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  • To defend it AC (negative):
    Pilot exodus!! (Pilot retention system now gone)
    Promotion and Recruiting ban
    Flying hours cut
    Look what 3 AAIU reports have shown

    (positive):
    CASA top cover
    EAS !!

    Comment


    • Originally posted by DeV View Post
      To defend it AC (negative):
      Pilot exodus!! (Pilot retention system now gone)
      Promotion and Recruiting ban
      Flying hours cut
      Look what 3 AAIU reports have shown

      (positive):
      CASA top cover
      EAS !!
      Given similar constraints the Naval Service has done remarkably well.
      The EAS is a success but it is definitely a move away from a core military function and must be limiting on the availability of assets for other missions.
      Is the CASA available 24/7 for top cover?

      Comment


      • Of course, but NS don't have to have type ratings on equipment, vessels etc.

        CASA isn't available 24/7 AFAIK but many here were complaining it was never available, regularly available now.
        Air ambulance is a White Paper tasking.

        It is apples and oranges, there are similarities and differences

        Comment


        • How come Casa isnt available 24 hrs?
          "He is an enemy officer taken in battle and entitled to fair treatment."
          "No, sir. He's a sergeant, and they don't deserve no respect at all, sir. I should know. They're cunning and artful, if they're any good. I wouldn't mind if he was an officer, sir. But sergeants are clever."

          Comment


          • Originally posted by morpheus View Post
            How come Casa isnt available 24 hrs?
            See post 247

            Also it isn't a declared asset so no requirement on AC to make sure it's available

            Ask the Government!

            Comment


            • Originally posted by DeV View Post
              See post 247

              Also it isn't a declared asset so no requirement on AC to make sure it's available

              Ask the Government!
              So by not having it as a declared asset the pressure is off!! Hardly a huge achievement for aircraft that have been in service 20 years.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by DeV View Post
                (positive):CASA top cover EAS !!
                not a lot of positives considering the number and types of aircraft in use and the potential all of them have to be used much more extensively and over a wider range of roles.

                EAS is also a pilot project and the final report could very well go the way of the SAR and suggest a different entity provide airframes for the medical crew. I'm sure NAS would love the glory of operating their own machines completely under their own remit!
                An army is power. Its entire purpose is to coerce others. This power can not be used carelessly or recklessly. This power can do great harm. We have seen more suffering than any man should ever see, and if there is going to be an end to it, it must be an end that justifies the cost. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

                Comment


                • The pilot retention thing was a scam. Paying people (including several individuals who may have been pilots but had long since stopped flying for various reasons) to stay doing what they were already paid generously to do anyway,on the basis that they might go to the airlines,while the place shed techs like rainwater,who were offered no such retention money to stay. I recall one captain stating that techs who left were just "disgruntled exers". Did he ever wonder why??!! As for the whole SAR thing, several of the pilots,including SAR pilots who should have known better, blamed the winch ops men for the loss of SAR. As for the boat, the Donners didn't want it from day 1 and hated being on the ship, which was not helped by the attitudes of some of the NS personnel, some of whom went out of their way to be unpleasant. The Dauphins were too heavy, too finicky and were insufficiently proven when we got them and were in effect, testbeds for whatever Aerospatiale wanted.The Don was going to lose, no matter what. The NS should have had their own independent air arm, to include fixed-wing aircraft.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by morpheus View Post
                    How come Casa isnt available 24 hrs?
                    Also various hold ups with the defence logistical system in speedy ordering of spares and paying for said spares/outside maintenance

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by X-RayOne View Post
                      not a lot of positives considering the number and types of aircraft in use and the potential all of them have to be used much more extensively and over a wider range of roles.

                      EAS is also a pilot project and the final report could very well go the way of the SAR and suggest a different entity provide airframes for the medical crew. I'm sure NAS would love the glory of operating their own machines completely under their own remit!
                      Those were just 2 quick off the top of head examples (another one would have been the work on Skellig).... There are others

                      I have no connection with the AC apart from having an interest and being a member of the RDF, so I don't have a vested interest, save that as a taxpayer I want a resourced tasked AC that provides excellent VFM.

                      There are over 880 people (those who have been helped) who I'm sure with disagree! The EAS has successfully proven (very cost effectively) that such a service is required and there is demand (proving what a number of reports have said.



                      Originally posted by Charlie252 View Post
                      So by not having it as a declared asset the pressure is off!! Hardly a huge achievement for aircraft that have been in service 20 years.
                      Ask Government!! The AC can only do as tasked (but they should volunteer at the same time!)

                      Originally posted by GoneToTheCanner View Post
                      The pilot retention thing was a scam. Paying people (including several individuals who may have been pilots but had long since stopped flying for various reasons) to stay doing what they were already paid generously to do anyway,on the basis that they might go to the airlines,while the place shed techs like rainwater,who were offered no such retention money to stay.
                      Who has more pull?
                      It still helped bring wages up towards market rates. But people obviously worked the system (and techs probably should have got something too).



                      The thing about the DF is (it has changed in someways), if a commercial organisation isn't using something they look at it as costing money, if the DF isn't using it the Government looks at it as saving money.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by DeV View Post
                        Ask Government!! The AC can only do as tasked (but they should volunteer at the same time!)...
                        the problem with this argument, or more correctly the logic behind it, is that the AC is conspicuous by its absence in the increase in the tempo/difficulty of its roles that both the Army and NS have very obviously undergone in the last decade.

                        Chad would been unthinkable in the 1990's, as would the NS's current Med operation. moreover the AC could reasonably be said to have had the lions share of investment - would that either the Army or the NS could say that their oldest peice of major equipment was 20 years old...

                        so, either successive governments of all flavours have had a wierd hang-up about pouring money into the AC but refusing - much to the howls of protest of the AC hierarchy - to let it be used to its potential, or the AC have a very different ethic to the other two services and that it keeps its head down when the other services are saying 'we can do this', and if asked 'can you do this?' comes out with an arm-long list of insurmountable problems.

                        anyone want to put a €5 bet on which one is true..?

                        Comment


                        • There is an exodus of enlisted techs at the moment too

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by ropebag View Post
                            the problem with this argument, or more correctly the logic behind it, is that the AC is conspicuous by its absence in the increase in the tempo/difficulty of its roles that both the Army and NS have very obviously undergone in the last decade.

                            Chad would been unthinkable in the 1990's, as would the NS's current Med operation. moreover the AC could reasonably be said to have had the lions share of investment - would that either the Army or the NS could say that their oldest peice of major equipment was 20 years old...

                            so, either successive governments of all flavours have had a wierd hang-up about pouring money into the AC but refusing - much to the howls of protest of the AC hierarchy - to let it be used to its potential, or the AC have a very different ethic to the other two services and that it keeps its head down when the other services are saying 'we can do this', and if asked 'can you do this?' comes out with an arm-long list of insurmountable problems.

                            anyone want to put a €5 bet on which one is true..?
                            I agree but AC bashing seems to be popular there is huge room for improve but:

                            The heaviest thing I every saw underslung on a AC helo was a 120 under a Puma, other than that it was a bail under an Alouette but now the AW139s are carrying Bambi buckets, 105s and Inf bridges. The same aircraft is firing GPMGs off the side of it in the Glen

                            2002 there was 81 air ambulance missions, in 2013 there was 102 air ambulance missions plus 411 EAS missions. Credit where it's due as each one would have made a real difference to someone.


                            Again it's far from perfect but it's unfair to say they have done nothing.

                            Comment


                            • As for the boat, the Donners didn't want it from day 1 and hated being on the ship, which was not helped by the attitudes of some of the NS personnel, some of whom went out of their way to be unpleasant.
                              Have to say , while we didn't mix much when they joined I was always quite civil and found those who came with us to be a little out of their element, which can often come across badly and probably prompted reaction.
                              Some of the corporals had issues as they messed with lower rates on ship where they felt they should be messing with sergeants, which wasn't a option.

                              There were issues like this that did create conflict and got peoples back up.

                              Ships are a strange place for those unused to them. If the crews and techies had remained a constant maybe relations might have improved but to many faces and unfamiliarity brings their own problems especially among a tightly knit crew.

                              Crews have a tendency to declare all those who do not stand watches as 'passengers' and can be resented for being so.
                              Covid 19 is not over ....it's still very real..Hand Hygiene, Social Distancing and Masks.. keep safe

                              Comment


                              • Murph, would you really put an untrained, non-sailor on a watch? To do what??!!........... Dev, pilots at the time were already well paid and, compared to Army Officers, had the highest rates of pay in the DF and had such luxuries as twice the leave days of enlisted personnel. They had a seriously priviliged existence and were regarded as milking it. Some of them got quite a culture shock when they went to the airlines and found that life was not rosy out in the real world, especially when they had to pay for things previously unpaid for. Such as real-world expenses like pilot medicals,license costs, training costs and all the mundane shit that goes with real life. Some of them got a serious eye-opener and actually wanted back in!

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