Perhaps I could offer a bit of perspective here, that might help us get our heads around just how bad this scandal has been.
When the fleet was grounded in 2014, it comprised 146 aircraft. Now, after the 'new plan', and spending lots of tax payers money, the target is to get 73 Vikings and 'up to' 15 Vigilants back in use. That's 88 aircraft, so 40% of the fleet has gone. And once the 15 Vigilants go in a couple of years, we're left with exactly half of the original fleet (73 out of 146).
I've been firing in a series of FoI requests to get a better handle on just how we got here, but the basics remain:
The RAF has been flying school children in non-airworthy aircraft, possibly for many years.
They only found out in 2013 when the MAA audit prompted their engineers to do no more than they should have been doing for 20 years. Maintaining aircraft in an airworthy condition. (And don't make the mistake of trying to blame the contractors - if you contract out a service, you don't contract out your responsibility for making sure they're doing he job properly. The RAF didn't do that. They've already admitted that one).
OC 2FTS then spent the first 18 months pursuing a completely unachievable series of plans, each of which fell over as soon they were published. He clearly had absolutely NO idea how bad the state of his aircraft was. Which means his engineers didn't.
Eventually, CAS had to step in in late 2015 and tell him what was going to happen, which didn't include fixing all the aircraft.
Half of the fleet has effectively had to be scrapped or given away free
So, full replacement of the fleet was never really on the cards. This has effectively been a case of 'the glider fleet is completely f****d, what can be salvaged from the wreckage?'. Now we know. Just half the aircraft, at a cost of (warning - big guess here) - at least an extra £7m.
How bad do things have to get before people are held to account?
Best Regards as ever to those trying to fly cadets under what have to be extremely trying circumstances,
Engines