SECRET
US contractors.
USAT are only able to provide spares and maintenance on a Service
tu Service basis. This rules out the provision of spares to Cable
and Wireless Ltd as had been envisaged. Attempts have been made by UK officials both in Hong Kong and in Washington to vary this
rule but without success. Nor is it feasible for the Hong Kong
Government or Cable and Wireless Ltd to obtain support from the
The equipment is 18 years old and obsolescent;
such spares as do exist are largely in the USAF stocks and there
is no incentive to the US contractors involved to re-activate
the product line. Even if they were willing and able to assist
the cost of their support would be likely to be very high indeed.
ó。 The only way therefore in which continuity of operation and
maintenance can be effected is for the far to continue manning the
radar installation, albeit on a repayment basis, until the end of
March 1978 .e. 24 years longer than we had intended and 2 years
longer than our present agreement.
7. The minimum complemont required for this purposes would be
1 Flt Lt Eng (Elec), 1 WO, 1 Chief Tech, 2 Cpls, 9 Jar Techs plus
1 Cpl Supply, 3 HK Aux. Police and 3 LAC MT drivers . It has been
confirmed by the manning planned that on the basis of presen,
assumptions there should be no real difficulty in providing the
necessary personnel for this extended period. T17 SU itself
would be disbanded and the radar cervicing team re-constituted as
a new flight or RAF Kai Tak's Engineering Squadron.
8.
Although there is no direct military benefit to UK in
servicing the Tai Mo Shan radar the continued operation of the
iscaliavion will clearly contribute to flight safety in the Kai
Tak FIR. To the extent that all operations using Kai Tok will be
thus assisted there will be a benefit to RAF transport aircraft as
well as to the heavy international civii air traffic which use the
airfield. There is an important side advantage to our maintaining
PUKA SELAMINE KONTROLLER
inersonnel
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