…... how we could make things more efficient. We questioned everything, and led many ‘sacred cows’ to slaughter as we implemented the necessary changes. Examples of what we did include the following:
We redesigned the Ops Room (29) to provide a one-
way flow system to ensure that incoming and outgoing crews would not interfere with each other, and that supervision of this massive new task could be maximised.
Flying 9 sorties
per hour (each with a half-hour brief and debrief) required 9 briefing rooms in constant use. We only had 6, so we replaced the traditional 4-coloured CFS board brief with standardised PowerPoint slides delivered on Smart boards (30). This upset the veteran QFIs, but improved standardisation and cut the briefing times by half.
As you will be aware,
no flying can possibly take place without the aircrew first huddling around the Ops Room programme board, and giving helpful advice to the duty authoriser. However, this gets in the way if you have 100 pilots on the Squadron. So, we followed up on a bright idea by one of our junior pilots and installed closed-circuit cameras in the Ops Room (31), with remote control to monitors in the crewroom. Therefore, not only did we invent a new video game of ‘spot the Auth’s bald patch’, but we removed the congestion from the Ops Room and kept everyone better informed.
We analysed
the weather, to find that the weather factor at Valley is the same in any 6-month period throughout the year. Summer really is as bad (or as good) as winter in Anglesey! So, scratching our heads further, we realised that the reason every course is behind the line in winter is not because of the weather, but because of the lack of daylight. So, we reduced student numbers on winter courses and increased them on summer courses, and programmed some sorties, such as instrument flying to take place at night (32). As a result, we came out of winter ‘on the line’ for 2 years running. It did, however, upset the Headquarters programmers because having variable numbers of students on our courses spoiled their neat progress charts.
