View Full Version : Our tax money at work
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Cost? about £1 million for the repainted scheme, it was grey. Madness (imho)
Grant66
26-06-20, 03:41 PM
Not sure where they get those figures.
Normal cost for a repaint is €200-300k, depending on complexity.
That includes materials and Toulouse labour costs. Normal repainting removes the old paint as it increases weight.
Perhaps they are including the refurbishment cost of ZZ336 which was due a major. It would have been repainted after this service anyway.
So they are suggesting it's cost £900k more to have it this colour as opposed to it's usually grey? Or is the headline misleading?
Whether this is the best colour scheme for a military tanker is debatable.
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Adam Ef
26-06-20, 04:16 PM
Why does it look very American to me even though that's the British flag?
https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/26/union-flag-upside-boris-johnsons-900000-plane-12905817/
Grant66
26-06-20, 04:43 PM
If it was the right way up on both sides then the design at the front of the fin wouldn't line up.
Poor design to have that issue.
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do you honestly expect the prime minister of one of the greatest country's in the world if not the greatest to fly in some scabby old plane to foreign dignitaries. if you do then fuk off to some backwater country and moan there....... remember its not just for bojo to fly in just like yankers airforce one that shuttles trumpity around. it will serve many prime minister's over the years. bargain if you ask me.
what i do object to is the ludicrous price HS2 filling the pockets of schoolboy wank mates.
Dave20046
26-06-20, 10:05 PM
I've just googled the old jobby, it didn't look rundown just drab. I bet he just didn't like the colour, or needed an excuse to give one of his mates a few quid. Bit more cash we don't have ****ed away IMO (unless whoever he paid is going to give the country a spiffing deal on something useful).
What I'm more interested in is the dirt bikes he's just bought. Can't see what they are , but I'm far more supportive of that (as long as they were under £10k!)
Craig380
27-06-20, 08:33 AM
what i do object to is the ludicrous price HS2 filling the pockets of schoolboy wank mates.
Amen. I live 4 miles from Macclesfield station, which is on the West Coast mainline. It's currently 1h40m to Euston. Getting there 15 minutes earlier offers no real benefit at all.
What WOULD offer a real benefit is free high-speed Wi-Fi on the train, which could be provisioned for a few million quid. Then no-one would care about getting from A to B 15 minutes faster. That could have saved over 50 billion.
what i do object to is the ludicrous price HS2 filling the pockets of schoolboy wank mates.
Amen. I live 4 miles from Macclesfield station, which is on the West Coast mainline. It's currently 1h40m to Euston. Getting there 15 minutes earlier offers no real benefit at all.
What WOULD offer a real benefit is free high-speed Wi-Fi on the train, which could be provisioned for a few million quid. Then no-one would care about getting from A to B 15 minutes faster. That could have saved over 50 billion.
I agree improved internet connectivity would help but personally I'd just prefer more space (in standard class). You're relatvely well served on WCML. Pre-Covid, I travelled from Derby to both London and York regularly, about 2 hours for each journey. Travelling in standard class is not very pleasant really - trains usually very busy and no chance of two side-by-side travellers (or four at a table) working comfortably with laptops or A4-based paperwork. Even with quality wi-fi it's hard to work standing up.
And therein lies the challenge - too many passengers for the capacity of the railway. I'm still not convinced about the business case and planned solution for HS2 as it currently stands. The explananation of it generally has been shockingly bad but having done a little bit of extra research, I can see that the journey time saving is only a secondary benefit - the main benefit is adding capacity to the whole network (by giving demand for existing routes somewhere else to go).
SV650rules
29-06-20, 08:22 PM
Not sure where they get those figures.
Normal cost for a repaint is €200-300k, depending on complexity.
That includes materials and Toulouse labour costs. Normal repainting removes the old paint as it increases weight.
Perhaps they are including the refurbishment cost of ZZ336 which was due a major. It would have been repainted after this service anyway.
So they are suggesting it's cost £900k more to have it this colour as opposed to it's usually grey? Or is the headline misleading?
Whether this is the best colour scheme for a military tanker is debatable.
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It suits the left biased media to say the cost was just a paint job, never let the facts get in the way of an opportunity for Boris bashing. Corbyn as PM would have left the plane drab except for the hammer and sickle on the tail, and maybe an IS logo.
It suits the left biased media to say the cost was just a paint job, never let the facts get in the way of an opportunity for Boris bashing. Corbyn as PM would have left the plane drab except for the hammer and sickle on the tail, and maybe an IS logo.
First off, Corbyn isn't even leader of the opposition so that point is moot. Secondly this aircraft's primary function is as a tanker, then a troop transport, then a VIP transport. Painting it in gaudy colours, however patriotic that seems, is senseless and purely a Boris vanity project which we can ill afford.
If we ever get into another fracas and need another tanker it will have to be resprayed grey. There are currently 10 A330-200 muti-role tankers in service with the RAF.
Grant66
30-06-20, 07:37 AM
All 8 of the G8 countries have "presidential" aircraft.
Of those 7 countries, one has a aircraft that is dual use, the rest have aircraft dedicated for use by the leader and government officials (Germany has 15).
I'm all for Boris bashing, as let's face it there is a lot to hold him account for, but changing the colour of an aircraft that needed to be painted anyway isn't one of them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_transports_of_heads_of_state_and_government
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keith_d
30-06-20, 08:00 AM
<snippity snip>
it will serve many prime minister's over the years. bargain if you ask me.
what i do object to is the ludicrous price HS2 filling the pockets of schoolboy wank mates.
Big construction projects frequently enjoy cross-party support. One lot gets bunce for their mates/donors, and the other gets lots of paid up members for their paymasters.
shiftin_gear98
30-06-20, 01:22 PM
Personally I like.
I'm sure we've wasted way more on other pointless ventures.
At least it has a little more style now.
SV650rules
30-06-20, 02:39 PM
Personally I think it is pretty cheapskate anyway using an RAF tanker as our VIP transport, we don't even have a royal ship any more, what message does it send to the world that we don't have a dedicated aircraft or ship for our top people to travel in... Concorde would probably still be flying if the frogs hadn't destroyed one ( with all on board ) by disobeying all the rules about over-filling fuel tanks, overloading plane with passengers luggage, bad maintenance ( leaving spacers out of landing gear ) and oh keeping their runways clean...
Personally I think it is pretty cheapskate anyway using an RAF tanker as our VIP transport, we don't even have a royal ship any more, what message does it send to the world that we don't have a dedicated aircraft or ship for our top people to travel in...
IMHO, rooted in seeing the cost of everything yet the value of nothing - lots of folk jump to judge the single solution they've been presented with, without also weighing up the alternatives based on the underlying need that generally remains.
It's rarely as straightforward as claimed, e.g. it wouldn't surprise me to learn that this decision to "refurbish the plane" also involved making the job big enough and a sufficiently significant change for funding to become enhancement capex (with the associated tax treatment benefits) rather than maintenance opex. I think even government departments have to abide by typical business accountancy and budget management practices.
Reflective of typical modern attitude and shame more can't make the distinction or be open minded enough to at least engage in informed debate.
The main problem I have with this repainting cost is the hypocrisy. For 10 years we have been told that there isn't any money for anything and that we have to "fix the roof whilst the sun is shining". On top of this paint job we have the wasted £12mil spent on the contact tracing app which they were warned would not work without Apple's and Google's help and it didn't. How much did the panic building of ventilators cost or the anti-malarial drugs?
I've been regularly writing to my MP for the last 6 years asking for more spending, this isn't quite what I had in mind.:( I asked for infrastructure spending, NHS spending - interest rates were low, money cheap and it would boost the economy plus we would have something to show for it. After 10 years of austerity we have a flag on the back of an aircraft. Woohoo!
The next problem I have is connected to the Conservative's view of our world status. I don't think many, if any, countries look to the UK as a leader in finance, technical achievement, science, military prowess, sport or political leadership. Yes, we are on the UN security council but it's based on past glory. Yet we strut around as if we are still a world power - we build aircraft carriers and then don't have enough planes to equip them (the Americans will be sharing the carrier) but what is a carrier for? It is to project your country's force around the world - what force, where? Remember the last Libyan fiasco that Cameron got us into when we sent a frigate with only 4 missiles? (and they're fired in pairs).
We can't build our own nuclear power stations without French and Chinese help, our high speed trains will be foreign. We casually make threats of consequences against China and Russia but are generally powerless to do anything.
Don't get me wrong, I love this country with all its flaws but it's time we realised we are now a second tier nation and cut our cloth accordingly, there's nothing wrong with that. Painting a Union Flag on the tail of an aircraft is not going to impress anyone and makes the aircraft less useful for its main function ie: as a tanker.
If you've got money to burn buy more PPE, or meals for school kids, not vanity projects.
Your opinion will probably vary but that's ok too. :)
But wasn't the austerity to pay off debt . . . so we don't instantly have money to invest straight after (even if someone promised 350M to the NHS . . . .)
And beyond Corona there's going to be a recession, best case, or potentially a depression if the whole world catches a cold.
At the end of the day the Plane is used by the Royals and Parliament staff too, so it has to look respectable as it is representing the UK.
A plane is certainly money well spent vs a Ship/boat that never gets used - and costs a lot more to run.
UK as a leader in finance, technical achievement, science, military prowess, sport or political leadership.
you have just named things that this country is good at.
you have to remember that most technological advancement comes out of the UK but is sold off under the table to other countries that then say its theirs.
if there was more money spent on sports then we would be the world leaders.
we have one of the best military in the world.
London still is one of the top financial centres in the world, BTW at one time Edinburgh was higher up than London until the great english takeover to create jobs down south.
well we get to vote in our political parties, cant help it if people are dumb and brainwashed to vote in morons.
who engineered dolly the sheep.. ermm we did when nobody else could.
for a tiny island we do ok... :rolleyes:
SV650rules
03-07-20, 07:32 AM
Too many people who run this country down, we regularly swap places with New York as the best financial centre in the world. ARM processors of Cambridge, world leaders in powerful energy efficient processors for mobile devices ( which were ignored by others because 'mobile phones would never catch on, they were just a fad' ). Concord, ( the only bit the french designed was the decor ) flew so fast and so high ( without afterburners due to genius who designed the engine intakes at Filton ) that few military jets could catch it ( EE Lightning was pretty much only one, and that had no range ). As Bibio says many tech advancements come out of UK but are sold off or given away for peanuts. For a small Island with 0.1% of world population we really do punch well above our weight. I say a p0x on people who run this country down.
Name one other country that has thrown so much money at people and companies during the Covid-19 emergency ?
Too many people who run this country down, we regularly swap places with New York as the best financial centre in the world. ARM processors of Cambridge, world leaders in powerful energy efficient processors for mobile devices ( which were ignored by others because 'mobile phones would never catch on, they were just a fad' ). Concord, ( the only bit the french designed was the decor ) flew so fast and so high ( without afterburners due to genius who designed the engine intakes at Filton ) that few military jets could catch it ( EE Lightning was pretty much only one, and that had no range ). As Bibio says many tech advancements come out of UK but are sold off or given away for peanuts. For a small Island with 0.1% of world population we really do punch well above our weight. I say a p0x on people who run this country down.
Name one other country that has thrown so much money at people and companies during the Covid-19 emergency ?
I'm assuming you mean that Concord could cruise without afterburners because it needed them to reach cruising speed.
Spending on covid bailouts? We are not even close: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52450958
ARM who were British are now Japanese and heading for Saudi ownership. Creating ideas and then selling them to other countries is not a great example of being a world leader - it shows we're lousy at business.
I'm not running the country down but we talk and strut as if we are as important as we once were. We need help from the Americans to launch our nuclear weapons, we had vital help from them in the Falklands. In Iraq we sent soldiers into battle in unprotected Land Rovers. The second aircraft carrier was going to be mothballed because we couldn't afford to run two (but now have magically found the money) and like I mentioned before, we need US Marines on board because of our lack of aircraft. We talk big but don't have the money to back it up so maybe our rhetoric should match our finances? Painting the flag on a military aircraft is the same thinking - looks impressive but we cannot back it up and it would need to be repainted in a hostile situation hence it's a waste of money. If the PM wants to fly, let him go commercial airlines and save money. (make it Ryanair).
In science, based on number of scientific articles published we are 5th., by patents we are 12th (below Brazil). The LIBOR scandal dented our financial reputation and yes, we are number 2 at the moment, Brexit will probably change that (according to the City).
Sport? I know little but based on soccer competitions we're as good at that as we are in the Eurovision song contest.
I write to my MP regularly asking him to intervene when our engineering companies are being sold off, Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds being the last. He's a Tory, says he can't intervene in the free market. It's in the national interest! Finally, they are now talking about introducing a law that will stop hostile takeovers by foreign companies. I'd like to think that the virus will be a wake up call since we were so ill equipped to deal with it in terms of making the necessary medical protective equipment but based on my experience of the last 50 years nothing will change, but let's hope :)
Business is all about 1 thing; making money.
In the electronics industry there are companies being bought out and ran under the main corporate umbrella, or being integrated. The bigger corporations have the know how, the money to build it up and make it better. Whether it's a small start up with the latest and greatest tech, or the big companies. Most recently Infineon buying Cypress.
A lot is designed and built in the EMEA region, but generally in the UK we mainly design as we not have the assembly houses/are able to compete on costs.
Remember Mr Dyson supporting Brexit and British jobs, then moving his HQ to Singapore (a tax haven) . . . . Business is about making Money.
SV650rules
03-07-20, 05:40 PM
I'm assuming you mean that Concord could cruise without afterburners because it needed them to reach cruising speed.
If the PM wants to fly, let him go commercial airlines and save money. (make it Ryanair).
Concorde needed afterburn to take off. Cruising at more than speed of sound without afterburners is called supercruise. Even today not many mega-expensive military planes can do it, The EE lightning could, as well as Concord.
Ridiculous to expect Leader of one of the worlds leading economies to travel by commercial airlines, mainly due to the flying petri dish nature of commercial airliners as well as the security problems and of course image. People who think they are badly off in this country should try living somewhere else. Poverty is really a matter of degree, poverty in some countries is dying of starvation, the definition of poverty in UK seems to be not having the latest I-phone or play-station.
if Concorde was American it would still be flying. but its not and the yankers could not wait till we got rid of them. the yankers were always pizzed as they could not do it and it was a red face. Concorde was built for a sole purpose and that was fast transatlantic flight but the yanks embargoed it to begin with coz they are ******z and think the world revolves around them.
Biker Biggles
04-07-20, 07:09 AM
But the world does revolve around the USA and has done for a hundred years or more. It used to revolve around the UK but hasnt for well over a hundred years. It revolves around whoever has the biggest economic clout and at some point in our lifetime that will be China. Get real and develop some attitudes and policies to survive in the world as it is rather than some fairy tale concoction.
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