Originally Posted by
Jackonicko
That's a good point NutLoose, though I suspect the numbers are MUCH smaller. Many or even most of the Hawk T1s are in sustainment, so you're probably talking about 18 (mainly civilian/reservist?) pilots with 736 and a similar number of RAF aircrew on the Tatty Ton.
One would hope that the latter, at least would be seen as a useful means of solving the manning crisis on the Typhoon/F-35 fleets?
But whether it's a good idea to save the Red Arrows rather than the adversary training units is a really interesting question.
Unless the answer is to replace 736 and 100 with more synthetic training, they'll have to relaunch ASDOT, or something similar, and contractorise the whole shooting match, with a solution that will be more expensive and of dubious airworthiness and sustainability.
1. What Manning crisis on Typhoon?
2. ‘Dubious airworthiness and sustainability’? How so? If it’s a new contract and written by MoD how are you able to say with certainty that airworthiness and sustainability will be an issue?