Royal New Zealand Air Force
- Thread starter Lucasnz
- Start date
Who to? I took a while to sell the white tails they did make, having new old stock C17's sitting around is a big investment even for a company Boeings size.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
As I said before, had the C-17 line been kept open I think some A400M orders may very well have been canceled in favour of C-17s. Canada and the Uk have worked their jets pretty hard. The RCAF could use more and as they are seen as a HADR asset by the public there is no political blowback. Boeing bugged out because they assumed the A400M was what most remaining prospects wanted which was correct had the A400M been launched successfully. Airbus should thank Boeing for the lifeline.
Boeing tried to keep the line open by offering commerical versions, BC-17, none of the freight operators wanted a bar of it. They also tried to interest people in a shrink the C-17FE and then the C-17B which was an updated version for austere fields in locations where the “A” model couldn’t go, they couldn't get any bites from anyone for any of the versions they tried to flog. .
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
All true but this was before the extent of the A400M problems were known. Some of Boeing’s ideas might have been better received had these problems been known earlier.
Indeed. In trying to be both a strategic and tactical airlifter, the A400M has ended up being a master of none.
Also, as far as non-A400M customers go, I've read interviews with Indian officials who have stated they would be interested in more C-17s if they were available. I believe several ME countries were interested in that last white tail, so there was more demand out there.
t68
Well-Known Member
I think the demand was more along the lines of you don't know what you got until its gone, that's what drove competition on the remaining whitetails
The only competition I heard of was the Indians trying to buy more than there were left to buy, just as the last couple rolled off the line. By the time the IAF asked for three in 2015, there was only one left unsold - & even so, the Indian MoD submitted a request to the USA for three, two years later. That last one was still sitting around, finished, with no other customers asking for it, so the USA offered it to India, & after about nine months trying to get their heads round the difficult concepts of it being the last one, & Boeing not wanting to re-start production for two aircraft, the Indians bought it.
A RNZAF Hercules is now in Indonesia... "Our Hercules was one of the first two foreign aircraft to deliver aid to Palu and Indonesian soldiers cheered as we offloaded the supplies yesterday."
NZDF evacuates 120 quake survivors on Hercules aircraft from Palu
NZDF evacuates 120 quake survivors on Hercules aircraft from Palu
The RNZAF is having issues with the T-6's ejection seats which will reduce the number of pilots trained of the next few years by 40% (about 12 pilots)as they can only run one pilot course concurrently rather than two due to a shortage of the parts.
The number of airframes down isn't mentioned, but they won't all be operational again until next year - it demonstrates there is not much fat in the system should an airframe be lost altogether in the future
Air force trains fewer pilots due to lack of parts for planes
The number of airframes down isn't mentioned, but they won't all be operational again until next year - it demonstrates there is not much fat in the system should an airframe be lost altogether in the future
Air force trains fewer pilots due to lack of parts for planes
Thanks for posting that.
It does raise a question or two for the select committee that I would like to see answered.
Why is there a global shortage of components for the Martin Baker US16LA and how are other air forces around the world coping with this?
Are other air forces having to reduce their training through-put by 40% due to this shortage?
What are the contractual obligations with respect to Martin Baker and Hawker Pacific and have remedies been explored?
Do you think it is acceptable that with a shortage of any one of the major component systems of this aircraft may mean that flight training is cut again by up to 40%?
Does this failure demonstrate that only having 11 aircraft underlines the fact that risk management considerations were lacking, when such an obvious possibility of aircraft becoming unservicable due to parts availability completely leads to a massive under-performance in one of the foundational areas of RNZAF operations?
That should do it.
Exkiwiforces
New Member
I’ve told from someone in know if you go digging, you would find that N.Z. Treasury wonks have their dirty mitts along with then GotD forced the MOD/ RNZAF into contracting out the maintenance of T6 trainers as the both RNZAF and MOD want to do it in-house as it would be cheaper in the long run along with few other benefits for the AVTechs, Armourers ENGO’s musterings. Some of the former ACF Techies and ENGO’s that were still around at the time ID’ed a number issues and possible problems with contact if it was given out the private sector, but their concerns were raise up the CoC, but only to be told that is this what the GotD and Treasury want or we don’t get the planes or we (RNZAF) have to find further cuts to the budget.
Look’s like a few chickens are starting to coming home to roost
40 deg south
Well-Known Member
RNZAF pilot lands safely after landing gear failure at Ohakea Base
Even by the lamentable standards of NZ defence reporting, this headline is a classic.
I guess that they will just have to leave the T-6 parked on a cloud somewhere until the problem can be fixed.
Oops
The headline has now been changed on the link - it formerly read
"RNZAF flight stuck in air with landing gear failure at Ohakea Base"
Even by the lamentable standards of NZ defence reporting, this headline is a classic.
I guess that they will just have to leave the T-6 parked on a cloud somewhere until the problem can be fixed.
Oops
The headline has now been changed on the link - it formerly read
"RNZAF flight stuck in air with landing gear failure at Ohakea Base"
It went on to perform a belly landing, so will be out of action for a while.
If they can't use the consumable part of the ejection seats they are so short on after a landing like that their loss may hurt more than the airframe in the short term.
The removal of serviceable parts from unserviceable aircraft to keep others flying is a common practice in the air force, so the serviceable ejection seat parts from this aircraft would simply be swapped to an aircraft with unserviceable parts.
Justin Case
New Member
News related to Embraer KC=390:
Embraer Successfully Performs First Flight of the Series Production KC-390 Multi-mission Airlift
Portal Embraer
Cheers,
Justin
Embraer Successfully Performs First Flight of the Series Production KC-390 Multi-mission Airlift
Portal Embraer
Cheers,
Justin
t68
Well-Known Member
I think it will need a bit more work than a rub down with mother’s polishIndeed. The story has now been updated to include a photo:
Professional Rubbing Compound 355ml
Yep, maybe some 100 mph tape as well. Looks like a nice landing though with minimal damage so BZ to the pilot. I remember when I was at Wigram a North American AT-6 Harvard doing a wheels up landing in a local farmers paddock and returning to base with grass, some dirt and sheep manure in the wheel wells. Damage was minimal. They took some bending, the old Harvards did.
Looks like it landed on the grass next to a taxiway with no power on or just slid off the taxiway. should be limited damage. As the tarmac area looks a bit narrow and has no centre line markings it does not appear to be the runway.Indeed. The story has now been updated to include a photo: