.

To fly one of these in a hot place is quite unbearable - sitting under all that "glass" isn't good in hot climes. We were quite surprised the US Army didn't order the AirCon as standard? The AirCon was a bit of a bugger getting used to at first but it was worth the effort of getting it. And at least one instrument was prone to overheat/seizing well before the spams got them (from my course notes!)

Would the insertion of a 6' 6" plug in the forward fuselage have solved it? http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ns/mpangel.gif. Mind you, that might have needed Shackleton fins to be resurrected.

Here sadly is another tail heavy one :( if you like Nimrods do not look.

Nimrod R1 XW665 - Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums