Engines, how would you have advised the Reds' engineers and pilots to react to an RTI that instructed that the seat should be serviced in situ, and that the scissor shackle nut and bolt be undone and then done up again with no means of testing if the shackle would then release in an ensuing ejection (only possible if the procedure was carried out in the now non-existent bay)? With such illegal orders from above no amount of running around at Squadron level will repair this broken system. I take your point that the ACO thread is about the ACO scandal, and fully empathise with those who have had their years giving of their skills and time thrown back in their faces. I think that putting the scandal in perspective, alongside Mull, Baggers, ESF, Iraq Blue on Blue, Afghanistan Nimrod, Reds, etc, reinforces the issue. Just treating each one on its own simply serves the MOD's (not the RAF's alone!) agenda.
The problem is at the top rather than the bottom (though training, or lack of it, has certainly left its mark there). The MOD (where aviation is largely in the hands of RAF VSOs I'll admit) is where it started and where it still lurks, in particular with its dysfunctional subsidiary the 'independent' MAA and its vassal, the MAAIB (or whatever it's called this week). To zero in on one particular Service as the problem area is to dangerously distort the extent of the problem. ALL UK Military Aviation is affected, all of it!