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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 2351.PDF
358 FLIGHT International, 3 Septembtr 1964 Wastage Overseas VERY DISTURBING CRITICISMS, highly doCU- mented and widely ranging, of Britain's military expenditure overseas were made last week in the ninth report from the House of Commons Estimates Committee (HMSO, 17s 6d). Subjected to close examination and personal visits by com- mittee members were bases of all three Services in the Middle and Far East, which cost over £3 50m annually exclusive of weapons, equipment and supplies sent from the UK. The report revealed that the integration of the three Service departments into the unified MoD in London is barely reflected in bases overseas and that integration, while an admirable aim, is still very far from being implemented on its most effective scale. Strongly criticised, too, was lavish expansion of bases, costing millions of pounds, often undertaken with very little prospect of long-continued tenure. Among the committee's specific recom- mendations affecting the flying services is that the RAF establishment in Gibraltar be reduced, RAF personnel on the Rock, including locally-employed civilians, num- ber 1,200, yet at the time of the members' visit only part of one squadron was opera- tional and for this the aircrew complement appeared to'provide a very narrow margin! The committee calls for a re-examination of the need for an RAF headquarters in Hong Kong staffed by an air commodore with a staff of six officers, four airmen and 13 civilians, in addition to the 300 person- nel, under a separate OC, who man the military side of Kai Tak. The committee suggests that re-examination of the duties of the AOC and his staff might show that these could well be divided between Air HQ in Singapore and the station com- mander at Kai Tak. The report made the point that there was but one RAF squadron [operating Hunters] based at Hong Kong. It is about the Singapore base that many criticisms are made, and the report ex- presses dissatisfaction with the effect of the introduction of a unified command there. Far from making effective integration possible, the unified command is not res- ponsible for administration, which remains in individual Service headquarters' hands and has actually led to duplication, with an increase in overall establishment of 55. The Aden unified command was cited as more successful. Contrary to trends towards integration, there are tendencies to new duplication in some places. One example cited is the Navy's re-opening of its own workshops in Singapore, after seven years' closure, to service RN helicopters, where before the RAF was undertaking the aircraft servicing of all three Services. The Army's air establishment at Ben- ghazi, Libya, is the only specific mention in the report of Army aviation. Apart from questioning the need for a garrison at Benghazi at all, the provision of a light air- craft strip there, at a cost of £14,500, to- gether with other lavish facilities, was strongly condemned, with the security of all British military tenure in Libya uncer- tain and with the lease of the particular land having only two years to run. On the staging post at Gan, the report Gnaturally graceful are the tiny Orpheus-powered advanced trainers with which 4 FTS at RAF Valley is equipped. Here the five all-yellow Gnat Trainers of the School's forma- tion aerobatic team are pictured during a rehearsal in preparation for the Farnborough Show, in the flying display of which they have a starring role SERVICE AVIATION Air Force, Naval and Army Flying News expresses dissatisfaction with the use of imported prefabricated buildings, instead of local labour and materials. The build- ings are wearing badly and are unlikely to last even as long as the present tenure of Gan. The committee recommends that further major works projects at the Indian Ocean base be sanctioned only after care- ful consideration of local political unrest. Of air trooping and supply, and the ex- pansion of Transport Command, the com- mittee considered it doubtful whether, in assessing commitments abroad, "sufficient regard has been had to the changes resulting from modern means of communications and, in particular, the transport of both men and equipment by air." It recommends a base-by-base, garrison-by-garrison review of the cost of meeting British military com- mitments overseas, to provide the Chiefs of Staffs with the fullest information to assess when a base might be reduced to the status of a forward area or staging post. NZ Orion Order Approved AS EXPECTED, the New Zealand Government last week approved the purchase of five Lockheed P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft for the RNZAF, to replace its Sunderiand flying-boats. The Orions, costing £6.68m with spares and support equipment, will be delivered in 1966, becoming fully opera- tional in 1967. The flying-boat base at Lauthala Bay, Fiji, will be kept open, with Sunderlands operational, until that time; the NZ Government is to discuss with the Fijian Government the implications of its ultimate closure, which are bound to be unwelcome to the islanders. Government approval of the purchase of five Orions represents a victory for the RNZAF over the Treasury, which in the interests of the country's balance of pay- ments argued that only three aircraft should be bought. With the purchase of three Lockheed Hercules transports being delivered next year, New Zealand will be spending nearly £14m on military aircraft in two years. With another £7m committed to a new frigate for the RNZN and with new equipment being supplied to the Army, New Zealand's slender resources will be hard stretched in the next two or three years and it seems that the RNZAF's ageing Vampires and Canberras will have to soldier on for a Sunderland-like period of time before one strike aircraft to replace both types is bought.
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