§ 15. Mr. de Freitasasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he has yet calculated the average number of hours each day that a skilled airman on a missile base will have no maintenance work to carry out; and how it is proposed to occupy the spare time of these airmen on isolated sites.
Mr. WardNo, Sir. Although provisional personnel establishments have been laid down for certain of the earlier missiles, until we have practical experience of the servicing schedules it is impossible to say what spare working time, if any, skilled airmen will have when their maintenance and training tasks are done.
§ Mr. de FreitasDoes not even the most preliminary study of this question indicate that the type of organisation evolved in the Royal Air Force for the maintenance and operation of aircraft which constantly move to and from a station is quite unsuitable to the static maintenance of something which could be operated only on one occasion?
Mr. WardFor that reason we have not based our provisional establishments 1339 estimates on those for flying stations. But we have to lay down some establishments in order to get the units working, and they are related to the best estimates that we can make. It is not until we have some experience with this that we can hope to get the establishment right.