The economics of the day didn’t support them for me but for a military aircraft in the low level environment today it is almost criminal not to protect the crew and aircraft with wire strike protection.
I believe it is criminal, but no action will be taken if the Moray Firth Tornado collision case is anything to go by. In this case the SI board stated at 1.4.6.605b (5) of their report that the risk of collision was not ALARP, and whilst RA 1210 makes it clear that ADHs are accountable for ensuring that systems are ALARP and Tolerable and the validity of the argument should be tested by the courts in the event of an accident, no such action was taken. To make matters worse the Lord Advocate of Scotland decided, after consultation (collaboration?) with the MOD, that no Fatal Accident Inquiry would be carried out. An FAI was the one way that the validity of the ALARP argument could be tested.
Although the H-C report is much talked about nothing has changed when it comes to accountability.
DV