Two-thirds of aging Canadian air force grounded.
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We're supposed to have 2/3 serviceable? Man, that would be sweet. From my standpoint the General is bang on. Nice to see that no one sugar coated it for him.
Flying the oldest aircraft in the inventory and we're getting about 5 of 15 serviceable on good days, 3-4 on not so good days. So we're inline with the average. That's a lot better than it was last summer, we were lucky to get two serviceable. Continuity is important in training as everyone here will agree and I would say even more so for aircrew due to the nature of our jobs. I was getting 1 flight a month for the first couple months, now I'm getting 2 a week so things seem to be alright now.
Flying the oldest aircraft in the inventory and we're getting about 5 of 15 serviceable on good days, 3-4 on not so good days. So we're inline with the average. That's a lot better than it was last summer, we were lucky to get two serviceable. Continuity is important in training as everyone here will agree and I would say even more so for aircrew due to the nature of our jobs. I was getting 1 flight a month for the first couple months, now I'm getting 2 a week so things seem to be alright now.
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Our problem are inspections based on hours flown/calendar days. So, even if you have 10+ hrs left before an inspection, if the calendar day comes up first, the a/c needs to be inspected. I wonder if the Cormorants have to go through that too, or if it is just a Griffon thing. Hopefully MH won't have to deal with that when the new a/c come on board. If you do Inch, you may find serviceability remains about the same.
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Strike said:
We have date driven inspections too, but the big time consuming inspections are every 500 - 600hrs with minor ones every 25 hrs. The biggest problem for us is snags, like today, we went up and we had a blade px light so we turned around and headed back to YAW, shut down #2 and disengaged the rotor. The techs climbed up and checked all the IBIS detectors, signed off serviceable so we restarted and re-engaged then blasted off to finish our trip. Then at the end of our trip, the RadAlt started to act up, got into the hover and it fixed itself. So after two snags and 3.0hrs, we hot fueled and handed off a serviceable aircraft to the next crew. Everything fixed itself, nothing to write up since everything was working.
We just avoid the whole shutdown/find-something-broken thing by doing hot fuels and keeping the buggers running for 12 hrs. ;D
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People give the SK a bad rap. I've always compared it to a chevette with a kickin' sound system. The stereo is probably going to break down before the aircraft. ;D
Our problem is that we very rarely hit the 600 hr inspection based on actual hours -- unless said aircraft is on deployed ops and being flown constantly. We currently have at least 3 a/c on 600 hr inspections (I think there are more but I really don't want to go and check). So, 3 less a/c on the line for a long period of time. And, guess what, this will happen again next year at this time.
Our problem is that we very rarely hit the 600 hr inspection based on actual hours -- unless said aircraft is on deployed ops and being flown constantly. We currently have at least 3 a/c on 600 hr inspections (I think there are more but I really don't want to go and check). So, 3 less a/c on the line for a long period of time. And, guess what, this will happen again next year at this time.
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Kunu
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[Sigh] The civvy aviation community in Canada is forced to use enough of these type of procedures to maximize on-line time, I find it sad that the military also has to resort to them.
One flight a month? Two per week?
Times have changed.....I flew pretty much every day- often several trips a day. Deployed, I'd fly 6 hours every day (max time allowed)....never logged less than 300 hours a year.
My hearfelt condolences guys- this is not right.
Times have changed.....I flew pretty much every day- often several trips a day. Deployed, I'd fly 6 hours every day (max time allowed)....never logged less than 300 hours a year.
My hearfelt condolences guys- this is not right.
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Kilo Mike said:
When I say hot refuel, I mean both engines running, rotor turning, pressure refueling. To my knowledge, civvies are not permitted to do this, I know they won't hot refuel us when we land at a civvie airport.
I should elaborate on that comment you quoted. Some things can be ops restricted and the aircraft can still be flown, other things have to be fixed as soon as the aircraft shuts down. So, if the next trip doesn't need the broken equipment, say a U/S radar that's not needed for an IFR trip, there's no point in shutting down and writing up the aircraft when the guys are still able to get their trip done. Also, we're short on techs, it takes 3 or so techs about an hour to A check and B check the aircraft, 15 mins for the pilots to walk the aircraft around and half an hour from strap in to taxi (the whole time the 3 techs are out there). That means that we're taking techs that we're short of, and making them do more work than they need to. 3 aircraft can do 12 sorties a day, the techs only need to A check at the end of the day and B check the aircraft in the morning, one walkaround for the day and one start. So now you've just cut out about 12 hours of unnecessary maintenance which gives them more time in the hangar fixing the ones that are really broken. You only need the techs for an hour (3 x 20 min hot refuels), then they go back to work for 2 hours.
It's actually boosted our flying rate since we started doing this and there is no doubt in my mind about the safety of the system.
Garry said:
It's the truth, we didn't even use all our YFR for the last fiscal year due to the problems with serviceability. It's pretty bad when you can't even use the reduced hours you're given. Things are getting better though, each sortie is 3 hours and 9 hours of flying a week will be fine by me. I wasn't even getting those kind of hours in Moose Juice.
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aesop081
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You guys should see the mess we are in here at 14 wing......without getting into too much details, AIMP and general unservicabilities are taking their toll. Today we had 4 available ( plus one in Sigonella) and that was REALY good !!!
Looks like my MOAT course is gonna run long.........
Looks like my MOAT course is gonna run long.........
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Kunu
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Hehe, sorry, I was a bit unclear with that last post. What I meant was, similar to what you just described, that at quite of number of flight schools here, if something becomes U/S and isn't required for airworthiness, it stays U/S as long as possible. Going by the the safety numbers at least, though, it seems that most people are making the right decisions here and not pushing their luck.
Also, WRT to hot fuelling, I had heard it can be authorized on the civvy side of things, albeit only under very specific conditions. In addition, the following somewhat seems to indicate so:
http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/Regserv/Affairs/cars/PART6/602.htm#602_09
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Not to my knowledge. I've never seen any civvy helo operation fuel with the rotors running- with the possible exception of the offshore oilfield guys. Anyone in the civvy helo field who can confirm or deny this? We (MH) can only conduct rotors-running refueling of Sea Kings ashore under very specific conditions- namely a fire truck must be present and manned. This is done at both Shearwater and Victoria routinely (at Victoria, we are also using a civilian contractor for fuel and the "risk premium" we are getting charged for hot fueling is unbelievable). It is done less routinely at other air force bases, judging by the amount of hesitation and confusion I have caused when ever I have requested one. Its usually easier just to stop the rotors, shutdown #2 engine and fuel up. This is what we typically do at civilian airports. It saves us an A/B check and a walkaround and there is no requirement for a fire truck. The only drawback is that, in hot climates, the gearbox can heat up pretty fast in this mode of operations. Before you hit 120C, you have to spin the head. Often, we leave the head engaged until we see the fuel truck approaching. On time, in San Jose, my pilot did things another way and it led to two days of maintenance headaches that I never want to see again...
Cheers!
Inch- is your OTU done yet?
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Kilo Mike said:
Understood, we don't leave stuff U/S. It's fixed once the aircraft shuts down. There are a few things that they'll leave until the aircraft goes into inspection again, like there may be a problem folding the pylon so they'll just ops restrict it saying not to fold the pylon. The aircraft is totally airworthy and serviceable, you just can't fold the pylon. Also minor things like seals around the sonar dome and paint touchups are left until inspections. Other than things like that, snags are fixed as soon as you shut down.
So I wouldn't compare what we do with a civilian operator, we don't leave stuff U/S because we don't want to spend the money to fix it. We'll leave stuff U/S for the day as long as it's not mission critical and it'll get fixed that night or early the next day.
SKT, negative, still hacking away. Should have my Clearhood checkride next week, then IF and into the abbreviated Tac phase for pilots (only 12 X's for us, 8 of which are flights). I think I've got about 24 X's to go. We've actually had pretty good serviceability the past month or so, 6 serviceable yesterday plus the one on the Montreal, that's damn near 50%!!! So I've made more progress in the past 3 weeks than I did in the previous 3 months.
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aesop081
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Good luck with the clearhood Inch, my Aurora course started today with AOIs and static tour. First exam is monday...WOW thats fast !! Thats a whole lot of airplane to learn 
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aesop081 said:Good luck with the clearhood Inch, my Aurora course started today with AOIs and static tour. First exam is monday...WOW thats fast !! Thats a whole lot of airplane to learn
Thanks, you're already at the MOAT? That's crazy, the cones and the drivers are waiting almost 2 years.
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Cones? Perhaps you would like to "rephrase", Inch?
Cheers.
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