§ Mr. RobathanTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) how many Nimrod aircraft are(a) serviceable and (b) unserviceable; [107047]
(2) how many Tornado aircraft are (a) serviceable and (b) unserviceable. [107048]
§ Mr. SpellarThe information requested is set out in the table. This represents a snapshot in time at 8 a.m. on 26 January.
Tornado Tornado F3 Nimrod MR2 Number of aircraft allocated to front-line1 119 86 23 Serviceable2 94 79 16 Undergoing servicing at 2nd line 25 7 3 Undergoing servicing at 3rd/4th line 6 11 4 Undergoing upgrade 48 16 5 Aircraft on trials 1 1 0 Fleet size 174 114 28 1 The allocation to front-line units is made up of all aircraft which are serviceable or are at 1st or 2nd line maintenance (and 3rd and 4th line maintenance for the Nimrod) as this servicing work is undertaken at the station. RAF fleet size is made up by totalling all aircraft. 2 Includes aircraft that are undergoing 1st line servicing. The operational serviceability of front-line aircraft fluctuates each day according to the maintenance that is required. 1st line servicing tasks are those which can generally be rectified in a matter of hours. 2nd line servicing tends to be scheduled servicing and can take a number of weeks. In many cases aircraft can be recovered earlier if required for operations. Some of the aircraft in 3rd/4th line maintenance and undergoing upgrade to improve their overall capability could be made available operationally in the event of a major crisis requiring the deployment of large numbers of aircraft.