The last post from LFH appears (note - appears) to confirm a suspicion that I've had for some days since the announcement of the Vigilant withdrawal from service. Why the immediate cessation of flying?
If the decision was driven by the inability to recover the originally planned 15 aircraft, and the costs of keeping a smaller Vigilant fleet going, than the withdrawal could have happened in an orderly manner as contracts wound down and budgets were cancelled. But this wasn't the case - this looks like a straight 'grounding' - camouflaged as an 'immediate withdrawal from service'.
Given the way this whole saga has run to date, I'd suspect that the Times is right, and there was a safety issue. Perhaps an MAA instruction to stop flying? Perhaps another audit went wrong? In any case, another example of 22Gp and 2FTS' inability to run a whelk stall. It's just over two years since the MoD and the RAF got a politician to stand up and announce that the plan was to recover up to 15 Vigilant and run them on until 2019. Now this, which has to put a bomb under their carefully laid plans for ATC flying over the next 12 months.
I sincerely hope that the Times does some digging on this one.
Best regards as ever to all those struggling to get cadets in the air,
Engines