Is that down to local demographics rather than by design?
Pretty much. South west be pretty white.
It’s also very Leftie
2 Likes
I think there’s a difference between critical national infrastructure and traffic cameras tbf…
3 Likes
Not under the Act, it just goes by ‘Very serious damage’. And £45m is way more serious than the £7m estimated cost of the Voyager damage.
Considering the health reasons behind the cameras, I’d say they’re pretty important, especially as we learn more about the dangers of air pollution.
2 Likes
Just seen the names of the accused
-
Amy Gardiner-Gibson, 29, of no fixed abode
-
Daniel Jeronymides-Norie, 35, from London
-
Jony Cink, aged 24, of no fixed abode
-
Lewie Chiaramello, 22, from London
Surprised not to see a Tarquin or Araminta on there!
And for the sake of the comparison; I think the individuals cutting down the ULEZ cameras are complete idiots who should be prosecuted and heavily punished. But I don’t think the whole group and anyone supporting them should be a proscribed terrorist group.
The same as Palestine Action.
1 Like
Haven’t seen a quoted figure - informal RAF sources to me suggest much higher - but bear in mind that these assets are unflyable at the moment, which adds an unknown cost to the pot, especially as the RAF can’t just “borrow” the equivalent of 2 Voyagers.
Even if they don’t lease civvie but use other aircraft (C17, A400M) to move people around (nowhere near as useful), then there is a cost to the airframes / personnel hrs.
That’s what the BBC had yesterday after the charges were announced
£7mil is what I’ve seen quoted. And in parliament the defence minister (I think) confirmed this made no difference to operational abilities as they were able to immediately backfill with other assets.
Yeah, right……
What other tanker assets to support QRA, etc? 
If using other aircraft for moving people / kit, well, they are quite busy with tasking relating to Cyprus (& “local” area), Estonia & in support of Ukraine supply.
Old figures from Hansard 2010, but a C17 was quoted at £42k / hr, probably well over £55k a hr now with increase in mx / fuel costs. Round trip from BZN to Cyprus? Call it 10 hrs to make the maths easy. Add on unscheduled mx inputs for routine unserviceable events & increased scheduled mx such as 100 hr checks, etc. Not cheap - & needs to be added to the costings. Add on crew duty / availability too.
3 Likes
i am speaking in complete ignorance but i am sure i once heard that a Squadron with 12 aircraft never expect more than 10 to be operational.
there will always be one in some level of service/maintenance which is often planned, and another on “standby” - this role is rotated around the 12 airframes to share the load and would be the reserve aircraft called upon should any “front line” aircraft go unservicable.
so on the basis the RAF has access to 14 Voyagers, the schdule of usage would only ever consider lets say 12 aircraft available at any one time based on the above (ie not all 14 would be in constant use all at once as there would be no slack in the system), leaving one in maintenance and one on Standby.
this incident brings into effect the “standby” aircraft - it removes the redundancy/contingency of a standby aircraft but allows the RAF to operate as planned with 12 aircraft available.
without the “standby” available, the approach in how the fleet is operation going forward may well change in the short term, but these kind of “losses” are planned in i understood.
with 14 aircraft in the fleet, is there really sufficient “work”/need to keep all of them busy all of the time?
2 Likes
I’m going off of what the government has said. They can’t say on one hand this is terrorism and incapacitated our air force, and then on the other hand say we’ve got a super resilient air force and this didn’t effect us. (Exagerated, don’t quote me)
It depends if those 2 ‘stand by aircraft’ are already in maintenance …if so, you are down to 10.
but isn’t that the point of “air power” to be flexible and have resilience built in?
if this were a front line fighter jet that was blown out of the sky the reaction to the negative impact would be the same “and attack on the RAF” but it wouldn’t cripple the Air Force.
the only cases where the RAF have unique aircraft are the BBMF (Lancaster, Dakota and Chipmunk, if we are not counting the unique variants of Spitfire and Hurricane) and if they don’t fly/are grounded for whatever reason it is tough that is how it goes - but that approach cannot be adopted for the defence of the nation.
a solution must be available and so resilience must be built in by having aircraft on “standby” to be called upon should another go u/s
(while i accept it instantly removes resilience as there will be no back up to the back up)
if aircraft are in Maintenance though, they are not on standby by definition.
i am often reminded by a Grp Capt friend i have in RBL circles (former Herc pilot) that “flexibility is the key to Air Power” when plans change,
so the fleet runs with 12 aircraft with one on standby, and one in maintenance.
if it ends up with two in maintenance then the flexibility kicks in and how the fleet is managed and work changes to keep all the balls (or in this case, aircraft) in the air
1 Like
I suppose my point was more regarding costs. The only costs here are the repairing the damage. We can’t start extrapolating out the costs of bringing in other aircraft, as those costs already existed. And there’s no extra hours as such, as either would have been needed.
So if the repair costs are £7mil, then that is the cost of this ‘attack’. Starting to extrapolate down the line to build an imaginary large number isn’t realistic or productive.
1 Like
Yes, they are busy all the time, which is why we have to keep borrowing tanker capacity from allies.
Yes you can, & it’s been done before for new / unexpected tasking that wasn’t budgeted.
For every extra sortie for another type that would have previously been scheduled for a Voyager, there are additional costs for the alternative fleet. You coud, however, also argue that less hrs on the 2 Voyagers is a corresponding saving (but as they are PFI, probably very difficult to calculate) - unless the tasking is added across the existing Voyager fleet.
2 Likes
One possibly, 2 in various levels of maintenance, plus 1 in Cyprus and 1 in the Falklands now takes the force to 10, 1 on UK standby for QRA now 2 out of action leaves the force at 7, for other tasking, such as trooping, CCAST and training, a cut of force availability of near 50%.
ETA. In that figure there is no allowance for going ‘tech’ on start up or incidents such as bird strikes etc at any point.
1 Like
Part of the Air Tanker fleet is contracted to civil airlines so a) may not be immediately available and b) the cost of breaking a contract will cost.
3 Likes