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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 13, 2009 18:34:25 GMT 12
I've just seen this: www.3news.co.nz/News/NationalNews/Govt-should-close-Whenuapai-base-says-Labour/tabid/423/articleID/95191/cat/64/Default.aspx"Govt should close Whenuapai base, says Labour
Fri, 13 Mar 2009 7:30a.m.
Labour says there are millions of dollars being passed up by the Government because it is refusing to close Auckland's Whenuapai air base.
The previous government had planned to close the air force base and move operations to Ohakea, near Palmerston North.
Defence Force chief Jerry Mateparae says while he is not advocating for the move, it would save up to $12 million a year.
Minister Wayne Mapp has ruled out the move, but Labour's Pete Hodgson says the Defence Force could use the money wisely and create jobs at the same time."It's a flipping joke that Hodgson now starts talking about Defence spending money more wisely. He never did! The guy is a muppet and needs to be booted out of Parliament. |
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Post by skyhawkdon on Mar 13, 2009 19:02:47 GMT 12
Labour advocating spending defence money wisely - now there is a contradiction in terms... $500M+ on a fleet of ships that can't go to sea, $800M on APCs that are highly questionable in terms of their suitability for NZs needs, upgrades to the Orions and Hercs that will finally be finished and all the software bugs sorted about when both types are due to be retired from service, spending tens of millions on trying to sell the Skyhawks and Macchis... yes they have a lot to offer!
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Post by lesterpk on Mar 13, 2009 22:37:26 GMT 12
Sure, closing Whenuapai might save $12M a year, but the construction costs at Ohakea were rumoured to be in the high 100's of millions at a minimum. Then theres the fact that hundreds of servicemen wouldn't move making for shortages all over. Yep, great idea Labour.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 13, 2009 23:06:17 GMT 12
Plus the many millions per year lost in Auckland's economy from the loss of local purchase spending by the base, and by over a thousand people and their families living there spending outside of work hours, plus spouses' jobs that would be lost in the move, plus schools losing students, etc. They forget all that.
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kiwikid
Flight Lieutenant
Posts: 86
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Post by kiwikid on Mar 15, 2009 0:21:27 GMT 12
Just out of interest how many service people does it take to say put one crew in a Herc?
Thanks
Kiwikid
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Post by phil on Mar 18, 2009 17:25:08 GMT 12
The short answer - most of them.
Well you have to recruit the crew, so that takes a couple of dozen, from the recruiters around the country who do the initial interviews, to the officers, psychs, drivers, admin staff and PTIs who run the PERSEL.
Train them at Woodbourne on recruit/iotc - that takes a whole lot of instructors.
Survival school training - a bunch of PTIs at Auckland to run that.
Flying training - the obvious people like the flying instructors, but also the people who work at other uniits like Tech Support Civ that manage the fleet of airtrainers. Then there is the training that the loadie, Eng and Nav do as well, their instructors, the personnel who maintain the aircraft they train on, the admin staff who look after their pay etc, etc. The Staff that manage and maintain their accommodation while living on during their training, and the mess staff that feed them.
How about the medics that look after their aircrew medicals, jabs/stabs etc?
Once on 40 SQN you've got the whole maintenance flight (40 people? Not sure but I'm certain somone on here will) who look after the aircraft. There's TS Herc who manage the aeronautical configuration, and the other DAC units that are involved with this.
The aeronautical buyers at supply that go out to the various vendors and purchase the spares, the suppliers on base that manage the inventory once it arrives.
There's Avionics SQN that looks after the geeky rotables, the various Aircraft trade bays that look after the aircraft rotables and the armourers who look after the countermeasures and a couple of other small items, including fire bottles/extinguishers, survival pack pyros and when the crew go on deployments, their guns.
The S&S of course that look after all the crew's flying clothing and the life rafts, not to mention all the aircraft finishing side of things that's needed before the aircraft can fly.
Now of course you've got all the admin functions that support those people, who couldn't get that Herc crew into the air without being paid, having accommodation, etc, etc.
Oh, that crew probably wants fuel, so there are the tanker drivers, the MT mechanics who maintain the tankers, and the guy at (probably) JLSO who pays BP for the fuel.
So I guess the answer is probably about 2000, give or take, since pretty much everyone in the airforce is working to get people into aircraft and aircraft into the air. I've roughly subtracted those that are spending all their days working on other platforms exclusively (ie 3SQN maintainers and aircrew, 5 SQN etc etc), but most of us that aren't on a particular SQN spend some of our time directly working for 40SQN, just as much as we do 3, 5, 6 etc.
Of course there are the staff at HQNZDF that manage the careers of all of the above, develop and implement the various HR policies such as pay and super that ensures all those people actually stay in the service.
The staff at HQJFNZ who are responsible for tasking the aircraft, so the crew actually have somewhere to fly to.
The list goes on and on...
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Post by Kenny on Mar 18, 2009 20:05:01 GMT 12
If only some MPs would read/realise (Grow A Brain) that.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 18, 2009 20:24:26 GMT 12
Great post Phil. The S&S of course that look after all the crew's flying clothing and the life rafts, not to mention all the aircraft finishing side of things that's needed before the aircraft can fly. If it's the same as in my days, the S&S guys also maintain the aircrew's emergency parachutes, the air droppable cargo chutes that the Hercs so often deploy, the man-carrying chutes used to air drop troops, the aircraft's quick release fittings and all the many harnesses and fabric fittings. That includes S&S guys and girls on the squadron itself and in several other independent workshops. |
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Post by FlyNavy on Mar 18, 2009 21:02:29 GMT 12
Good answer Phil, as Dave suggests. ;D
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kiwikid
Flight Lieutenant
Posts: 86
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Post by kiwikid on Mar 18, 2009 21:32:02 GMT 12
Wow, thanks for the time and effort put into the reply Phil. I'm sure many people will apprceiate the insights it gives.
Kiwikid
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kiwirotorwrench
Warrant Officer
"Silent gratitude never did anyone any good"
Posts: 37 
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Post by kiwirotorwrench on Mar 19, 2009 18:02:26 GMT 12
Phil, you forgot the "Elephant Trackers" or whoever is responible for keeping taggers off visiting a/c these days.
Cheers
KC
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Post by phil on Mar 19, 2009 19:17:01 GMT 12
No, I didn't forget them. I don't think they have any useful input into the RNZAF at all.
They ponce around avoiding doing anything that might be remotely useful (ie they refuse to respond to alarm activations on base or to guard aircraft on base), and yet they get all hyped up and think they are some kind of special forces to 'secure' aircraft in the middle of such 'insecure' places as Bagram or Kandahar. Never mind the thousands of US troops defending the place, that Herc's just not safe without a couple of air security standing at the wingtip.
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Post by 30sqnatc on Mar 21, 2009 16:03:05 GMT 12
Plus the many millions per year lost in Auckland's economy from the loss of local purchase spending by the base, and by over a thousand people and their families living there spending outside of work hours, plus spouses' jobs that would be lost in the move, plus schools losing students, etc. They forget all that. So it just gets transferred to the Manawatu economy. Despite what you seem to think people outside of Auckland have jobs, go to school and spend money. And the resulting empty houses in Auckland can be used to rehouse the homeless from South Auckland  Paul |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 21, 2009 22:08:46 GMT 12
The turn out today by the public at Whenuapai, which I heard on the radio on the way home was estimated at a record 50,000 but I would say it was notwhere near that high, more like 30,000 to 35,000 people, shows that Aucklanders do apprecoiate their Air Force base and the work their RNZAF personnel do. I thought Manawatu people were all farmers Paul. They don't need Aucklanders in their economy... |
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Post by 30sqnatc on Mar 22, 2009 10:31:22 GMT 12
I thought Manawatu people were all farmers Paul. They don't need Aucklanders in their economy... Palmerston North's marketing slogan has been 'knowledge city' so they definitely would not want Aucklanders as they would dilute the brain pool mind you there might be some more good latte cafes. ;D |
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Post by 30sqnatc on Apr 22, 2009 19:01:08 GMT 12
The turn out today by the public at Whenuapai, which I heard on the radio on the way home was estimated at a record 50,000 but I would say it was notwhere near that high, more like 30,000 to 35,000 people, shows that Aucklanders do apprecoiate their Air Force base and the work their RNZAF personnel do. Given the Ministers statements over the last few days the visitors were probably the 'in the know crowd' sizing up which section they will buy ;D ;D Knowing what is now being suggested it is interesting going back and rereading Nationals pre-election statements on Whenuapai. |
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