Originally Posted by
WB627
I have followed this thread since it started, as I feel, having soled at Kenley in 1974 on a Mk 3, I have some skin in this fight and feel desperately sorry for what has become of the ACO.
I too have followed this thread from the start and it has mainly managed to miss the point ever since. I strongly recommend those that care about the ACO, as I've no doubt we all do, to read tuc's post above as well as his preceding ones. The solution isn't choosing a suitable airframe, if it was then that would be easy-peasy. The solution is ensuring that it is, and remains, airworthy. That is why the ACO fleet was grounded in the first place. The bog standard process of keeping such simple aircraft airworthy is water off a duck's back to the likes of tuc. Unfortunately the likes of tuc are conspicuous by their absence these days, as are the Regulations that he and his fellow engineers complied with. Both were binned in the plundering of the ring fenced UK Military Air Safety budget by RAF VSOs. Even if such skills and such Regulations could be reinstated, airworthiness could not be simply restored as it is a process of record keeping and audit, a paper trail if you like. No such paper trail survived the purge, hence the grounding (or 'pause'!). Aren't other military air fleets also affected then? Of course they are, but the ACO ones involved minors, others don't. Even so the MR operational fleets were deemed expendable, hence the loss of Nimrod.
So what about the few ACO gliders that are flying? A very good question. The MAA that oversees their safe operation is founded on a lie, that of the Haddon-Cave 'Golden Period' when the subversion of UK Military Air Safety occurred. Unless and until UK Military Air Regulation and Air Accident Investigation is made independent of the MOD, and of each other, there can be no confidence in either. That won't happen until the cover up of the scandal of UK Military Airworthiness stops and the MOD, RAF, and MAA acknowledge their culpability.