PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - INCIDENT AT VALLEY
View Single Post
Old 26th Apr 2018, 12:26
  #341 (permalink)  
rlsbutler
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Axminster Devon
Age: 83
Posts: 166
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Might I be a lonely voice to speak for those ex-airmen who would exclude a blue aircraft from the Red display ?

The Royal Air Force has trouble paying for RAFAT and it does so to project its image as a skilled, vital, force for the defence of our nation. Dwelling on RAFAT's normally unseen workforce or (worse) perpetually memorialising just one of its unhappy and costly mistakes - that detracts from its proper role.

The Reds have lost quite a few pilots now. For them and for Corporal Baylis the right thing is to acknowledge them briefly and sincerely and then to move on. In my day we might have muttered "bound to lose a few" and heard others making harsher remarks, doubtless devised to put a brave face on private regrets.

We are an air force that lost tens of thousands of mens' lives in WWII, most of them aircrew. We have to be ready to take that sort of punishment in the future. We have no business encouraging the Royal Air Force to grow introverted and sentimental.
rlsbutler is offline