OAP & LJ
However, the knowledge was held by some of us and, the document was formally reviewed on a regular basis to keep abreast of changes in useage.
Correct. And changes in use (and intent) had to be fed into the safety case, build standard (if necessary) and RTS (the Master Airworthiness Reference). Which would result in amendments to the other parts of the Aircraft Document Set you mention.
Always assuming you had the necessary contracts in place, the funding and the properly trained staff to do all this. And you need someone with oversight to ensure this airworthiness chain remains unbroken (especially after the entire process was fragmented instead of being a core, centralised function). None of this has been MoD policy for many years. So much so, the new MAA regulatory set gets the definition of the underpinning process wrong, and wanders off at a tangent never to return.
And to be fair to the much-maligned Commandant 2FTS, he has very little to do with this, except to notify violations and take action if his superiors do nothing. Which is what he did (but for not entirely the correct reasons). I can think of many deaths arising from people in his position
not taking action. This is
exactly the same as Nimrod. The IPTL, Gp Capt Baber, was criticised by Haddon-Cave for having a poor safety case. But there was no mention of the fact Baber had the gumption to let a task to resurrect the safety case, when he should have inherited a continuous task/contract and valid safety case. In both cases, (relatively) junior officers have taken the hit for failings at a more senior level. (On Nimrod, there was no mention of the various Stars who signed to say there
was a valid safety case - and it's the same for gliders). We saw the same on C-130 XV179. Sea Kings ASaC. Chinook ZD576. Once you appreciate the linkages, you can focus on the solution.