Originally Posted by
Baldeep Inminj
I must agree. I worked with the Reds for many years and it is clear to me that Wg Cdr Montenegro is being set up as a scapegoat. Did he fraternize with a junior rank against orders - I don't know, but it appears he may have done (yet to be proven). Against the rules...sure. However, if he is 'guilty', then so are dozens of former Red Arrows. In the 90's, pulling other guys wives was practically a rite of passage for the guys on the team. When the first female pilot joined the team she was the toast of breakfast TV and tabloids alike. Where were they when she had an affair with the boss? Silence. The hypocrisy around this team is legendary.
If the RAF truly want to 'oust' current and former Reds who have behaved badly (or worse), then it does not need to look far - they are everywhere. The team has been toxic for years and will continue to be so - it is in their DNA.
I do believe the Reds should be disbanded and have felt this way for several years. Defence budgets are wafer thin, and the frontline weapons Ukraine (and the UK) need are not cheap. We cannot justify a bunch of preening primdonna's posing around in obsolete jets and gaudy flying suits when airmen can't get hot water in their living accommodation. The Reds have had their day, and it is time to focus on far more important priorities.
Unfortunately, we have the most detached, clueless and misguided CAS in living memory - he will probably fix it by giving them rainbow coloured flying suits.
It's not just the Reds. I worked at various weapons ranges over the years and one universal truth was that ANY FJ visiting detachment would do two things, shag any local lass that was up for it and most probably wreck at least one pub bar. Paying out reimbursement for damages to local pubs was part and parcel of the range operating costs. At least one landlord used to make a point of asking for advance warning of any FJ detachment so he could warn some of the local lasses in advance, in the hope that they might not end up doing something whilst under the influence that they later regretted. The landlord at my local once tried to get the cost of his wrecked piano reimbursed, after a particularly raucous detachment had stayed there, and he got mightily hacked off when it was suggested that he'd already claimed for damage several times in the past and should have just barred them.