Engines :-
I can think of no possible universe in which my Commander, let alone my Captain and definitely NOT my Admiral, would have let me present an RTS that wasn’t supported by a fully cleared CA Release and which contained whole blank sections for safety critical systems. Let me be clear about this – I was just a joe Lt Cdr engineer, but I knew what was expected of me, and I would never have even thought of doing such a thing. Nor would any of my FAA counterparts.
Unfortunately, in a parallel universe that is exactly what was happening. I am glad that you had all that top cover Engines, but your RAF counterparts did not. They were faced with an illegal order, i.e. 'suborn the regs and get the a/c into service as is'. What was expected of
them? It transpires that issuing such an order was acceptable (confirmed in writing as MOD policy) but that disobeying it was not. We have amongst us one who did just that, but the vast majority did not of course and we all know how that ended. If your Admiral, Captain, and Commander had confirmed that order (no matter how improbable that might be) what would then have been expected of
you? They did not of course and all credit to them for that, but did they just do nothing or did they confront their RAF equivalents and remonstrate strongly with them? Did they pass their concerns up the line so that they went to the very top of the RN? Were those concerns then relayed to the RAF High Command? I am puzzled as to how that same High Command was able to subvert UK Military Air Safety (ie that of the FAA and AAC, as well as the RAF) seemingly unhindered. I appreciate this was way above everyone's pay rate here, but there is usually some feedback down the line, especially if your Service is left with clean hands when another one is not. What was the word, or was there none? If not, I wonder why? After all the FAA was to have its own airworthiness related fatal air accident in due course, which can be traced back with so many others to this same aberration.