Metaphors cut both ways unfortunately.
If you miss the moon the nearest star is just over 4 light years away.
Yes we can aim for the moon, but consoling ourselves that we might eventually hit a star whilst we drift through the endless, unchanging cold void of space for eons is little comfort.
24 cadets per chinook
Underslung loads?
Whereas von Braun of V2 fame ‘I am for the stars, sometimes I hit London’.
Bring in a Tiswas crew with Oshkosh’s (sp) and watch the costs and logistics rise exponentially.
Oh I was, now after getting back in the lads decided at 0350 that’s enough sleep for me.
0440 he’s back asleep, but my back is in too much of a clip and u can’t sleep so this rant continues!
Looking at our fleet management system (jesus i know, but I’m awake, what else is there to do). We currently have a fleet serviceability rate of approximately 20%.
Gold isn’t exactly the the best tool as an AC that hasn’t been serviced will show up as US (unserviceable).
To be flying all day, a cab will need to be at least 10hrs clear before the DDH will be happy to allow them to fly for the day. Getting an aircraft 10hrs will mean approximately 40 odd man hours per flying hour if you do it properly. Essentially 400 man hours per aircraft to clear it… Factor in this against what, 4/5 AC for the day, you’re looking at approximately 2.5k man hours from techies just to get it done.
You may need then have calender codes that pop up on the day of the flight, or just before which will again take a similar amount of time. Any part twos or part three’s that the DDH or EngOs feel as inappropriate to transport cadets with will then also wipe that AC from the flypro.
As an (extreme example). AC 1 requires as part of its calender codes a 7days. This is nearly 12 man hours of work for a 4 man team (realistically it doesn’t take that long), but so does AC 2. So right there you have 4 techies tied up for that time essentially doing a clean.
The mechs then need to do 122s on three three aircraft. It takes an hour on each, if they work quickly. AC 3 then fails that grease check as the aft swash plate has too many particulates. Check gets redone, still fails so that’s a full swash change. Blades off heads off, swash replaced. Another 200 odd manhours because it’s a bad day. That requires HTGR. Not sure if you need an air test on that one…but the heads turner fails on Vibration. So aircraft three has a re-rig followed by two air tests to ensure vibration isn’t out of limits. Those two air tests push the hours over so those four hours the cadets want for flying means the aircraft will need a primary servicing this week rather than next. This puts the aircraft offline for over a month for that maintenance, but it’s needed for sorties next week for ops training for three para who need a redhead trooping into the block or some regiment squadron urgently needs some new mortar tubes for some reason… As such, that aircraft is removed from the cadet flypro to complete operational sorties.
So now you have two aircraft for the day.
It isn’t just simply them flying. They all are tracked via hours which dictate their maintenance cycles for primaries, major and minor servicing. If you hit that band doing a long day of cadet flying, you’ve lost an aircraft completely for months whilst it has an in-depth service.
That’s fine, 50 cadets each on 20min sorties over 4hrs that’s 1200 cadets. Unfortunately not the 2000 which would have been nearly possible with three.
Chinooks going US is much more common than you think. The hours we out into them to keep them going equates, as a rough estimate, between 50-500 man hours between sorties depending on calender and hours codes, and that’s without any faults that occur during flight.
You also need to remember, these things aren’t like a car with the check engine light. If a caption illuminates, temp spikes during flight especially with cadets in the back. They will just ut down in a farmer’s field. They won’t risk it. Especially with cadets in the back.
You then have crew and engineers in at the weekend, which doesn’t endear the engineers or aircrew to the ACO, bur I’ve covered that elsewhere.
The take away is there is an awful lot involved in getting a cab in the air. More than people, including our own aircrew at times realise. You could easily work 500+ hours to have the aircraft fail on start. And when you have a squadron that’s between 60-80% manned for engineers… UK training and operations will absolutely take precedence.
I haven’t gone into crew changes, refueling, see ins, see offs here. That’s ancillary rubbish that doesn’t take too long. The biggest spanner to getting this off the ground (hahaha because they fly… Good god I’m tired at 0455) is the work up prior to the day.
I hope this provides a view from my side of the fence. Any more questions please just ask.
And remember, if a Chinook isn’t leaking oil, it’s because it’s run out of oil.
Sorry, post number three.
Don’t take that as a given. I truly, and I mean truly, want to see cadets flying in the cabs. I still haven’t, even after 11 years working on them.
I know it’s negative, I really do wish and hope that the cadets get a good experience. The ground crew, despite being a bunch of… Are absolutely professional and will try their damn hardest to get things ready.
I really do hope as many of them as possible get up into the blue.
There was one that I know of several years ago, I think about 5-600 got up in the air which afaik was all those who could.
Just about every available “practical” (“glamorous”) trade was represented that could put on a worthwhile stall - regiment, medical, police, armourers, and MT stick most in the mind. There were cadets getting hands on with a plethora of weapons, climbing all over a Jackal and getting cuffed and locked in the back of a car, looking at a Tutor and/or a glider (maybe - might even have been Vigi). Chinook display team gave a show as well.
For the (experienced) staff it was a lot of walking around trying to look interested and stopping the small cadets from collapsing under the weight of the big guns and the flying details were definitely “hurry up and wait”, but trying to gather c.50 at a time, getting them briefed, prepped, wait for the aircraft, out to the aircraft, in the air, back again, derigged, out the way, then sort the kit for the next group, was a logistical feat that took a lot of time and required a conveyor belt that had to be ready before the next stage was ready to accept them to ensure everything ticked over efficiently enough.
But the planning and advance comms were far better received than this and last year’s.
The musters pre Covid all flew around the 800 mark… but only 24 per cab, can do floor lap belts for cadets
I flew in a Chinook at JL once. I was very grateful, it was the last day and it would have been a very long patrol back to camp otherwise.
The other factor in a helicopter muster is weather. The airfield in question is prone to autumnal mist and fog.
Dragging 2000 cadets plus CFAV there for Chinook/ Puma flights and for it to be weathered off is a huge risk. I hate it when I take a few cadets 20 minutes up the road for gliding and it gets cancelled - It could be a huge waste of resource and effort.
The idea of A400M flights out of that airfield by the way is laughable. May be possible with crew only and light fuel, but not full of cadets.
Easy.
Tanker.
There is no suggestion of a400m this time. That was a previous event.
I believe they once did land a Vulcan there, it just never took off again as it was worked on by the apprentices.
Yes, tanker is the obvious answer, my query was more directed to if they were ppanning to use an A400 again. (But thats moot because they’re not)
Nonetheless, i assume thats a heck of a lot of JET A1 needed (i dont know the fuel burn on the Chinook or Puma), and a fairly large sterile area free from wandering cadets?
This what happened at the first muster.
The RLC turn up train the cadets, kit then out in bone domes and escort to the aircraft. 20 cadets fly at a time. 20 off, 20 on only takes 5 minutes. 10 min flight 80 pax an hour… 5 hours of flying, 4 chinooks 1600 bums on seats. If Madds can pull strings at Benson and get a couple of Pumas also then 2000 flying is possible.
If the RAF treated it as a training event, it’s a good tasking for them to have a crack at. Something like ‘what if we had to get 2000 people off a ship 20 minutes out to sea in a short space of time?’ or a drilling platform.
Thats what they did when i was at benson as an excuse to fly the cadets…mass evac from a hostil env. Was awesome being dragged into a merlin whilst the regt created a defensive perimeter
To be clear, the aircraft supposedly listed are just 2 x Chinook and 2 x Puma, so you can half your estimates.