Originally Posted by
Moglington
Air Vehicle and Air System are useful words to describe 2 different things:
Air Vehicle = The Aircraft (yes they could just use this instead of AV - I agree)
Air System = everything that goes with the AV to support it so the Air System = the AV + Spares, Ground Equipment, Tooling, Training(pilot and engineers), Simulators, manufacturer support for modifications/maintenance scheduling changes etc
we dont just buy an aircraft but an entire air system.
So an F1 analogy:
Air Vehicle = F1 Race Vehicle = the F1 Car
Air System = F1 Racing System = the F1 Car + Pit Crew, spares, pit crew equipment, tooling, training (pit crew and engineers), race Simulator, mods support from manufacturer, transport system to get to races round the world etc.
Its also a useful thing for ministers when asked "why does it cost us £x Bn for only x number of jets" they can say "Well actually we are buying an Air System and that price includes not only the Air Vehicles (aircraft in english) but also the support package for them including spares, all tooling, training and future support for modifications and improvements during the lifetime of the fleet in service blah blah blah etc etc"
I think the "air system" has to be the entire RAF plus MoD support organisations such as the Met. Office:
Without ALL the infrastructure every AV would cease to function. Obvious examples are the RAF Regiment [force protection] and Central Band [public image] and the Reds. Perhaps the Air System described in the quote should be the Air Sub-System?