The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

The Nimrod Review
344
Figure 12.2: 1991-1994 – MOD (PE) and In-Service Support
Airworthiness responsibility – RAF Chief Engineer
12.4
During this period, primary airworthiness responsibility lay with the RAF’s Chief Engineer (CE(RAF)), a military
3-Star officer based in London. CE(RAF) was responsible to the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) for the formulation
of engineering policy for the RAF as a whole. CE(RAF) was directly accountable to the Air Member for Supply
and Organisation (Air Member (S&O)) who was a member of the Air Force Board (AFB). Responsibility for
airworthiness was devolved down an ‘airworthiness chain’ by ‘Letters of Delegation’ (LOD) which were issued to
Project Engineers, then called Engineering Authorities (EA), who were formally empowered to discharge defined
airworthiness and safety duties. LOD were only issued to individuals who were deemed suitably qualified and
experienced Engineer Officers, or Civil Service equivalents, to hold them. A similar LOD process remains in place
today.
1994 – 1999: RAF Logistics Command
12.5
On 1 April 1994 RAF Logistics Command was formed. It brought together and co-located all RAF MDGs,
added Finance staff to each MDG (although Commercial staff remained a centrally managed resource), and
amalgamated most of the logistics functions of the former RAF Support Command, with the flying and ground
training elements of that organisation’s portfolio being re-brigaded elsewhere. RAF Logistics Command had its
Headquarters at RAF Brampton with the support staff seven miles away at RAF Wyton. RAF Logistics Command
provided in-service support and in-house deep repair and overhaul for 30 different aircraft types, 4,000 aeroengines
and a large volume and range of avionics equipment for the RAF, Royal Navy and Army. Over 40%
of the entire RAF annual expenditure was vested in RAF Logistics Command. (see Figure 12.3). RAF Logistics
Command was disbanded on 31 October 1999 and the majority of its functions subsumed by the tri-service
Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO) which came into existence on 1 April 2000.