Originally Posted by
PerPurumTonantes
You'd hope that if they weren't doing that, they'd be doing other great training exercises. So maybe net cost to uk defence budget negligible.
With you on the blood pressure though. Cost to everyone on the flight, wasted fuel, f/a stress of dealing with worse than the usual class of idiot.
Military escort suggests security issue, so perhaps stress to all pax and crew as well thinking that they might not make it home.
Not to drift too far, this talk about the cost to the military budget reminds me of the SAR of the late lone yachtsman, Tony Ballimore, deep in the Southern Ocean back a few years ago now. So much was made of the cost to the Australian taxpayer by the malevolent local press as they described him just another despised rich type living out his fantasies and risking the lives of our "boys".
It was a fantastic effort by the RAAF and the RAN and priceless experience for all involved. The truth is that all costs involved would have been spent on mind numbing training flights in any case. It made most Australians proud to see Tony come out of his overturned yacht and embrace his rescuers.