This contract appeared in the EU Journal. Imagine paying £300K for a 2 year contract to manage the maintenance programme for just a couple of military-registered Chipmunks!
Section II: Object
II.1) Scope of the procurement
II.1.1) Title: PDS Support for BBMF Chipmunk Aircraft
Reference number: FAST/00229
II.1.2) Main CPV code: 50211000
II.1.3) Type of contract Services
II.1.4) Short Description:
Provision of a fully revised Chipmunk Maintenance Programme (Master Maintenance Schedule —Topic 5A1) to ensure compliance with the Military Aviation Authority Regulations.
II.1.6) Information about lots
The contract is divided into lots: no
II.1.7) Total value of the procurement(excluding VAT)
Value:300000
Currency:GBP
II.2) Description
II.2.3) Place of performance
Nuts code: UK Main site or place of performance:United Kingdom
What could possibly be worth 300k to maintain what are presumably two old heaps?
Perhaps the job includes stuff like both engines overhauled, loads of repairs, and maybe even paying hangarage and maintaining the hangar?
The military has since long gone bananas. Instead of military personnel, quasi-civilian contractors are used instead to “increase efficiency” and the result is stuff like this.
Is this for provision of the maintenance programme, or for provision of maintenance according to the programme?
All large-company procurement can produce anomalies e.g. if you have a buying dept whose total cost is 200k/year, and they issue 1000 purchase orders, each of those POs cost the company 200 quid. If one of those POs was for 1 hammer, cost 20 quid, that hammer cost the company 220 quid. This is obviously perverted (it confuses fixed costs and variable costs) but try to argue with a management consultant wearing a very expensive suit.
Chipmunks are beautiful flying planes but are also the most over-managed types ever, with maintenance issues that make EASA Part M protocols look ultra simple. They also have a Dripsy Gipsy engine that belongs in the 19th century. I looked at buying one in the early 2000s, first a low hours Portuguese manufactured example then an ex-RAF plane, and as part of doing so I reviewed the ‘Technical News Sheets’ (effectively ADs) issued over then 50 years of operation. It became apparent that a great deal of work had been done by the support contractor to justify the existence of the support contractor, and not to address any real world problem. There are hundreds of the (TNS) things going back over the decades, complex interactions between them and pages and pages of individual aircraft logs in relation to them. Here’s an example local copy
Mil 145 ! Only £300K ? You surprise me that it’s not double that number.
Silvaire wrote:
They also have a Dripsy Gipsy engine that belongs in the 19th century
This is why my Auster has a Lycoming! The Gipsy might be original, and have an interesting heritage, but for all the parts and maintenance issues I’m quite happy to see them on other people’s planes :-)
wigglyamp wrote:
Value:300000
Of UK taxpayers money.
I understood the RAF had oodles of highly trained, highly professional technicians, engineers, mechanics, sitting around all day drinking tea, because due to austerity the very highly trained and expensive flight crews, also sitting around, all be it in a different mess, cannot fly due to fuel purchase restrictions?
I think they require a very highly skilled and over paid logistics manager.
I owned a Chipmunk, and it cost me tops, 6k per annum to maintain it. Expensive in comparison to other machines, but still 6k.
Untill you have understand the difficulties getting a MIL 145 approval you can’t understand the costs involve, no civil operator could afford MIL 145 as the system works in the most expensive way posable with gold plate being heaped on gold plate by people who think more paper makes safer aircraft.
A transfer of all RAF aircraft from MIL 145 to EASA 145 along with civil contractors for airworthiness oversight would probably release enough money for another two typhoon squadrons.
