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The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
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Hi all
Amazing.The Don can't keep them running(allegedly obsolete avionics,etc) and some whippersnapper of a civvy has it up and running in no time.Someone in the Don needs a large toe up the hole...
rant mode to silent
GttC
True,but the average Air Corps Dauphin spent a hell of a lot of it's life carrying Ministers or dropping troops or doing absolutely anything but SAR.Apart from that, the civvie helicopters used in the USA for example, on police/firefighting/logging/SAR/etc have equally tough lives and still manage to put up better availability and serviceability than the Don Dauphins ever did....it was claimed that the Dauphins were being grounded for lack of spares for the avionics, among other things, yet there are many Dauphins of older vintage than 247 still in use.There was no valid reason why the Dauphins could not have had their avionics upgraded or even simplified and kept in service.I think they were retired because they were regarded as an embarrassment, having failed to live up to expectations(not thru their fault, they're only dumb machines, in the end), the 248 debacle.The institution failed the aircraft, not the other way around.
regards
GttC
AC had 5 aircraft and this was reduced to 4 due to the Waterford crash. The AC was still expected to provide 24 hour SAR cover from Finner/Silgo and Waterford (untill they were contracted out). In addition to army support, VIP/MATS, island medevac etc
The more expensive, but better option at the time would have been Puma's for SAR & Troop Tansport (and bringing Ministers around the country to open off licenses) and a number of Lynx's for the the Naval role.
GttC - in laymans terms, what is wrong with the Air Corps maintenance system compared to other Air Forces or CHC?
The lack of a shift system is possibly the main issue. Work begins at 9.30 and finishes at 4. Difficult to slot aircraft maintenance into that short timescale.
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.
As usual with something like this it's a combination of factors, the shift definitely being one of them, the other being the minimal supply of spare parts, and the fact that every crawler in our so-called government seemed to get a trip in the friggin things.......
When they reached the end of their SAR life[for which they were unsuitable for in the first place] they should have been stripped down and used for the SF troop transport rule saving the EC-135's for command/control/training work.
Or , better again , just transfered to the NS
"We will hold out until our last bullet is spent. Could do with some whiskey"
Radio transmission, siege of Jadotville DR Congo. September 1961.
Illegitimi non carborundum
RThats the problem with buying a multi role helo..it may not always be able to do what it says on the box.
Somebody saw it as a multi role aircraft and wanted to try improve it even further.
It has to be said that it did give the AC a massive leap in techology at the time which was badly needed.
Very quick to pass criticsism on the machine but it did have its moments of Glory. One which will always remain with me was the photo taken of it dropping a winch man onto the deck of the yarrawonga in 1988 when she was in trouble of the West coast...seas and ship were huge and here was this little aircraft giving it all she had,,,just things like that.
The photo in the "Aircorps A Celebration 100 Years of Flight"book has a similar photo of 245 carrying out a rescue from tanker 'Tom Helene' in a storm in 1990,125 miles south west of Castletownbere....spectacular to say the least.
Tribute must also be paid to the crews of these machines who knew they were operatiing at the extreme of the aircrafts capabilities at the best of times.
Hi there
Air Corps maintenance does not operate on a true 24 hour basis.It has, for a long time, relied on people on call, which is inherently inefficient, as it demands that people turn out from their homes at all hours, instead of being on-site.It also has a mix of civil and military inspectors, to sign off work, which is an unwieldy system.....The DF has no workable basis for a shift system, unlike, for example, the RAF, which uses a basis of a two-shift system in permanent stations.Aircraft techs have not done guard duties in the RAF since 1954, freeing them up for their primary duty, which is aircraft maintenance.Air Corps techs spend a huge amount of time doing anything but aircraft maintenance, a lot of which is down to doing extraneous courses which bear no relation to their real job. That is DF-wide, not just the Don. As for spares, that's not really an excuse anymore, as the modern spares system in the airline industry is very efficient at getting parts to a grounded aircraft and the Don has had 24-hour manufacturer response for at least twenty years now....in terms of manpower, there are enough on hand but many are consumed in unrelated activities (sport/ promotion courses,etc) and the manning structure is inefficient. Simply, they ought to copy any decent airline's crewing struture and put on a full-time shift system.Which will never happen, as the Finance people would never sanction it. In fairness, it's infinitely better than it ever was, but compared to the average airline, it's second-division stuff, in terms of actual serviceability/availability.
regards
GttC
Hi there
Air Corps maintenance does not operate on a true 24 hour basis.It has, for a long time, relied on people on call, which is inherently inefficient, as it demands that people turn out from their homes at all hours, instead of being on-site.It also has a mix of civil and military inspectors, to sign off work, which is an unwieldy system.....The DF has no workable basis for a shift system, unlike, for example, the RAF, which uses a basis of a two-shift system in permanent stations.Aircraft techs have not done guard duties in the RAF since 1954, freeing them up for their primary duty, which is aircraft maintenance.Air Corps techs spend a huge amount of time doing anything but aircraft maintenance, a lot of which is down to doing extraneous courses which bear no relation to their real job. That is DF-wide, not just the Don. As for spares, that's not really an excuse anymore, as the modern spares system in the airline industry is very efficient at getting parts to a grounded aircraft and the Don has had 24-hour manufacturer response for at least twenty years now....in terms of manpower, there are enough on hand but many are consumed in unrelated activities (sport/ promotion courses,etc) and the manning structure is inefficient. Simply, they ought to copy any decent airline's crewing struture and put on a full-time shift system.Which will never happen, as the Finance people would never sanction it. In fairness, it's infinitely better than it ever was, but compared to the average airline, it's second-division stuff, in terms of actual serviceability/availability.
regards
GttC
Cheers for the detailed response.
About the finance people - is it a false economy? I.E. If they were to sanction the purchase of an additional 139; would a proper 24hr maintenance rota instead and the costs involved with that be cheaper/equivalent to purchasing an extra helicopter within the current maintenance structure?
I think what is apparant here is that the sale of the four Dauphins for a give away price is an crazy waste of an asset that could still have served many uses with a simplified mission fit. Does anyone know the exact figure they were sold for? If I am not mistaken it amounted to only hundreds of thousands for the lot. Is that not a terrible waste seeing it now in it's current condition?
I remember hearing earlier that each aircraft would have cost €1.25m to upgrade the avionics, presumably to the standard that the US owners have.
You have to remember the type was one of the first with EFIS display, and this was via 5 screen CRT technology, wheread all todays aircraft use LCD displays.
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.
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