UK AAR Provision into the future?

[seven]

Mike, don't get me started on predictive text!

[filmman]

Unfortunately, Governments have a record of stupid, penny pinching Private Finance Initiative contacts that cause problems. To "save" money our tanker version had no booms (I believe it cost extra to certify their removal). Apart from the cost of reinstalling them, I understand that recertification would cost £100m. There might also be a significant PFI contractual penalty. But the most important reason for not booming is severe loss of MOD face.
The USA has different political interests, so there might not always want to provide tankers; for instance a re-run of the Falklands War. Can we routinely use RAF assets to support RN "carrier" deployments? The MOD Lacks common sense. Without being to specific, there was one Departmental training course that took 30 mins to decide a strategy, the trainers were surprise and asked were they aware of the actual Committee decision. They said No, it was just common sense! How long has the Tanker contract got left.
Filmman

[Supra]

This for 'filmman'. Allegedly, according to 6th Post of page 1 of this Topic the Airtanker Contract lasts through to 2035? We do seem to have two Topics of very similar content running here, with this & the 'Defence Review 2021' immediately below broadly discussing the pathetic UK AAR status.
See viewtopic.php?f=432&t=200273

[filmman]

Supra, thanks for your reply.
I forgot to say it took the Committee 6 months to make their decision compared to 30 mins by the trainees.
Filmman

[Doughnut]

All Contracts have an end date and I guess there will be extension clauses. As operational circumstances change so must the MODs approach. I am sure AirTanker PLC will be more than happy to extend their Contract and if required provide additional services. It comes down to deciding how many boom equipped tankers the RAF wants and how much they are prepared to pay AirTanker to provide them. It might be a good time for AirTanker to buy new A330's and convert them, once in service the some of the existing fleet can be upgraded. These upgrades should not cost the RAF, the Contract price is for provision of the AAR service not ownership of the aircraft.

[Malcolm]

It might be a good time for AirTanker to buy new A330's and convert them, once in service the some of the existing fleet can be upgraded. These upgrades should not cost the RAF, the Contract price is for provision of the AAR service not ownership of the aircraft.

Why would Airtanker want to spend their own money to upgrade the aircraft used to support the RAF requirements when the current aircraft fleet fully meets the contract terms? They're a commercial organisation in business to make money for their shareholders. They aren't going to spend money unless they get more money from MoD.

IMV MoD need to make it 100% clear that the current contract will not be extended past 2035, and offer to buy the KC3 airframes and couple of KC2's (usefull for the Falklands/Cyprus runs and BoJo1) from Airtanker ASAP. Airtanker can continue to manage the fleet in the way they currently do until it ends. Post 2035 Airtanker will be left with 6? KC2's/CivvyA330 which they can try to dispose of on the civilian market - I expect they will be relatively low houred, so there may be takers. The implicit threat is that if they don't sell the KC3's to the MoD then they'll also have to dispose of 7-9 KC3's, for which there will be few takers other than MoD. Once MoD own the KC3's they're sent for upgrade to KC4/MRTT one or two at a time.

If Airtanker play hard ball and refuse to sell the KC3's, MoD buys 6-9 second hand low houred A330's from the civvy market and starts getting them converted to KC4/MRTT in slow time such that they're ready to take over the tasking in 2035.

[filmman]

Why should a contractor act other than to maximise profits.
We contracted a sole source furniture supplier.. It was rubbish; cabinets and cupboards fell apart from the start.
So, if I was a contractor I would exploit a customers desire to vary a contract by either requiring their extention at even greater profit or an eye watering buy out. "Happy days are here again".
Filmman

[ColintheCaterpillar]

Unfortunately, Governments have a record of stupid, penny pinching Private Finance Initiative contacts that cause problems. To "save" money our tanker version had no booms (I believe it cost extra to certify their removal)
Filmman

Evidence to back up that statement?

[POL]

How do you certify the removal of something that was never fitted?

[Agent K]

Can't quite understand some of the comments here where people seem to have it in for Air Tanker and casting them as the "bad guys"? The MoD had and issued a requirement, several companies responded (including amongst others, ex BA 767-300's converted) and to which Air Tanker were the successful bidder. A boom equipped tanker was not in the requirements at the time so you can't hit Air Tanker with that.

Some don't seem to understand how requirements and tendering work, how contracts are negotiated and agreed and then subsequently managed. There is no them and us, they are a strategic partner and part of one team, the only way you can let them "screw" you (which isn't in Air Tankers best interests), is for you to write poor contracts and/or manage them poorly.

To those who said it's the worst tanker fleet the RAF have had, I'd suggest you look at how hard it was trying to manage the aged VC10 and L1011 fleet and rethink your statement.

The pros and cons of a PFI fleet are always debatable, what was right at the time is the only correct solution, think about the financing and moving spend from Capital spend to opex (operational spend) and the benefits to budgeting at a time of tight budgetary controls.

To present hearsay as fact/belief re "paying to have the booms removed" just shows how poor your argument is, if you think about it even just a little bit...…….. it's already done...…… it's called the A330-200 airliner of which many are flying...……….

[Alf]

Unfortunately, Governments have a record of stupid, penny pinching Private Finance Initiative contacts that cause problems. To "save" money our tanker version had no booms (I believe it cost extra to certify their removal). Apart from the cost of reinstalling them, I understand that recertification would cost £100m. There might also be a significant PFI contractual penalty. But the most important reason for not booming is severe loss of MOD face.
The USA has different political interests, so there might not always want to provide tankers; for instance a re-run of the Falklands War. Can we routinely use RAF assets to support RN "carrier" deployments? The MOD Lacks common sense. Without being to specific, there was one Departmental training course that took 30 mins to decide a strategy, the trainers were surprise and asked were they aware of the actual Committee decision. They said No, it was just common sense! How long has the Tanker contract got left.
Filmman

How can it cost extra to remove? They were built as standard A330s in France then flown Spain to be converted to tankers.. at no point would a boom have been fitted that then needed removing..

[turmo]

How can it cost extra to remove? They were built as standard A330s in France then flown Spain to be converted to tankers.. at no point would a boom have been fitted that then needed removing..

The UK's configuration had to be separately certificated by Spanish certification agency INTA because it varied from the baseline MRTT.

For example the MRTT fuel offloading schedule had been developed with the weight of the boom taken into account. Without that, and hence a different CoG range, it had to be retested.

And then certification was required for the centerline HDU on the KC.Mk.3...

And guess what? The cost of doing all that was passed along to the customer. So we paid more for less capability.

To present hearsay as fact/belief re "paying to have the booms removed" just shows how poor your argument is, if you think about it even just a little bit...…….. it's already done...…… it's called the A330-200 airliner of which many are flying...……….

The A330 type cert doesn't cover the FSTA / MRTT control law modifications for refuelling ops, which reduce manoeuvring limits below what JARs consider safe. As soon as any 'refuelling devices' are deployed you're no longer covered by the civil type cert.

And as a general note, EASA forbids deploying drogues or boom below 1500ft because the tanker control law offers insufficient control authority. Bet you didn't know that

[Agent K]

Bet you didn't know that

Every day is a school day! I knew some parts but certainly not all of that, thanks for providing the insight and clarity, which goes a very long way to vindicating the original statement.

[Enobob]

Until the Falklands War there was no AAR provision or requirement for Nimrod R1, Nimrod MR1/2, VC10 C1, Hercules C1/C3 or Shackleton AEW2, so all these types managed. So why should there modern replacements all suddenly need AAR capability?

[POL]

Because there's fewer of them, and thus need to last longer?

[page_verify]

Until the Falklands War there was no AAR provision or requirement for Nimrod R1, Nimrod MR1/2, VC10 C1, Hercules C1/C3 or Shackleton AEW2, so all these types managed. So why should there modern replacements all suddenly need AAR capability?

Sir, I refer you to your own question in order to answer your own question.

Until the Falklands War there was no AAR provision or requirement for....

[Enobob]

There is a fully functioning military airfield on the Falklands now, so nobody does AAR going there or coming back.

[Agent K]

There is a fully functioning military airfield on the Falklands now, so nobody does AAR going there or coming back.

Mmmmmm.... think it through lad! how did the Nimrods and Hercules get to the Falklands and BACK during the Falklands war? Sadly the Argentinian forces wouldn’t let them land and refuel.....

[Richard B]

The C-17 seems to get by perfectly well without AAR. Assume the P-8 and E-7 will have adequate range without tankers, I don't not think the US Navy refuel their P-8's. The big sticking point will be future F-35A order, so why not order the F-35C ?

Why the big sticking point regarding F35A. We are not buying any to my knowledge, we have just seen the SSDR. And only 48 f35b will be purchased and cutting of numbers too our Typhoon fleet. Next step will be Tempest. The Typhoon will soldier on till Tempest replaces it. We do not need the F35A.

[kenskyhawk]

Surely this discussion revolves around the purchase price of new aircraft, its cheaper to buy of the shelf than have booms fitted. It's not and never was the problem with AAR in the UK. We chose Probe & Drogue a very long time ago. When I served in the RAF in the 60's to my knowledge all our aircraft were sourced with booms except Nimrod (whoops). I well remember C-130K, VC-10, Belfast all being delivered new with probes fitted.
Even the Argosy was tested with a boom in 1966. Observed by myself at Boscombe being tanked by another Argosy fitted with Drogue unit.
I am no fan of PFI, but please stop blaming Air Tanker for the deficiencies's of modern purchasing.