Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-202)
MR QUENTIN
DAVIES MP, MR
ADRIAN BAGULEY
AND COMMODORE
RUSS HARDING
2 JUNE 2009
Q200 Mr Jenkin: You have referred
to the hours available. Suppose a platform is due for a period
of maintenance after a certain number of hours. Is it at the discretion
of the Commanders on the ground to say that even though there
is additional risk of flying extra hours without that maintenance
the priority is to fly this mission now? Is that within the discretion
of Commanders or are they imprisoned by the maintenance schedules?
Commodore Harding: I am not intimately
familiar with each and every service's aircraft and the discretion
available, but I can give my own experience in operating Sea King
helicopters and other fixed-wing aircraft. In the maintenance
regime, engineers can defer a certain amount of maintenance on
a calendar basis and by hours. That is irrefutable and it is part
of our engineering principles and everything else. If you ask
me how much a senior engineer for the Chinook detachment on the
ground in Afghanistan can defer some of his maintenance I cannot
answer that, but in my service in the Fleet Air Arm a certain
amount of maintenance can be deferred by the senior engineer on
the ground. As we have done in the past, if there are other maintenance
issues—say there is a crack or something—you speak
to the engineering authority back at the main base.
Mr Baguley: One of the things
we have done with the contractors for the Chinook is to deal in
theatre with some of those maintenance activities which ordinarily
would have required the aircraft to be withdrawn, so in that way
we keep those aircraft in the frontline.
Q201 Mr Jenkin: But the Commanders
are not given a budgeted number of hours?
Mr Davies: No, they are not. These
are matters which will be discussed between a Commander and his
chief engineer. The Commander may say that he wants to surge some
helicopters in an operation in the next few days and says, "Do
you mind postponing this maintenance?" That dialogue takes
place between the Commander and his chief engineer. It is up to
the Commander to use his judgment as to whether he wants to override
his own engineer. I want to make absolutely clear that we do not
get involved in that. What I am trying to answer very precisely
is that we do not send any central direction to constrain Commanders
in the use of their assets in theatre, whether helicopter hours
or anything else. The implication was that we were doing this
for budgetary or other reasons. Obviously, there are physical
constraints; there always are. It is patently obvious that there
is a certain number of helicopters, armoured vehicles and men
there and they cannot be increased over night; that is a physical
constraint, but there is no directional constraint or order from
the Ministry of Defence not to use equipment which is available
to Commanders; it is for them to determine based on advice from
their own engineers what to do with the kit we have provided.
Q202 Mr Holloway: We have been engaged
in the so-called war on terror for eight years. It stands to reason
that you are limiting the number of hours available to Commanders
by giving them x number of helicopters that do x
number of hours. This is tautology.
Mr Davies: We are giving them
x number of helicopters and they are doing more hours the
whole time. The helicopters have been made more serviceable and
we are increasing productivity, if you like. We have dealt with
some of the bottlenecks on spares and we are dealing with some
of the others in relation to crews, trying to make sure that those
assets can be worked more and more. They are being worked more
and more and at the same time we are supplying the new assets
and platforms that I have described. We are making a double effort
to increase the availability of helicopter hours.
Mr Baguley: If there are to be
significant increases in activity, in order to deliver the repairs,
overhaul, servicing and spares to support, then we need to plan
ahead. Obviously, as you increase activity you use more spares
and have more repairs and overhaul. We need to look ahead with
operational Commanders at what the likely demands will be.
Commodore Harding: You are asking
us very good questions. As Mr Baguley has just said, you plan
ahead. We have a department process where I with Mr Baguley must
look at how many hours across fleets over 10 years we will fly.
The operating budget for the first four years is owned by Commander
JHC; I own the bit after that. You look and decide how many hours
you anticipate flying so that creates a tension between PJHQ and
the commitments and capability area behind me and everything else.
But it comes down to the sustainable number of hours of the people
themselves. Commander JHC spoke about the four legs of the stool
and everything else. There is a maximum number of hours in joint
regulations that we set as a tripwire for our Commanders in theatre,
for example Commander Joint Aviation Group in Afghanistan. It
is really a supervisory role. I will not say what the number of
hours is. It is not that sensitive, but I do not think we should
be quoting it. If your crew start to approach that number in theatre
you do not worry but begin to discuss it on the ground with fellow
Brigade Commanders et al. You may say that you have done so much
this month and you have to be careful, not because of the aircraft
themselves but potentially because of the maintenance and air
crew.
Mr Davies: I can sum it up by
saying that we are interested in providing sustainable capability.
If you run a war you cannot predict what will happen at any one
point. There may well be cases when you have to surge things.
You cannot by definition surge all the time; if you do your crews
will be damaged and your aircraft will not be maintained and they
will not work. Eventually, you will not have any capability at
all. We plan things on the basis of sustainable capability and
that is why we look at the four legs Mr Baguley has talked about
and are very conscious if temporarily we may be extending maintenance
schedules or putting more pressure on crews. That cannot be sustained
and Commanders in the field know that, but they must make these
judgments. That is not only their professional right but their
responsibility and capability in theatre.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Minister,
you said you would be prepared to answer our questions for as
long as we wished to ask them. We have now come to the end of
what we wish to ask in today's very helpful evidence session in
which we have gone into this matter in some depth. We are grateful
to all three of you.
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