The worst thing is that the issues with gliding which have been affecting us up here aren’t technical - when they come out of this grounding phase I fear we’ll still have precious little in the way of flying.
Not to mention the proposed CEP which will create additional CCF(RAF) Sections and they will also eat into the flying & gliding allocation. A simple case of more cadets but the same number of slots which will end up being spread even more thinly than what they are generally.
I thought that the ‘pause’ to sort out the aircraft documentation set and get the airframes to a known ‘standard’ affected all of the VGSs; what else/different afflicts the chaps North of the Border Incy?
There are 3 VGS in Scotland.
[ul][li]661 had (and still has I think) issues with the field at Kirknewton and large amounts of work have been done to make it usable again.[/li]
[li]663 at Kinloss has 2 vigis, is/was severely understaffed, had accommodation issues and need to provide their own fire cover. There were also personnel issues at the squadron.[/li]
[li]662 at Arbroath have had to take over 661s task so are run off their feet.
[/ul]
My unit is part of 663’s catchment and that is fine by me but for a long time they seem to have struggled. The last GS we got out of them was in 2011 and the one before that was about 4 years earlier. I think we also had issues with our (now ex) WFGLO
The “pause” had next to no nett effect on us as we were effectively getting no gliding anyway. Yes, there were the occasional GIC slots allocated to us but of the 4 days we were given in 2013 two were was cancelled almost immediately as the VGS weren’t flying, one was on the day of a major parade for the squadron and had to be refused and on the 4th we actually got there but the wind was out of limits.
A move to Lossiemouth is on the cards for 663 at some point in the future. This means that they’ll have crash cover and access to authorised accommodation for mixed cadets again and might actually be able to carry out their task.
I’m guessing you haven’t been to Syerston recently.
Remind me, when did this all start? Mid-Apr?
Now the latest information states “mid-Oct” for 5 airframes? Six months? It doesn’t add up.
To me, that seems an inordinate length of time for a full inspection &/or validation of airworthiness paperwork for 5 airframes.
We are not talking large, complicated airliner structures here; these aircraft are small & relatively uncomplicated. What has been the limited factor? Man hours? Certification?
Simply: we are not important in the manufacturers schedule. Their engineers need to re certify the airframes as various work has been conducted on them. They are busy, only have an finite amount of people who can do it, and we can’t pay over the odds to get it done.
I think air cadet gliding is permanently doomed to failure at the moment. This year has proven that the RAF wants to run the VGS system with the same standards, regulations and demands of a full time EFT operation and with the aircraft being regulated the same as a typhoon or Tucano. That’s fine, but it will never work staffed by volunteers doing it in their ‘spare’ time. Each VGS or at least region of VGSs needs some paid, committed resource such as paid reservist OC or support like the AEFs or we will lurch from one crisis to the next.
You know very little of the structure of gliding it seems.
- The Raf managed the fleet previously and buggered it up
- Syerston employs full time personnel to support and manage
- The VGS don’t need full time staff - they just need to stop playing pilot occasionally
Syerston don’t employ anyone to really " manage " individual VGS issues you still have 25 OCs chasing for every bit of support they need. Syerston provide the overarching rules and regs and occasionally some aircraft. Its more often than not the OC or execs who are chasing buildings, messing, accommodation, MT, parenting, medicals, appointments, stores & equipment, multiple inspections and the million and one othet bits of compliance, yep its probably a full time job if not a bit more
Compliance is going to be if not the death it will be a major contributor to the debilitation of the ATC.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t follow rules, but someone sitting in an office is creating these or simply replicating them from what the regulars do and has no idea about the impact it has on the organisation they support/work for. The operational functions of the ATC are staffed/operated by volunteers, which is IMO (and probably many others) completely forgotten by the salaried administrative side of the organisation. For the last 3 years at the COs meetings the shooting officer has said it’s all about compliance and the actual shooting is practically a secondary consideration. The OC of our VGS came to the last one and said gliding was going to become more bound up in red tape, as in his words they are finding jobs for people who have no idea about gliding as control effectively went to Regions. I’ve spoken to him a few times and does seem a struggle to keep a VGS operational and doing it while having a full time job.
If you are going to have and enforce compliance then as implied it must have enough people employed full time to operate and fully support these functions.
Or, the alternative is don’t have compliance and the MoD get used by parents and organisation every other week for vicarious liability/direct culpability/malfeasance and we end up being tied in harsher knots by the MoD. The recent coroners reports on some MoD related incidents are testamount to this as they have written to the SoS directing them to take action. If the MoD fail to do so and it happens again, the court case becomes much quicker and potentially someone quite senior ends up being prosecuted for corporate manslaughtet, and yes, they can be done for something involving “volunteers” and “kids”.
One of those people are the new OC 2FTS as the duty desk holder for the activity. The Comdt is another one and then it wanders upwards to the MoD. It’s a harsh reality of life and you need to get a grip and stop pretending this is an ACO thing.
Prune before you get all confrontational and telling people to get a grip, read what people are saying. No one is suggesting we don’t effect compliance, merely that the
demands of running a VGS operation are now beyond a solely volunteer staff role - that is very much a n ACO problem and it and 2 FTS can’t just keep loading up the poor VGS execs and expecting it all to work like a full time RAF squadron.
Ps duty desk holder :lol:
Compliance is going to be if not the death it will be a major contributor to the debilitation of the ATC.[/quote]
So why say this then? It’s not compliance that will be the downfall of the ACO, it will be the lack of investment in providing suitable support to the VGSs in order that they can achieve compliance. The emphasis on the issue here was that compliance is the problem. You should read more carefully old chap.
I have to say that I’m getting a little fed up with people who have absolutely no idea or understanding of the whole compliance process getting all upset about what they see as HQAC dumping on the VGSs. Of course, you have to add to that the usual comments from some regarding our HQ not understanding what the work face does. Some of you really need to understand what is going on before making negative comments.
The compliance process is NOT brought about by HQAC, it is the MAA who ultimately regulate our flying and if you think that civvy street would be any different, think again; the MAA pretty much mirrors what they do. There is no suggestion that the gliders are not airworthy, but for years they have not been maintained using proper procedures or documentation - and that was when the RAF were maintaining them as well. The Project Team also appear not to have done what they should have to support the engineering staff and everything has now been shown to be a pig’s ear of ocean-going proportions.
For all you moaners out there, you would not ever entertain sending your cadets to an activity in a minibus which might perhaps have been maintained incorrectly, so why on earth are you bleating about additional safeguards for gliding?
Yes this ‘pause’ is an absolute pain, but it’s not anyone’s fault at HQAC and having more full-time staff wouldn’t help either. Once the technical governance is sorted, it will run pretty much as before without a great deal of, if any, extra work. It’s getting there that will be the pain and that is what a lot of people at Syerston are suffering at the moment. Just let them get on with their jobs; they will get the gliders back for us as soon as they safely can.
It can be seen as HQACs fault for not properly funding the transition to MAA compliance when 1EFTS and 3 FTS oversaw the implementation on coming into line with MAA procedures HQAC still held the purse strings so when 1 or 3 school said that x, y and z needed to be done it wasn’t always quite so. Now 2FTS is effectiely a HQAC body it finally all comes together a little too late. Compliance isn’t a bad thing just getting 25 part time OCs to do all the leg work while doing everything else might not be the most expedient way.
and if more full time staff isn’t the answer why are 2FTS recruiting so many more permanent full time staff??
Other than the Technical Officer, who doesn’t get his hands that dirty, how many people at the VGSs are involved in engineering other than doing the AFs, BFs and very minor work? The current arrangement for maintaining the aircraft is unlikely to change, in that there will probably continue to be a central ‘heavy’ maintenance facility with mobile teams going round the VGSs as necessary to undertake ‘lighter’ work. But the effort at the moment is to re-establish the baseline state of the aircraft after years of pretty much assumptions of what they’re like. Realistically, out on the VGSs, and these are just my thoughts, there could well be an increase in technical training for aircrew and a tightening of the engineering authorisations that are granted to aircrews, but this would be undertaken by the engineers at Syerston.
Nobody is saying that the operating side of gliding is faulty, but there will undoubtedly be some procedural changes to accord with MAA requirements and this could be why there are staff increases at the 2FTS. The FTS HQs - all of them - have generally never involved themselves with engineering issues on the aircraft and in our case, this is contracted out. Unfortunately, due to years of neglect, the technical side of things most certainly is broken and has been building up to that state for a long time.
It is worth bearing in mind that HQAC do not fund technical documentation, they do not fund Project Team support and they do not fund a Design Authority either.
Cygnus - you are quite right and I think everyone is pretty much in agreement. I think the key point is that if there are any more audits/training requirements/extra paperwork/checks etc loaded onto VGS staff in respect of engineering as a result of all this, it will be the straw the breaks the proverbial camels back, especially when staff and experience levels at most VGS were critical or worse before the pause (likely to be worse with the people who won’t come back now).
If you look at the workload of a VGS exec, alongside which they are expected to be out flying / instructing / supervising / running fire cover / running the airfield from dawn to dusk, it is just untenable. Just have a read of the VGS OC directive from 2 FTS and what is expected. An AEF has full time paid OC, full time paid airfield support, engineering, MT, supply and survival equipment. The scale of the operation is virtually the same. Expecting VGS staff to do all these functions as a part time volunteer and to the same standard is not workable and the HQ needs to act now in line with the reset I would argue.
My comments are based on the engineering aspects Blagger which, from my understanding, is why we have the ‘pause’. As I said, once the aircraft have been baselined, I can’t see much of a change on the engineering support the VGSs get. If you are advising that there are more regulations in course of issue to the operating side, then I stand corrected; and I fully agree with your analogy to the AEFs.
Unless there is a change in the support and way VGS are organised/staffed then gliding will become lost. As Blagger suggests it’s not unrealistic to see there will be a number of instructors who will say stuff it as they have been getting their lives back over the last few months. You only have to look at staff who go NEP or suspended for the usual banal reasons, never come back as they were.
I’ve worked with compliance systems for 18 years (UKAS, NAMAS and now ISO) which although not engineering or aircraft related the premise is the same, training records, equipment maintenance, measurements etc etc etc all need to be monitored and done and unless you have someone given the time to co-ordinate it (we have one chap who spends at least ½ his time on it) and those who assist are on top of it, you play catch up all the time. Then when it comes to when audits are due, headless chicken doesn’t come close.
It would seem that we will need to have a full time non flying Adj at the VGS and full time engineering support with a properly drawn up SLA, with penalties. To say it will go back to how it was after this flap, is just asking for trouble.