|
Regarding the thread title, I came across it in many forms. Two events that stand out in my memory:
1. A former RAF avionics/instrument technician (probably using the wrong term there) came to work for us at an RN 3rd line workshop after serving 9 years, doing a stint in Saudi, and then as an air university tutor. The civil service (or perhaps just the RN part of it) refused to recognise his RAF qualifications. He was told to go to college to get at least an ONC, when everyone knew he had far more than that. He enrolled, went back 9 months later to sit his exams, and got a Distinction. Ended up quite senior, and remains a good friend. 2. In April 1992, Air Member Supply and Organisation, in furtherance of their 'savings at the expense of safety' policy (see Nimrod Review) issued an edict that forthwith all engineers would be subordinate to any administrative grade. This was just as all MoD(PE)'s airworthiness specialists had been transferred to AMSO. A young lady 3 grades below me phoned to say she was now my line manager. My boss dealt with it best. He tasked Llangennech to deliver a complete set of APs for the RAF radars he managed (Phantom, Bucc...) to the equally young supplier who was now his boss, and told her to get on with it, she was running the Blue Parrot reliability upgrade programme. Meanwhile we all shipped out back to PE, with DGSM saying good riddance. I never really saw any improvement after that, with (in 1997) non-engineers allowed to self-delegate airworthiness approval. RIP those they killed. |
After a meeting in a Cmd HQ, I had a lady CS tell me she was a Wg Cdr equivalent and therefore senior to me and a Sqn Ldr colleague, so therefore we should do as we were told. Our response was that we doubted she would make it through the selection process, let alone graduate from RAFC.
|
Originally Posted by Ninthace
(Post 11813952)
After a meeting in a Cmd HQ, I had a lady CS tell me she was a Wg Cdr equivalent and therefore senior to me and a Sqn Ldr colleague, so therefore we should do as we were told. Our response was that we doubted she would make it through the selection process, let alone graduate from RAFC.
|
Good to see that the FRI has been delivered, but for myself I have not chose to accept it, but instead pivot 180 and submit my ET. Career Management (CM) was the downfall, not Deployments, FGENs, Salary etc.
It was CM's inability to provide myself with any form of management, beyond checking a website for roles that may or may not be available. |
Land Rover? Showing my heritage, admittedly late 90's. What's the standard sqn groundcrew runaround now; some kind of hybrid SUV I guess ...... My scenario was around an aircraft arriving for Scheduled Maintenance |
Originally Posted by DuncanDoenitz
(Post 11813210)
Land Rover? Showing my heritage, admitedly late 90's. What's the standard sqn grouncrew runaround now; some kind of hybrid SUV I guess ......
As long as the charging infrastructure is there, electric vehicles are perfect for station based jobs - most of them do less than 30 miles a day and electricity can be much cheaper than diesel. Also many of the modern diesels on stations often suffered with blocked DPFs as they were not driven long, far or fast enough for regeneration to start which resulted in lots of check engine lights and breakdowns. This then led to vehicles being taken away from squadrons for servicing with no replacements being made available. |
Oddly enough several airports I hear are ditching electric vehicles due to the associated fire risks.
|
BTW if anyone knows a B1 or B2 in the middle midlands area after a Job, pm me ;) one can only ask.
|
Originally Posted by NutLoose
(Post 11817802)
Oddly enough several airports I hear are ditching electric vehicles due to the associated fire risks.
|
Originally Posted by minigundiplomat
(Post 11812804)
Aircraft manufacturers should be riding high thanks to a travel boom that has created unprecedented levels of demand.
Bookings have surged as millions head to the beach and the predicted demise of face-to-face business meetings fails to materialise. Airports including London Heathrow have recently announced record passenger numbers. Yet Airbus and Boeing are struggling to build planes fast enough to keep up with demand. Both manufacturers are falling short of delivery targets as their supply chains buckle under the strain. British Airways, Ryanair, Virgin Atlantic and Wizz have all been forced to rein in their planned schedules and watch profits ebb away. The manufacturers themselves have been deprived of vital revenue and reduced to firefighting one production issue after another. Across much of the aviation industry, what should have been a boom is turning out to be little more than a whimper. Waiting times for the most popular jets are now into the next decade. The situation can be traced back to multiple causes, including a near-disaster involving a 737 jet that led regulators to cap output at Boeing and engine issues at companies including Rolls-Royce. But Airbus last week highlighted a more basic factor at the heart of the crunch: the industry is suffering from what amounts to a severe case of long Covid, following the exodus of tens of thousands of experienced personnel during the pandemic. Three years after the last Covid-related curbs were lifted, manufacturers are still woefully short of veteran engineers and technicians, says Christian Scherer, head of commercial aircraft at Airbus. “What the supply chain has suffered the most from is a loss of expertise,” he says. “A lot of people, with years and years of accumulated expertise, that have taken early retirement or have redirected their professional activities elsewhere. That takes a lot of time to rebuild. That’s really the fundamental, deep problem.” The supply chain crisis last year forced Airbus to revise an 800-plane delivery target to 770 after barely four months. In the event it handed over 766 aircraft, still almost 100 short of the number shipped in 2019. Scherer insists Airbus will reach those pre-pandemic production volumes “in the foreseeable future,” while adding: “I’m not going to tell you when.” Boeing, meanwhile, revealed last week that it had delivered just 348 jets in 2024, down 180 on the previous year’s tally and less than half its pre-pandemic peak. The US giant was plunged into crisis after a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max at 16,000 feet last January. Subsequent checks revealed safety and quality-control issues across the supply chain, leading regulators to cap Max output at 38 planes a month. A Boeing insider later said that the depletion of the workforce during the pandemic meant it had to “turn baristas into engineers” – a reference to the location of the company’s main assembly lines in Seattle, home to Starbucks and a world centre for coffee roasting. Potential recruits with a technical bent have meanwhile gravitated towards companies such as Amazon and Microsoft, which are also based in the area. Nick Cunningham, an aviation analyst at Agency Partners, said manufacturers should have seen the staffing problem coming and done more to replace the “big hump of middle-aged workers” who were set to retire around the same time with or without the pandemic. “It was a collective error on the part of the industry on both sides of the Atlantic. It had become very dependent on a group of grizzled veterans.They all looked like members of ZZ Top and called themselves ‘shop rats’ but they actually did all the work. “The new generation of recruits is just not as productive. They’re a green workforce and with many of the trainers also retiring it’s going to take years to get them up to speed. “It becomes much more expensive because you are making fewer things, so volumes drop even though you’re employing the same number of people.” At Airbus, bottlenecks are affecting the supply of components ranging from aircraft engines, cabin equipment, galleys and seats to toilet doors and even the bolts and washers that hold together sections of fuselage. Shortages of interior items have been exacerbated by airlines seeking to refurbish cabins in ageing planes that are being kept in service precisely because of the lack of new jets. Guillaume Faury, the chief executive of Airbus, said last week that shortages of even a simple part at a single supplier could be enough to derail a whole aircraft. He said: “Because we are going at the pace of the slowest of our suppliers, when you think you are there, you are blind-sided by something you were not expecting. “The number and depth of the crises that we managed last year was very significant. I don’t expect a lot of change in the nature of the problems.” Attracting new workers is not the only problem manufacturers face. Cunningham says keeping them is also a challenge, even with the lure of relatively attractive pay deals. He says: “They want a nice desk job where they can be on the internet all day. They don’t want to work in what can be a cold, noisy and occasionally dangerous environment doing something that is repetitive and really not that pleasant.” Mounting concern about the production crunch was evident in Dublin last week, where aircraft leasing companies that collectively own and manage around half the world’s fleet warned that plane shortages would persist for years. An over-dependency on ‘grizzled veterans’, or ‘shop rats’, has been blamed for plane-makers’ staffing struggles Steven Udvar-Házy, the executive chairman of Air Lease, told the Airline Economics conference that neither Airbus nor Boeing were meeting “any of their production targets” and had made “big judgment errors” in seeking to increase deliveries before stabilising their operations. Denis Hogan, a founder of SMBC Aviation Capital, said it would take “until the end of the decade” to fully resolve the supply-chain issues. Bosses were similarly pessimistic about a parallel crisis surrounding the poor resilience of engines supplied by Pratt & Whitney (P&W) and Rolls-Royce. Issues with engines have forced jets to be recalled for emergency maintenance, further depriving airlines of essential capacity. József Váradi, the Wizz Air boss, said he had expected groundings of the airline’s A320s for the replacement of worn engines to span no more than two years, but it now appears to be “a four to five-year issue”. Airbus insists that it is making progress addressing these issues. Dozens of staff are working to alleviate bottlenecks at suppliers such as Spirit, which makes wings for its A220 jet and supplied the faulty door panel to Boeing. The European company has also formed a task force to address fastener shortages and a team dedicated to helping airlines procure cabin interiors. In some cases, Airbus is providing financing to companies that would otherwise be unable to provide parts at the required pace. Despite the continued issues, plane-makers plan to boost build rates to reduce order backlogs. Faury said Airbus had no intention of backing away from plans to lift A320 production to 75 planes a month in 2027. That’s 50pc higher than average monthly deliveries last year. The company is already able to produce aircraft on eight global assembly lines, with two more to be added by next year. Crucially, however, it needs the supply chain to keep in step. The chief executive said: “It’s not nice to have customers complaining that you’re delivering late. But if we are too shy we waste opportunities to deliver planes. We need to find the sweet spot.” |
Originally Posted by NutLoose
(Post 11817805)
BTW if anyone knows a B1 or B2 in the middle midlands area after a Job, pm me ;) one can only ask.
|
Originally Posted by sbart95
(Post 11815044)
Yeah, it's pretty much all white fleet now. EVs starting to enter the fleet too. The Stn Cdr has one at Lossie and there's a decent charging infrastructure on base.
Ok. I've not had any experience of pre-maintenance runs, presumably as it's large a/c only, but the majority of ML2 and almost all ML3 maintenance is contracted out now anyway. |
Originally Posted by Diff Tail Shim
(Post 11817819)
Been like that for 20 years plus. Major error TBQH. Labour did screw that up. I admit that.
The lack of skilled and trained military engineers that can maintain and repair the fleets are screwed too. Hangars also use to be built with doors to withstand a blast wave, these days a puff of wind and the roof is off. Imagine it, the attack has stalled due to the lack of charging points and the time to recharge.. |
Originally Posted by NutLoose
(Post 11817802)
Oddly enough several airports I hear are ditching electric vehicles due to the associated fire risks.
Apologies for thread drift. Back on topic, the new year round of pay negotiations is under way, 12% over three years plus bonus seems to be the going rate. |
the new year round of pay negotiations is under way, 12% over three years plus bonus seems to be the going rate. |
To be fair to Labour it was worse under Conservative. It's only in the last couple of years that pay rises in the sector have started to catch up with supply and demand, the lag has caused the situation we are in now. Too many have left, not enough trained up and many of those that did have found the pay is better elsewhere.
Edit to add having just done my tax return (and getting a Ł300 rebate 👍) I noticed that my total pay has increased by nearly 50% in the last two years! |
Originally Posted by HOVIS
(Post 11818106)
To be fair to Labour it was worse under Conservative. It's only in the last couple of years that pay rises in the sector have started to catch up with supply and demand, the lag has caused the situation we are in now. Too many have left, not enough trained up and many of those that did have found the pay is better elsewhere.
Edit to add having just done my tax return (and getting a Ł300 rebate 👍) I noticed that my total pay has increased by nearly 50% in the last two years! |
Well done Hovis, if only the engineers' worth had been recognised a few decades back the industry (and automotive industry) wouldn't be in the position it is now. Just for interest, do any of the senior engineers posting here have apprentices or trainees alongside them for training?
|
Originally Posted by minigundiplomat
(Post 11812804)
Aircraft manufacturers should be riding high thanks to a travel boom that has created unprecedented levels of demand.
Bookings have surged as millions head to the beach and the predicted demise of face-to-face business meetings fails to materialise. Airports including London Heathrow have recently announced record passenger numbers. Yet Airbus and Boeing are struggling to build planes fast enough to keep up with demand. Both manufacturers are falling short of delivery targets as their supply chains buckle under the strain. British Airways, Ryanair, Virgin Atlantic and Wizz have all been forced to rein in their planned schedules and watch profits ebb away. The manufacturers themselves have been deprived of vital revenue and reduced to firefighting one production issue after another. Across much of the aviation industry, what should have been a boom is turning out to be little more than a whimper. Waiting times for the most popular jets are now into the next decade. The situation can be traced back to multiple causes, including a near-disaster involving a 737 jet that led regulators to cap output at Boeing and engine issues at companies including Rolls-Royce. But Airbus last week highlighted a more basic factor at the heart of the crunch: the industry is suffering from what amounts to a severe case of long Covid, following the exodus of tens of thousands of experienced personnel during the pandemic. Three years after the last Covid-related curbs were lifted, manufacturers are still woefully short of veteran engineers and technicians, says Christian Scherer, head of commercial aircraft at Airbus. “What the supply chain has suffered the most from is a loss of expertise,” he says. “A lot of people, with years and years of accumulated expertise, that have taken early retirement or have redirected their professional activities elsewhere. That takes a lot of time to rebuild. That’s really the fundamental, deep problem.” The supply chain crisis last year forced Airbus to revise an 800-plane delivery target to 770 after barely four months. In the event it handed over 766 aircraft, still almost 100 short of the number shipped in 2019. Scherer insists Airbus will reach those pre-pandemic production volumes “in the foreseeable future,” while adding: “I’m not going to tell you when.” Boeing, meanwhile, revealed last week that it had delivered just 348 jets in 2024, down 180 on the previous year’s tally and less than half its pre-pandemic peak. The US giant was plunged into crisis after a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max at 16,000 feet last January. Subsequent checks revealed safety and quality-control issues across the supply chain, leading regulators to cap Max output at 38 planes a month. A Boeing insider later said that the depletion of the workforce during the pandemic meant it had to “turn baristas into engineers” – a reference to the location of the company’s main assembly lines in Seattle, home to Starbucks and a world centre for coffee roasting. Potential recruits with a technical bent have meanwhile gravitated towards companies such as Amazon and Microsoft, which are also based in the area. Nick Cunningham, an aviation analyst at Agency Partners, said manufacturers should have seen the staffing problem coming and done more to replace the “big hump of middle-aged workers” who were set to retire around the same time with or without the pandemic. “It was a collective error on the part of the industry on both sides of the Atlantic. It had become very dependent on a group of grizzled veterans.They all looked like members of ZZ Top and called themselves ‘shop rats’ but they actually did all the work. “The new generation of recruits is just not as productive. They’re a green workforce and with many of the trainers also retiring it’s going to take years to get them up to speed. “It becomes much more expensive because you are making fewer things, so volumes drop even though you’re employing the same number of people.” At Airbus, bottlenecks are affecting the supply of components ranging from aircraft engines, cabin equipment, galleys and seats to toilet doors and even the bolts and washers that hold together sections of fuselage. Shortages of interior items have been exacerbated by airlines seeking to refurbish cabins in ageing planes that are being kept in service precisely because of the lack of new jets. Guillaume Faury, the chief executive of Airbus, said last week that shortages of even a simple part at a single supplier could be enough to derail a whole aircraft. He said: “Because we are going at the pace of the slowest of our suppliers, when you think you are there, you are blind-sided by something you were not expecting. “The number and depth of the crises that we managed last year was very significant. I don’t expect a lot of change in the nature of the problems.” Attracting new workers is not the only problem manufacturers face. Cunningham says keeping them is also a challenge, even with the lure of relatively attractive pay deals. He says: “They want a nice desk job where they can be on the internet all day. They don’t want to work in what can be a cold, noisy and occasionally dangerous environment doing something that is repetitive and really not that pleasant.” Mounting concern about the production crunch was evident in Dublin last week, where aircraft leasing companies that collectively own and manage around half the world’s fleet warned that plane shortages would persist for years. An over-dependency on ‘grizzled veterans’, or ‘shop rats’, has been blamed for plane-makers’ staffing struggles Steven Udvar-Házy, the executive chairman of Air Lease, told the Airline Economics conference that neither Airbus nor Boeing were meeting “any of their production targets” and had made “big judgment errors” in seeking to increase deliveries before stabilising their operations. Denis Hogan, a founder of SMBC Aviation Capital, said it would take “until the end of the decade” to fully resolve the supply-chain issues. Bosses were similarly pessimistic about a parallel crisis surrounding the poor resilience of engines supplied by Pratt & Whitney (P&W) and Rolls-Royce. Issues with engines have forced jets to be recalled for emergency maintenance, further depriving airlines of essential capacity. József Váradi, the Wizz Air boss, said he had expected groundings of the airline’s A320s for the replacement of worn engines to span no more than two years, but it now appears to be “a four to five-year issue”. Airbus insists that it is making progress addressing these issues. Dozens of staff are working to alleviate bottlenecks at suppliers such as Spirit, which makes wings for its A220 jet and supplied the faulty door panel to Boeing. The European company has also formed a task force to address fastener shortages and a team dedicated to helping airlines procure cabin interiors. In some cases, Airbus is providing financing to companies that would otherwise be unable to provide parts at the required pace. Despite the continued issues, plane-makers plan to boost build rates to reduce order backlogs. Faury said Airbus had no intention of backing away from plans to lift A320 production to 75 planes a month in 2027. That’s 50pc higher than average monthly deliveries last year. The company is already able to produce aircraft on eight global assembly lines, with two more to be added by next year. Crucially, however, it needs the supply chain to keep in step. The chief executive said: “It’s not nice to have customers complaining that you’re delivering late. But if we are too shy we waste opportunities to deliver planes. We need to find the sweet spot.” I started my career and helped design 3 major aircraft projects. The place was full of people. But most of those people were contractors because it was cheaper for them with fewer overheads. The first people to go are the contractors and they are the ones with the real technical depth generally speaking. Every year there is a requirement to put more and more work offshore in 'low cost' centres - India. This means less work is done in the UK by people with the appropriate experience. This was by design. |
Originally Posted by Geriaviator
(Post 11818367)
Well done Hovis, if only the engineers' worth had been recognised a few decades back the industry (and automotive industry) wouldn't be in the position it is now. Just for interest, do any of the senior engineers posting here have apprentices or trainees alongside them for training?
|
Originally Posted by Geriaviator
(Post 11818367)
Well done Hovis, if only the engineers' worth had been recognised a few decades back the industry (and automotive industry) wouldn't be in the position it is now. Just for interest, do any of the senior engineers posting here have apprentices or trainees alongside them for training?
They are probably looking for someone younger and prettier than me, though. |
Originally Posted by unmanned_droid
(Post 11818651)
I am gobsmacked that they (airbus) palm this off on to their (ex)staff. The only people to blame in this is the management in these places. They got people to take voluntary redundancies and early retirements in Filton during covid. March 2020 was the last time I worked in Filton as a contractor. Filton is a shadow of its former self. They got rid of contractors at Christmas this year claiming no money. No reduction in workload for those left. No one seems to know whats going on or what the future holds. A400M build rate for wings is less than 1 per month (built in Filton).
I started my career and helped design 3 major aircraft projects. The place was full of people. But most of those people were contractors because it was cheaper for them with fewer overheads. The first people to go are the contractors and they are the ones with the real technical depth generally speaking. Every year there is a requirement to put more and more work offshore in 'low cost' centres - India. This means less work is done in the UK by people with the appropriate experience. This was by design. It was all contractor design workforce which they then let go. I self funded my Catia conversion course and then never got offered anything. They were lining up the 'low cost' Indian engineers from the early 2000s. The writing was on the wall for all to see. |
Originally Posted by HOVIS
(Post 11818679)
Yes, we have apprentices but not many.
We also encourage all of our mechs to progress to LAE level and provide them with help to do this. With the shortages of B1’s and B2’s, it is in a companies interest to maximise their LAE manning from internal resources while adding new young mechs or trainee mechs into the pot and bringing them on as future LAE’s. I as having held the rank of JT in the past, I often thought that it was a wrong move to remove that rank and skill achievement from the rank structure, it was rewarding and setting goals for progression onto Corporal by giving greater responsibility, a higher skill set and financial reward. I believe the SAC Tech that replaced it, didn’t achieve that and in a way was probably a cheaper option for the RAF while dumbing down the lower rank structure. I am now standing by for incoming. https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7a61904aac.gif |
Originally Posted by Diff Tail Shim
(Post 11818363)
The only Brexit benefit. Still disagree with us pulling out of EASA. Mine has gone up by 50% also. No tax rebate for me mind.. :) Alas the RAF is not somewhere I would advise someone to start in Aviation engineering.
Leaving aside the BS / purely mil.aspects, please remember the training is entry level, plus subsequent experience, to progress in an engineering career. As I've said, true, the training has been diluted, due to "management" and bean counter influences, but, it still offers a basis from which to progress. That, and again, few intended to have " a 96 yr career " in the RAF. Unlike many of my civilian "colleagues" having direct experience of the civil sector, I was usually asked about what the real world was like. I used to "strongly advise" about going onto the FJ world in the RAF and that the rotary / transport / maritime world would be more, ahem, beneficial for the future. That, and don't get fixated on the airline world when there were other engineering sectors that offered interesting and varied employment. Also, they couldn't just arrive at Scroggs Aviation with a shiny licence and say "gizza a job, and the big money " because it takes time to reach that level. |
Oddly enough K and C, my service career was Rotary, Wessex Puma Chinook, FJ, Jaguar, then transport, VC10, all 1st line, so I left as a well rounded individual, engineering experience wise, my gain, the RAF’s loss.
I then progressed through various jets, Learjet range, Citation range, Falcon range, plus just about all piston types, including warbirds, that was another plus in my service career as I was on one of the last courses to do pistons engines . My whole adult life has been spent in the aviation engineering world from joining up to now, 50 years plus and still counting, and I love it, everyday is a different challenge and I cannot forsee me retiring. |
Originally Posted by Krystal n chips
(Post 11818910)
That's a bit of unfounded / unwarranted criticism really. Any reason(s) why not ?
Leaving aside the BS / purely mil.aspects, please remember the training is entry level, plus subsequent experience, to progress in an engineering career. As I've said, true, the training has been diluted, due to "management" and bean counter influences, but, it still offers a basis from which to progress. That, and again, few intended to have " a 96 yr career " in the RAF. Unlike many of my civilian "colleagues" having direct experience of the civil sector, I was usually asked about what the real world was like. I used to "strongly advise" about going onto the FJ world in the RAF and that the rotary / transport / maritime world would be more, ahem, beneficial for the future. That, and don't get fixated on the airline world when there were other engineering sectors that offered interesting and varied employment. Also, they couldn't just arrive at Scroggs Aviation with a shiny licence and say "gizza a job, and the big money " because it takes time to reach that level. |
Originally Posted by NutLoose
(Post 11819312)
Oddly enough K and C, my service career was Rotary, Wessex Puma Chinook, FJ, Jaguar, then transport, VC10, all 1st line, so I left as a well rounded individual, engineering experience wise, my gain, the RAF’s loss.
I then progressed through various jets, Learjet range, Citation range, Falcon range, plus just about all piston types, including warbirds, that was another plus in my service career as I was on one of the last courses to do pistons engines . My whole adult life has been spent in the aviation engineering world from joining up to now, 50 years plus and still counting, and I love it, everyday is a different challenge and I cannot forsee me retiring. |
When I did my basic licences I did my A and C plus a Cessna 152 and Lycoming O-235 all at once, my thought process and it proved right was on my oral they were going to have to tailor it to that airframe and engine which were simpler than some they could have asked about as they were time limited for the oral. It proved right and the examiner wasn’t up to speed on either.
I should have done gas turbs at the same time as I was an ATechP in the RAF, but studying for 5 exams at once would have been a headache, remember then you fail a module you had to resit the lot. |
Nutty: Like you, except as a rigga, I had a varied career of rotary and FW starting with totals of 14 years on rotary 10 on FW in the RAF. By the time I left the RAF I had A&C Turbine helicopters, A&C Piston aircraft and A&C Turbine Large aircraft. A further 25 years of civil maintenance experience followed from ATR72 / BAe146 to A320 / B767. I was just 737 classic and EC145 type rated but that allowed me to do multi-engined within 145 and CAMO on many types.
As a senior contractor on a military base I have seen the degradation of UK military maintenance and experience to basic Line Maintenance levels (they call it Forward now). ‘Depth’ is now almost all civvy with the odd post (normally management staff) being RAF. The senior ‘maintenance’ management i.e. the IPTs, Gp Cpt and above are almost purely money movers or contract manipulators who have almost no knowledge of engineering in any form, relying on those contracts to steer them and produce documents. |
Originally Posted by Rigga
(Post 11820109)
Nutty: Like you, except as a rigga, I had a varied career of rotary and FW starting with totals of 14 years on rotary 10 on FW in the RAF. By the time I left the RAF I had A&C Turbine helicopters, A&C Piston aircraft and A&C Turbine Large aircraft. A further 25 years of civil maintenance experience followed from ATR72 / BAe146 to A320 / B767. I was just 737 classic and EC145 type rated but that allowed me to do multi-engined within 145 and CAMO on many types.
As a senior contractor on a military base I have seen the degradation of UK military maintenance and experience to basic Line Maintenance levels (they call it Forward now). ‘Depth’ is now almost all civvy with the odd post (normally management staff) being RAF. The senior ‘maintenance’ management i.e. the IPTs, Gp Cpt and above are almost purely money movers or contract manipulators who have almost no knowledge of engineering in any form, relying on those contracts to steer them and produce documents. First Type rating was a repeat of the Basic. Had to do 2 type courses as first ran out of time on the revised OJT for first type. Had to do the Jet ****ty Type rating and OJT to get a first type and do my home base aircraft again. I did finish top of the class on that rating! So I should have done as worked on it for 4 years as A Cat. You are totally correct on the dumbing down of RAF Engineering. Criminal. It was the ex technician serpents that kept IPTs going. I cannot look at an EngO as an engineer. Most are not. HNC or HND? Technician, not higher than I had in the mob. My training as a basic DE rigger was longer than a BEngO. People managers. Retention of technicians? They will never retain without having some parity. |
DTS,
Whilst I am aware of the changes to the Licencing system, prior to this, the acquisition of a LWTR wasn't quite the " stroll in the park " you seem to imagine. First, the CAA used negative marking on the written exams. .then came the oral and you were at the whims of the surveyor. I "failed" my first oral due to the surveyor being openly biased against former RAF or current charter operators engineers...I was, far, far from alone. He "failed" me for not, as he put it, being familiar with two small paragraphs in CAIP's ...He threatened others with a T/R to remove their T/R if they didn't meet his "standards" . My next attempt started well enough, identify bits n pieces, draw a schematic. follow a wiring diagram, but then we moved onto his speciality....Mach aerodynamics. ...the bare basics, yes, but certainly not the more advanced, plus maths, theory. I passed. On the subject of undervalued engineers, the RAF persisted for many years with the "single trade"...I understand, and am open to correction, both RN articifers and former AAC before REME took over, engineers were, using A & C as an example, dual trained. For me, not having engineers dual / multi-trained is undervaluing engineers. When the RAF did, eventually, decide to follow this logical course, the conversion courses as it were could best be described as "overview meets basic " ...some recipients were only too happy to be gaining dual trained roles, others however were "somewhat reluctant " to put their more expansive knowledge to use. I became familiar with the " actually, I'm a legacy...(.select trade of choice) as to why they couldn't really deliver basic training....albeit the most notable was an airframe Cpl who claimed he didn't know how to wire lock....seriously ! As for basic electrics, they were shown how to use a fluke, true, not for every mode, but, enough for them to both understand and use one plus tracing basic circuit diagrams |
Originally Posted by Krystal n chips
(Post 11821361)
DTS,
Whilst I am aware of the changes to the Licencing system, prior to this, the acquisition of a LWTR wasn't quite the " stroll in the park " you seem to imagine. First, the CAA used negative marking on the written exams. .then came the oral and you were at the whims of the surveyor. I "failed" my first oral due to the surveyor being openly biased against former RAF or current charter operators engineers...I was, far, far from alone. He "failed" me for not, as he put it, being familiar with two small paragraphs in CAIP's ...He threatened others with a T/R to remove their T/R if they didn't meet his "standards" . My next attempt started well enough, identify bits n pieces, draw a schematic. follow a wiring diagram, but then we moved onto his speciality....Mach aerodynamics. ...the bare basics, yes, but certainly not the more advanced, plus maths, theory. I passed. On the subject of undervalued engineers, the RAF persisted for many years with the "single trade"...I understand, and am open to correction, both RN articifers and former AAC before REME took over, engineers were, using A & C as an example, dual trained. For me, not having engineers dual / multi-trained is undervaluing engineers. When the RAF did, eventually, decide to follow this logical course, the conversion courses as it were could best be described as "overview meets basic " ...some recipients were only too happy to be gaining dual trained roles, others however were "somewhat reluctant " to put their more expansive knowledge to use. I became familiar with the " actually, I'm a legacy...(.select trade of choice) as to why they couldn't really deliver basic training....albeit the most notable was an airframe Cpl who claimed he didn't know how to wire lock....seriously ! As for basic electrics, they were shown how to use a fluke, true, not for every mode, but, enough for them to both understand and use one plus tracing basic circuit diagrams |
DTS. You are correct! - I had my A&Cs between 1989 and 1999 when I left the RAF and eventually converted then all to Pt 66 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3. As KnC says Negative Marking on exams meant that you needed to get 80% of your questions right to meet the 75% pass mark. I did indeed work (Evenings and weekends) on civvy aircraft for two years to get my log book validated. My first exam was for A&C Turbine Helicopters and I used the Whirlwind and Gnome as my study models (CAA hardly had a clue about them). My exam was 3 hours at Southall College for 90 vote-for-joe Q's and 4 essay questions. When I passed that I had an Oral exam in the cellar of the CAAs then Heathrow office. Three hours of questions, sat in a bare room at a desk with the surveyor sat opposite reading the Section L. While I didn't do Mach Numbers for my exam I still answered questions on supersonic intakes and exhausts - and wood repairs (?) When asked If I had passed all he said was "you'll do". In contrast, my last oral exam was 20 minutes in the CAAs then Horley offices with a cup of coffee and chatting with a friendly ex-RAF surveyor. As for the degradation of engineers - even in the 90s there were J/Ts who didn't know what an aileron was. In the 2010s there was a Navy tech in a Depth Hangar who split a heavily corroded plug off a connection to fix his continuity snag and then he tie-wrapped the plug back together. This was the mentality of First Line only experienced personnel in both the navy and RAF - what we used to call BDR techniques for all maintenance.
|
IIRC apprentices we’re dual trained and became Corporals one year after passing out of training, then there were the super tech apprentices which were 4 or 5 trade qualified that did 5 years at Stalag Halton passing out as Corporals.
The first dual trades I can remember came in about 78 with the Sea Kings. We had an engines Chief that disappeared off for about a year to do the Halton airframe technicians course, then the Gnome / Sea King courses, what a waste, he was useless at his own trade, let alone giving him someone else’s. As for the Orals, I got asked to tell the surveyor the firing sequence of a large radial engine, having read up on it only the night before for some strange reason, I rattled the firing sequence off to the gob smacked Surveyor. Strangely, some years ago when I was helping work on a Spitfire, I was looking at the oil tank and blurted out “ohh it’s got a hotpot” None of then had the faintest idea what that was or even its purpose. Lol. This really is maturing into a fascinating thread 👍 . |
Originally Posted by NutLoose
(Post 11821700)
IIRC apprentices we’re dual trained and became Corporals one year after passing out of training, then there were the super tech apprentices which were 4 or 5 trade qualified that did 5 years at Stalag Halton passing out as Corporals.
The first dual trades I can remember came in about 78 with the Sea Kings. We had an engines Chief that disappeared off for about a year to do the Halton airframe technicians course, then the Gnome / Sea King courses, what a waste, he was useless at his own trade, let alone giving him someone else’s. As for the Orals, I got asked to tell the surveyor the firing sequence of a large radial engine, having read up on it only the night before for some strange reason, I rattled the firing sequence off to the gob smacked Surveyor. Strangely, some years ago when I was helping work on a Spitfire, I was looking at the oil tank and blurted out “ohh it’s got a hotpot” None of then had the faintest idea what that was or even its purpose. Lol. This really is maturing into a fascinating thread 👍 . |
Nutty: clarifying the RAF's "Super Tech Apprentice" thing; I so enlisted in 1969, I think the scheme had been running about 5 years at that time (the TV adverts called us "Aerocrats") and ran for about another 5 before (I think) developing into a dual-discipline trade. Mechanical Apps did 3 years at Haltditz, our avionic counterparts were at Locking with identical Entry Numbers I believe, though we never met.
After 3 years we graduated as corporals equal skilled (!!) and qualified in Airframes, Engines, Electrics and Weapons, and with an ONC. After 2 years of mentored experience in the real Air Force promotion to sergeant was semi-automatic. Around 1973 the Weapons discipline was removed from the sylabus and that appllied retrospectively to those personnel in Service. |
Originally Posted by DuncanDoenitz
(Post 11821817)
Nutty: clarifying the RAF's "Super Tech Apprentice" thing; I so enlisted in 1969, I think the scheme had been running about 5 years at that time (the TV adverts called us "Aerocrats") and ran for about another 5 before (I think) developing into a dual-discipline trade. Mechanical Apps did 3 years at Haltditz, our avionic counterparts were at Locking with identical Entry Numbers I believe, though we never met.
After 3 years we graduated as corporals equal skilled (!!) and qualified in Airframes, Engines, Electrics and Weapons, and with an ONC. After 2 years of mentored experience in the real Air Force promotion to sergeant was semi-automatic. Around 1973 the Weapons discipline was removed from the sylabus and that appllied retrospectively to those personnel in Service. |
We had one at Odiham on the OCU, he later went VC10 and did the gear change on the Brooklands one.
I think by then they were Engines, Airframes, Electrics, and I think possibly Nav Inst / Radar? Strange world, as a LAE you tend to do that lot on smaller stuff or without specialised test equipment ;) |
I was also a super tech at Halton starting 1969. But I also remember doing safety equip fits, seats removals refits and gun loading at 1st Line Harriers in the mid to late 70’s . I don’t recall ever being told that I wasn’t qualified.
|
Can't be categorical either way Nolongerin, but I do remember having to be given special dispensation to perform seat Vitals, if reqd, during a minimalist F-4 detachment around late 70s. Maybe it was a command/group/station thing. Long time ago ......
(117 btw). |
| All times are GMT. The time now is 10:28. |
Copyright © 2026 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.