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Air corps pilots to be trained by the RAAF in Australia.

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  • #46
    Originally posted by Chuck View Post
    No, I am not saying that. I am saying that Dev once again claimed that, and I quote, "there is a lot of places closer to home where it could be done". Which is nothing more than hyperbole unless it can be actually proven.

    For all you, Dev or I know there may well have been a shortlist of options and the RAAF were the ones that ticked the most boxes.

    I personally don't get the faux outrage over it being in Australia. Sure it would be great to hop over to the UK or mainland europe to do it, but if it can't be done that way then so be it. So long as all stakeholders are happy with what they get from the agreement does it really matter?

    It seems you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

    Would you have the same reservations if they decided to send a few techs over aswell?
    Yes of course. It's a very long way to go for such a small cadre. If the system sent more than 2, you'd get a better return for your money / time / loss of use of assets. The notion that it is somehow "free" is also wrong. The taxpayer will take a hit, one way or the other. You cannot relocate a local asset without it having an effect. Every time the Don sends people over to Spain or Switzerland, the flying and maintenance system has to reshuffle itself and despite the fact that they are 20 odd years at it, it still has a hit. I'll happily take your word for it that the DoD got a good deal from a willing partner, despite it being half a globe away.

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    • #47
      I know of several pilots, back and then and currently, who were on ground rotations and had to engage in catch-up to get their IR or ME or other ratings renewed. One guy was in the Aptce School, for God's sake. He hadn't even left Training Wing, as it then was, and he was raging because he could not get renewed, despite making strenuous efforts to do so. He only got sorted when he was formally returned to the operational side. There was some slip up in the system (maybe a lack of a QFI). I also noticed same when I worked on the turboprops; pilots were coming in at odd hours and times to get renewed, because they were dropping out of currency or renewal and it happened more than once.

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      • #48
        Originally posted by Chuck View Post
        As I have already explained, the AC won't be sending pilots who are out of contract because they can leave at any time unless some form of an undertaking is received prior. There is essentially zero risk of losing these pilots and they will return.

        I'd appreciate Dev if you could answer the question that I directed to you. You made a statement and I'd appreciate if you could clarify it. If you aren't willing to clarify it I think it would be fair to withdraw it.



        The loss of experience has been well publicised in the media. It cannot be replaced overnight and there isnt much scope to increase hours into guys due to the lack of airframes and servicability.

        What you could potentially have with this arrangement is pilots returning with 7/800 hours after two years. The same amount of hours could take 4-5 years to achieve in the AC if you are looking at averages. If suitable these pilots could then be looking at command a lot sooner. That's my own thoughts on it.

        Air Arms have always generally have a much lower hours output per pilot due to the nature of being a military officer in addition. If you are looking to replace a aircraft captain with 2000hours it could take you 10-12 years for a replacement to build up that time. On the surface at least this looks like it will address this.
        Bearing in mind I have no idea who you are......

        I was talking about the withdrawal of a duty rotary and fixed wing aircraft and the fact that people are also double/triple jobbing, duties, GoH's, overseas, long career courses etc etc, which will then have a knock on effect to their availability for flying duties.

        I should have phrased it better, it is a whole AC effort to get aircraft on ops - pilots, techs, ATC, CRS, etc etc. The more seen operations (ie EAS & GASU) get the resources that are available but that shortfall of personnel has to be felt somewhere surely?? Are the same amount of hours available to support army exercises etc ?

        CS4 for the AC doesn't have any excess in it that is for sure.

        I'm happy to withdraw it

        But does that mean the AC has sufficient strength of pilots to complete its taskings ?

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        • #49
          Over the past 24 months reduced Flying Officer numbers and associated changes in the pilot roster system, has necessitated the standing down of 24 hour rosters for certain aircraft types. This has been compounded by restrictions in the availability of Air Traffic Controllers (which is considered in a separate paper). This has led to reduced availability for “as available” operations and restrictions around the use of Casement Aerodrome for fixed wing aircraft.
          SLAs with defined commitments have been met to-date. However, there is a significant risk that if the number of experienced Flying Officers continues to reduce, certain of these
          services will also be impacted.
          Source: https://paycommission.gov.ie/wp-cont...Submission.pdf

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          • #50
            Thank you for that. I appreciate that the PSPC report states that the standing down of the standby roster was due to to the loss of pilots. It then mentions ATC was was also a significant factor. The truth is somewhere in the middle. The lack of ATC was the straw that broke the camels back in this instance IMO.

            I will now answer your question. Do I think there is a pilot shortage? No. Do I think there is a large experience gap developing that needs to be addressed. Yes. Does the AC have an officer (all streams) shortage? Yes.

            I'll put it this way. The AC 'fleet' is the smallest it has been in decades. I'm not sure if it is mentioned in the annual report because In haven't read it but the average for pilots is circa 150 hours per year. Some higher (those on EAS etc), and some lower for various reasons. Having a CASA down on maintenance for 6 months is going to have a significant impact on the entire cadre of CASA pilots.

            I personally think that a more beneficial way of looking at the pilot situation (and this could be adapted for techs/ATC etc) is to look at the flight hours across the entire pilot stream.

            For example (and these are random numbers):

            2010: 80 pilots, 100,000 hours of experience
            2020: 65 pilots, 40,000 hours of experience

            The narrative will state that the AC is down 15 pilots but the much more concerning aspect is the drop in overall drop in corporate knowledge and experience. I dont think any commentators have looked at this.

            You could lose 5 pilots which 15000 hours between them and the narrative will say that there is 10 new pilots commissioned so in effect, the AC has a 'surplus ' of 5. But those 10 pilots will have about 150 hours coming off a wings course. So you have a deficit of 13500 hours of experience.

            Comment


            • #51
              Originally posted by Chuck View Post
              T Do I think there is a pilot shortage? No. Do I think there is a large experience gap developing that needs to be addressed. Yes. Does the AC have an officer (all streams) shortage? Yes.

              I'll put it this way. The AC 'fleet' is the smallest it has been in decades. I'm not sure if it is mentioned in the annual report because In haven't read it but the average for pilots is circa 150 hours per year. Some higher (those on EAS etc), and some lower for various reasons. Having a CASA down on maintenance for 6 months is going to have a significant impact on the entire cadre of CASA pilots.
              Would be interesting to know how many hours are flown by the AC "fleet" per year.

              I have a suspicion that the hours flown on the PC-9 to support Wings Courses will increase the total and skew a proper analysis of the actual operational output. 2018 shows under 1000hrs for maritime patrolling.

              The fleet is small and has too many types, and there does not appear to be any plan to expand or consolidate.

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              • #52
                If they are down to an average of 150 hrs/yr, then that is chronically inadequate. That's the borderline of ME-IR or QFI skills being insufficiently exercised. Not even tooling around for a few hours in a spare Cessna is going to improve that. I recall when 300 per year was regarded as very bad and fellas were filling in on the Cessnas to get air time. That's institutionally bad.

                Comment


                • #53
                  Originally posted by GoneToTheCanner View Post
                  If they are down to an average of 150 hrs/yr, then that is chronically inadequate. That's the borderline of ME-IR or QFI skills being insufficiently exercised. Not even tooling around for a few hours in a spare Cessna is going to improve that. I recall when 300 per year was regarded as very bad and fellas were filling in on the Cessnas to get air time. That's institutionally bad.
                  I don't EVER remember when 300hrs per year was considered bad, occasionally the odd CASA Pilot or on a couple of occasions GIV Captains exceeded this amount but in reality 200hrs per year was normally considered a good year.

                  Now given the relatively benign nature of the flying(they are not flying front line fighter aircraft) even the 200Hrs per year was Low, however it created another problem because when a couple of Commanders from a particular fleet left the FO's did not normally have sufficient hours for upgrade.

                  Command normally required 1500Hrs and so you can see it could take at least seven years to get the Minimum experience and often more given ground appointments etc.

                  This has been a perennial problem in the AC going back many decades, this time it appears that the system is actually broken and the attrition exceeds any ability of the AC to recover

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                  • #54
                    It's some years ago, but I think it was @tempest who dug out some figures from the DOD that showed that the PC-9M's were being flown at about one third of the rate that the decision to by them was based on...

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Originally posted by ropebag View Post
                      It's some years ago, but I think it was @tempest who dug out some figures from the DOD that showed that the PC-9M's were being flown at about one third of the rate that the decision to by them was based on...
                      I could safely bet that there are no more than 2-3, if even that, who are achieving 300+ hours a year over the last 5 year period.

                      As C252 says, if you have FOs on multi engine aircraft who are only doing 150 hours a year then it can take considerable time to upgrade someone.

                      There is no doubt that pilots being tied up in ground jobs is impacting their availability but I would not suggest that this is the single root cause of the low hours.

                      The reality is, there is a small fleet which will and I only getting smaller. The AC wont ever have a fleet of more than 30 aircraft again. I just can't see it.

                      You have a small ageing fleet, repairs take longer due to the shortage of technicians, there is limited scope to conduct ops & training due to ATC restrictions.

                      There is only so many hours to go around unfortunately and in the absence of purchasing newer aircraft and increasing the fleet size and addressing the maintenance issue, this trend will continue. At best it'll maintain current rates, at worst it will decline even further.

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                      • #56
                        what's up with ATC?

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                        • #57
                          Originally posted by GoneToTheCanner View Post
                          what's up with ATC?
                          It is currently not a 24/7 service and has not been for some time.

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                          • #58
                            Originally posted by GoneToTheCanner View Post
                            If they are down to an average of 150 hrs/yr, then that is chronically inadequate. That's the borderline of ME-IR or QFI skills being insufficiently exercised. Not even tooling around for a few hours in a spare Cessna is going to improve that. I recall when 300 per year was regarded as very bad and fellas were filling in on the Cessnas to get air time. That's institutionally bad.
                            I did a little digging in a scrapbook. The Silver Swallows pilots of 1988 were Kevin Barry (qualified 1979 and had 2,200hrs); Jack Killock (qualified 1979 and had 2,100 hours); John Mulvanney (qualified 1983 and had 1,100 hours); and Pearse Mc Crann (qualified 1982 and had 1,800 hours).

                            The 1989 figures given show Barry now up to 2,300 hours, Mulvanney up to 1,300 hours. Newcomers John Kelly qualified 1984 with 1,300 hours and John Hurley qualified 1983 with 1,600 hours.

                            In 1990 Mulvanney was on 1,600 hours.

                            Barry, in 1989, ten years after qualifying, had averaged 230 hours annually. The last qualified, Kelly, had averaged 260 hours annually.

                            All of these guys were getting at least 40-50 hours a year by being in the Swallows.

                            Make of all of that what you will, but if averages are now as low as 150 hours, there might be a strong case for establishing a formal display team again to give hours, a few perks and challenges, and to improve formation training, which is not at a high standard these days.

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                            • #59
                              I wonder is formation training of the type normally seen with military jet aircraft more difficult with turboprop trainers? Surely the rotating mass at the front reduces stability somewhat?
                              For now, everything hangs on implementation of the CoDF report.

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                              • #60
                                Doesn't seem to affect eg. The Blades or Jordanian Falcons etc.

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