When did anyone in CHF last spend six months at sea?

Proone,

I am not looking at today, yesterday or even the last 10 years-but some of us were around before Iraq and Afghan when we embarked with the Fisheads for long periods of time. With Bosnia being the focus in the late 90s our deployments were predominantly to the Med, but who knows where they will want to park their '65,000 tonnes of diplomacy' in the coming years.

Looking to a future beyond Afghan I reckon that politicians and senior officers alike are going to want to see their lovely big carriers do 'something' -and without any jets for quite a while that something will be amphibious which means you and me-which doesn't exactly fill me with much joy.

And as I have tried to highlight it is not just aircrew that make an amphibious capability, there are a whole load of aviation, engineering, fire fighting tied jobs that have certainly seen CHF personnel deployed for 6 months and quite frankly not the kind of jobs that I want to be doing and not what I joined up for.

It's not where we have been, it is where we are going that worries me!

MaroonMan4 - thanks for what I think is possibly the most sensible post I've seen on this thread for some considerable time!

A couple of observations...

- The last time OCEAN deployed, she left Guzz in Mar/Apr 2011 and returned in December. That was a little over 7 months and there were CHF aircraft and personnel on board for most of it.
- The AURIGA deployment in 2010 saw SK and Lynx embark on OCEAN, head to the East coast of the States and conduct a LitM exercise, before heading down south for a short trip to the South Atlantic and returning via West Africa.
- During the TAURUS trip in 2009, we had Lynx embarked for the whole trip, departing in Feb and returning in Aug, just under six months.

In all cases, there were personnel from CHF who did the whole of the trips on board. Admittedly, some of the crews and maintainers for the aircraft weren't on board throughout every deployment and there were roulements, but we had the capability available. The SKs were on board for some of the trips, but the roulement plots for Afghanistan would have been affected if we'd kept the Kings on board all the time, so we didn't. One SK Flight embarked three or four weeks after they got back from Afghanistan last year, spent nearly two months away in the Med and then came back to VL to work up before deploying to Afghanistan in the Autumn. Over the previous 24 months, they'd done three tours in Afghanistan (including Christmas) and had embarked for two deployments of two or three months in between each. I know we're all working hard, but keeping LitM going isn't as simple as a couple of DLs every few months!

Happy Easter to everyone, hope those in dusty places stay safe and hope that the CH boys in Yuma are all OK, if a little shaken up. :ok:

CHF RFA detachments
 

When did anyone in CHF last spend six months at sea?

Please correct me if this no longer applies but I was under the impression that the CHF regularly provided long term detachments to the RFAs.

Support to the RFA aviation departments is provided by the Maritime Aviation Support Force based at Culdrose.

Hi Snafu,
I see the detail is in the wording and is the 'Support staff' a bunch of civilians that are posted to ships as and when required and what about the aircrew?

If the support staff are civilians then where is that line being drawn regarding the manning of front line warships?

The site lists these ships as having this type of support:

HMS Ocean, HMS Chatham, HMS Ark Royal

Are both Chatham and Ark Royal still in commission and why not civilianize the rest of the ship's company aboard that other warship, why be selective?

Apologies for thread drift but.......... ouch!!

glojo

Where do you get the idea that MASF are civilians?

Hi Tourist,
Good point and hopefully it is my interpretation that has allowed me to jump to the wrong assumption :O:O:O

If they are service personnel it reads like they are based shore side and get 'parachuted' onto a ship as and when required?

I guess I am asking questions as opposed to making a statement and no doubt just like your very good self, you can see the problems of not having the so called 'support staff' as part of a ship's company.

I can think of any number of roles an Aircraft Handler might have to perform other than working on aircraft but if they are posted in as support to the embarked squadron, would they then refuse to be a part of a Boarding Party or help ashore to offer assistance toward a civil disaster or quell a civil uprising?? What about the more mundane work of Chief Toilet cleaner or head waiter in the dining rooms, would they also be exempt from these less attractive tasks? :O

Yet another apology for this drifting of the thread.. Perhaps the Puma might get embarked on Ocean ;)

I cannot decide how it will affect the future of the Puma, but i hear (from a mate who is in the place to know) an announcement about the Merlin is imminent, and it is something of a surprise.

Ministers have rejected the logic of transferring it to the Navy. They have correctly reasoned that there exists a credible, trained and ready Merlin Force. Junglies (much respect) have ability, skill and corporate knowledge - that is beyond doubt. But so do the RAF, and embarked Ops and overwater techniques are taught by the RAF, and have been for years. It is FAR FAR cheaper to keep Merlin RAF. It saves a fortune, and NO capability will be lost. Ministers have worked it out.

Merlin to stay RAF. Announcement inmminent. Anyone willing to take my money?

choppa

April fools day is long gone....

So with all of the above exercises being done via roulements by the CHF, why are 6-7 month deployments at sea even being talked about ? Its now proven that we can do LitM without the lengthy sea-time, Shirley ?

Tourist,

Yep, that's what I thought to. I can assure you my source is genuine and adamant the transition won't happen. It ALL came down to £££, and the ministers reasoned it's cheaper to keep it where it is (how can it not be?).

If I am wrong, I'll be the first to say so. But I'm not. It's staying.

I would call it total professionalism - getting on with the job whilst under the near-guarantee of losing everything they have put their everything into in a couple of years time.

So assuming this is correct, what replaces Sea King at CHF?

This is exactly the type of bickering that is not doing any of us any favours. Only a few weeks ago CAS was supposed to have gone to Benson to provide top level leadership in managing this change.

Either he failed to get his message across or it has been misconstrued by those eagerly hanging onto every word he and AMP's team said.

Either the posters to this thread are saying 'it is not over' are either worried and concerned personnel from the Merlin Force, or staff officers from Air Command/1 Group trying to cover up the perceived poor management of the SH Force, both at the Shawbury end (what a sad debacle) and now in refusing to take accountabilty and responsibilty to manage the Merlin outflow of our personnel.

As to politicians suddenly having a eureka moment, and/or the Army stopping transition due to cost, we must be very careful, we asked for the studies and cost benefit analysis and trust me, there is a General looking down the back of Army's sofa (which includes JHC) and they have NOTseen a significant increase in cost to Merlin transition (HMT and RP don't care what the colour of the uniform converted/re-roled to Merlin is-a student pilot over the next 4 years could be RAF, Army or RN-they cost the same. And unless the Merlin Force is never going to have any 'churn' then Merlin training will continue regardless. .HMT are truly colour blind. But, when the Army has looked at our Stations they have found other areas that they currently pay for, but think they can make savings.

Unless HMG (through PR12) no longer want an amphibious capability, Merlin transition is happening. If it doesn't then we and Army need to start to re-craft all our career profiles for more time and postings in non flying jobs to sea to provide the aviation personnel to a boat even if we do replace an amphibious capability with a pseudo floating DOB concept if/when we can't find Host Nation Support.

If The Merlin upgrade is not taken forward as part of PR12 then the whole aircraft falls over due to obsolescence in the near future anyway, so everyone loses, including Army (reduction in lift).

The politicians know this and they also know that the marinisation is but a fraction of the overall cost.

I am so sad for the people on the shop floor that read these threads being given false information, which results in false hope to our lads and lasses (at this very late stage with Merlin transition already underway) which sadly results in ill feeling and resentment.

Where is our leadership? If there is new information that has changed the situation from CAS' last visit to Benson then it sounds as though he needs to re-visit and tell them that Merlin transition is off as currently there is perceived ambiguity and misinformation by some that is doing nothing but damaging joint relations and de-stabilising families at the heart of this transition.

We will not need to worry about the new pension scheme as our hierarchy would have screwed this so well that the majority of the new blood under training has been made redundant and all the trained experienced personnel are so disillusioned with the leadership that they are looking to leave at the earliest opportunity that suits them and not the MOD/RAF.

MaroonMan4 V chopabeefer
 

Looks like we have a straight fight 'know it all' and 'insider trader' going for the highest water mark on the wall!

MM4's rambles are convincing but Chopa's 'my mate said' is hard to argue with. I haven’t spent this much time on the edge of my seat since JR was shot! Perhaps that's it! We'll all wake up and everything since SDSR (or since 1997) has just been a bad dream!:eek:

Xen,

You are confusing me with someone that actually cares what the outcome is-chop wins easily.

After all my time in I am so saddened to see friends and their families being subjected to single Service willy waving and some of the worst leadership ever.

How long does it take to make a decision? Gordon Brown announced Rotary Wing Strategy in Dec 2009,with only 8 Chinooks dropped from this original vision.

There have been studies and more studies and even more studies (at our request because we dont seem to like the answer).

Mean while careers and futures are not properly attended to and far more importantly families are unsettled and feel let down.

That is where my ramblings stem from, as well as recognition that fundamentally JHC is a positive example of jointery that is being eroded by this ongoing challenge to Merlin transition.

But hey, I fly Chinooks, so my seat is secure, I have less than 10 years so pension is safe, and am getting to the stage where I will join everyone else and look after number one and get back into my licences.

Sorry Chopabeefer, of course you are right and good luck to the Merlin Force as it sure is going to need it!

You nearly had me there; it all sounded pretty good until you spoilt it all by saying:

At which point I question what planet you are living on. One is led to understand that the single service opinion of JHC is low enough to justify staffing its disbandment and the return of the RAF SH to Air Command. This thread does much to support that theory as a 'need' asap.

So are we about to find out why no SH front or rear crew appeared in the second and final round of the RAF redundancy process despite expectation by many if not all to the contrary.

MaroonMan4 - Completely agree. Until we are told otherwise, in an official manner, then the transition is happening. As far as I'm aware, the first of the RN arrives in 2 weeks time. Grasping on to some very thin straws is pointless, utterly counterproductive and damaging.

BTW, we must know each other!

Admin,

When we're you last in Afghan and round the table at BSN?

Let's go back to the Gutersloh days-did we ever work as closely with the AAC as we do now? We're we more integrated and joined up?

Although I have an ingrained hatred of living and flying from the morale vacuum of Ocean, I do recognise professionalism of CHF and the integration of both us and now Apache.

Although I would love all single Service politics to be removed by Air Command doing what it says in the name and commanding everything in the air, I am a realist that UK Defence and the UK economy is in a very different place than those nirvana days of the 80s.

But we weren't really fighting then, we didn't need the AAC to practice and operate with us to get rounds danger close to us finals to a PB etc. We didn't need the RN to integrate us onto their boats. From the customers perspective in the big scheme (i.e. no one was killed because of it)it didn't really matter if we dropped troops the wrong side of the boarder in NI (just embarrassment).

Now it does matter. JHC has brought integration and whether we like it or not it has focused us on the customer, which was lacking prior to JHC IMHO.

However, if Chopabeefer info is right then there is hope that we can take all the good elements of JHC and place all air capabilities under Air Command.

I thought that this was more of an SDSR 15 potential plan rather than PR12 option.

Like everyone else I await the outcome of PR12.