Helicopter capability - Defence Committee Contents


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is to deal in theatre with some of those maintenance activities which ordinarily would have required the aircraft to be withdrawn, so in that way we keep those aircraft in the frontline.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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