Originally Posted by
POBJOY
There are plenty of machines that have been released by SS (to Syerston) that were capable of being put back in to operation if there was an organisation left that had enough staff to operate.
JM's legacy was that he killed off the organisation, and that was always going to be the difficult part to replace.
In reality they are faced with starting from scratch, and with a w-end operation the expertise (as was) will take years to replace.
Of course with so little actual 'solo' requirement the pressure has eased, but just the simple tasks of setting up for a days flying has also gone, so who is actually gong to 'train' the staff (assuming) they are available when required up to a level of capability that we used to take for the norm.
JM's vision of an 'all uniformed' organisation was always flawed, and there is not even an 'experienced' staff cadet force in being to provide the required level of help anymore.
That's not strictly true it being the AOCs directive to transition to uniformed staff and while it's been a paperwork exercise to get going once established is it really that onerous a task to go through. Most of the operating VGS have staff numbers in the 30+ and 5-10 staff cadets some of whom are already grade 1 pilots.
while 2FTS maybe could have done extra to keep staff interested part of that burden does rest with the squadron OCs those that did motivate their staff with little extras have strong teams in place, those that didn't will struggle.