Hi Rover 3500,
I think you're asking a lot of pertinent questions.
Not everyone on here is ex-RAF or an engineer.
I think that it's sad that the more informed in the community, who should know better, seek to belittle you with unpleasant personal attacks.
I think there is a bigger issue here, beyond fatigue indexes on the airframe as it stands & hours / cycles left on these engines as they stand.
XH558 is a heritage asset which has absorbed considerable public money in the form of grants & money from individual donors.
For the past 5 years it has been 'ticking over' on around £2.5M a year which is a lot of money but not in terms of running an operation of this nature.
As is obvious to see
XH558 enjoys unprecedented levels of public support & adulation.
We are continually seeing horrendous amounts of public money wasted on arts projects / theatre with low or no popular support. Governmental waste running into many tens of £Billions, £100M+ alone EVERY YEAR on abortive IT schemes which never reach completion.
Buck House is due for a revamp at £150M, the Westminster renovation is due to come in at £7Bn
My guess is that all of
XH558 's ills could be sorted out for £5M perhaps? That buying another 8 or 10 years of displays.
How much does it cost to keep the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight in the air each year?
I think that GB
OWES it to the brave servicemen & women of the Cold War to keep this living memorial aloft for as long as possible, well who christened
XH558 "
Spirit of Great Britain"?
Yes
VULCAN as a breed is bordering on perilous, I think that during development & service nearly 18% of all the
VULCAN's built fell out of the air, crashed or went up in flames. I personally think that with CAA oversight
XH558 is probably operating as safely as any
VULCAN ever has.
No-one wishes to see air-crew put in harms way but by the same token I don't see anyone getting into
XH558 with a gun to their head, (if the Trust offered me a flight in a back seat tomorrow with a 99% chance of crashing I'd take that flight!)
As for those who say, "Good while it lasted, over now, move on!" Some of these people may understand
VULCAN in technical & engineering terms but I feel they don't 'get'
VULCAN. You obviously do.
I think that this has to be be about;
What is best for this aeroplane as a heritage asset for the UK.
&
What do the people of Great Britain want of
XH558 going forward.
I am wondering if bolder & more imaginative leadership is needed here?
Regards,
Chris(btw) I had the 3500 in P5B Coupe, P6 & SD1
[/quote]
I don't mind when people say unpleasant things, I'm used to it after working in troubleshooter type roles in what's left of British manufacturing industry all my working life. Heard it all.
But people all have egos and going around questioning assumptions can be misinterpreted ..not the best way of winning friends even if you mean well.
In the US and Japan I find people much more open to new ideas and having their assumptions challenged.
In Britain it's all a lot more cliquey with decisions often based on who shouts loudest and has the most influence. Promotions are too often based on 'whose face fits' rather rather than results and competence which I find very depressing.
Group-think is absolutely rife in my view.
You may recall the scrapping of the MRA4 Nimrod in 2010.
Some very distinguished people failed to realise that the 1960's Comet airframes on which it was to be built were essentially 'coach built' to a non uniform standard . Something should have told them from the start it was a bad idea - but the decision had been taken and nobody wanted to rock the boat by saying 'hey wait a minute this is a terrible idea'.
Unfortunately this made it almost impossible to fit the all new wings to the Comet fuselage - some of the mounting points differed by up to 4 inches!.
The point is that a handyman with a £2.99 tape measure could have spotted this - but the senior people did not and in the end 4 billion pounds had to be written off. So I always check facts for myself and if someone tells me an argument is settled..well double check the facts and assumptions made.
So no I would never dismiss somebody less experienced by saying they don't know what they are talking about, are motivated by bitterness, or need to 'move on' - the best, the great and the good can and do get it spectacularly wrong. Sometimes the most obvious mistakes are the hardest to spot by people at the core of a project.
Lovely car the P5B but's for me it's got to be the SD1 3500 with the manual gearbox
