The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

Airworthiness
Fig. 12.4: 2000-2006 – DPA and DLO
Chapter 12 – History of RAF In-Service Support (1990-2009)
12.14 The role of Equipment Support (Air) (ES(Air)) was “to provide safe, airworthy platforms, systems and supporting
aerospace equipment to the front line aviation customers”; and the management of safety risks to platforms
was “the responsibility of individual IPTs”. 5 Overall responsibility for RAF airworthiness policy became vested in
DG ES(Air) (a 2-star post who was a member of the AFB). The DG ES(Air) role expanded to include responsibility
for co-ordinating the DLO’s outputs to the RAF. The title was changed to Director General Logistics (Strike) (DG
Log Strike). 6 The role and title CE(RAF) was dropped.
JSPs and JAPs – MARDS
12.15 In 1999, in recognition of the increasing number of ‘Joint’, i.e. multi-Service, units and operations, the Assistant
Chief of the Air Staff (ACAS) directed the establishment of a single military aviation regulatory structure, with
supporting regulations for all three Services. A major drafting exercise was undertaken to converge the single-
Service aircraft regulations and maintenance policies into a series of Joint Service Publications (JSP) and Joint
Air Publications (JAP) respectively. The terms of reference for the team responsible for drawing up the new
regulations were to update current regulations and make them joint; “empower” commanders through “few
rules, firmly applied”; take account of civil regulations and recent legislation; provide access to regulations
primarily by electronic means; establish long term administration for the new structure. 7 This regulatory
framework covers not only IPT activity, but also the operational maintenance activity carried out by singleservice
Front Line Commands (FLC). Collectively, the JSPs and supporting publications are known as the Military
Aviation Regulatory Documents Set (MARDS). 8
Late 1990s onwards – Increasing role of Industry
The traditional support model
12.16
Prior to the introduction of Partnering, the MOD purchased a variety of services from Industry to support its
aircraft. These were:
5 Report of AD Eng Pol in DLO Environment & Safety Report 2002.
6 Although responsibility for in-service support of Helicopters was transferred to Director General Logistics (Land).
7 MART brief to the Nimrod Review Team on Military Aviation Policies, Regulations and Directives dated 27 March 2008.
8 The process is described in the forward to JSP550 (Military Aviation Policy, Regulations and Directives).
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