Update on developments regarding the return of the Tutor to flying condition following the Cranwell accident in January. It has been decided that the wooden propeller will be replaced with an all-metal assembly and this replacement will take place on a rolling programme (NB: UASs feature at the bottom of the list). Once No 1AEF has all 3 ac back on line and AEF pilots back in currency, they should be in a position to restart the AEF programme towards the end of June 2013. There are still numerous unknowns at this stage and it is likely that the roll-out plan will be subject to change along the way. Wg HQ will do its best to keep sqns informed of progress
Reading between the lines, if your AEF is a Cranwell or Wyton, you may be lucky (unless they’re doing 7day/wk EFT) and be a bit earlier than everyone else. Probably not too much though.
update that i have seen seem the Propeller is being replaced
[quote]
“The RAF has now identified a replacement for the Hoffman propeller on the Tutor. Six aircraft have been fitted with the new MT propeller and development flights have been conducted by Babcocks and SEAF. The first production batch of new props (15) will be delivered on 20 Apr, with subsequent batches of 10 per week. Nevertheless, UAS/AEFs are low on the priority and will not receive their first propellers until 20 May”[/quote]
We got an update from 6AEF today saying by the time they have received the new prop and conducted test flights and pilot currency flights, routine ops aren’t likely to start before the end of July.
One of those wonderful things that should probably be sent as a Corps-wide announcement, rather than having to rely on the (excellent) service from an AEF!
The situation is quite fluid still at the moment, and each site has different engineering/delivery schedules, which will be affected by local manpower etc, hence why local updates.
I hear that following the fitting of the new prop, a new ‘challenge’ has been identified. That of a lack of oil pressure during certain manouvres. Has anyone else heard anything?
To paraphrase, I’ve been told that other issues have indeed arisen which will further delay the ungrounding of the Tutor. Didn’t have the specifics of oil pressure but it may well be the case.
I’ve had it confirmed via a second source as lack of oil pressure, causing other challenges. It’s the kind of issue that should have been identified during qualification.
Yep. That just about sums it up without going into technical details. Could be a fairly simple fix, but may take some time to push through. Unfortunately, until the prop was on the aeroplane, and a full flight test programme was carried out, it wasn’t going to make itself apparent. So it’s a “new” issue, but in no way unrelated.
Take out any aerobatic and spinning requirement and the problem goes away (fine for the Army grading!); AEF would be fairly dull though, and not currently fit for purpose for RN and RAF EFT.
It’s now his the press - elements of fact in there at some points, and the gist of the article is correct (surprising for the Daily Mail, as long as ignore 99.9% of readers comments!).
Yeah, the reader comments on the Mail are hilarious, however hard you try and avoid them.
I hope it gets sorted soon. I think half the faff has been Grob saying there’s not a problem and Babcock looking for the quickest/cheapest solution. The Grob is exceptionally good for what it is used for, be it EFT or AEF flying, so it’d be a shame for it so be thwarted by a (fairly isolated) pair of propeller problems.
Probably not too much though.