Originally Posted by
Rigga
The RAF do indeed love aircraft paperwork. But one of their faults is that they don't actually like holding it as an archive or using the data it holds for some good reasons like developing/modifying systems and such like.
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They also like 'over maintaining' their aircraft compared to a civilian equivalent.
When they bought 3 Navajos to replace the 4 Devons of Transport Flight at Farnborough, there were usually only 2 available every day with the third always in pieces in the hangar; if a civilian operator had been using them they would have kicked up a hell of a fuss only having 2 aircraft serviceable.