Multum,
I'd just like to come back to say that during my career I worked with many RAF engineers and organisations. I regularly encountered really excellent standards, and almost all of the time, I worked with dedicated and hugely professional engineers. I sincerely apologise if anyone thought I was making a blanket judgement about the RAF engineering branch - it certainly wasn't my intention.
However, as Haddon-Cave made clear, and many others can attest to, the RAF's organisation and execution of some of its core engineering tasks just haven't been as good as people thought they were. Most seriously, they weren't as good as many senior RAF people thought they were. The ATC gliders saga is the latest in a distressingly long line of similar scandals, where the common feature is the failure of commands and departments to properly monitor and examine what the h**l was going on. If I have a single serious concern over the Post-MAA airworthiness engineering landscape (in all three services) it's this: if you have elevated the level at which normal everyday engineering decisions are taken from Sqn Ldr to Gp Capt, who is going to be monitoring the Groupie? The Air Commodores may be a trifle too busy to do QA checks.
Best Regards as ever to all those in the ATC working the stuff out for real - not just droning on like me.
Engines