Bearing in mind Stephen Gethins point raised about his concerns that Leuchars will lose its status as a Diversion for Lossiemouth, the worrying response from the Air Defence Secratariat is; a decision hasn't been made about the long term future of Leuchars. Well what does that mean exactly? This is Gethins point entirely, they can never give an answer which comprehensively reassures. So what is implied here? Are they saying that the station is under review again? Has someone in the MOD crunched some numbers and worked out that for the number of practice diversions and actual diversions, to fly the one hundred+ miles extra to Leeming and back still leaves the MOD in pocket when compared with the savings of closing down Leuchars as a WX diversion? Or is this, as has been suggested, a bull headed illogical demand for a trade off for turning Leuchars into the Army Central Hub in Scotland? I was saying to my Brother just the other day, did you know that along with four squadrons of Typhoons, all the RAF's nine P-8s and a new P-8 maintenance centre together with the constant coming and going of US Navy and Royal Norwegian Air Force P-8s, the former I understand may have a permanent operational detachment there, will be based at Lossiemouth. His response was to say what a choice target for Terrorists. Same with the Army Hub!? When did we lose sight of the folly of over grouping everything in one place and limiting the scope for deployment? The bean counters can always show what they've saved with what they've taken away, but will never be drawn to explain the cost they've inflicted!
FB