Originally Posted by
_Agrajag_
What's life-ex really matter in war? So what if an airframe has theoretically exceeded it's fatigue life. If it can fly for a few tens of hours and help to knock out key Russian assets then that's better than nothing. We all know that life-ex isn't really an accurate assessment of true end of life. We've all seen life-ex airframes get sold and go on to fly in civil roles for years.
We rightly err on the side of caution in peacetime. No one wants deaths from airframe risks when not at war. All that shifts when the risk of people dying from not using iffy kit massively exceeds the risk from using it.
We've been at peace for so long we are inherently cautious. Would we be so cautious if Russian forces were dug in along the South Coast of England?
I've been round the Jag fleet at Cosford and believe me when I say they would need work, the leading edge boots were hanging of a fair few, the cat igniters were missing, various bits were missing, and the majority haven’t run in years, some that were used to run I think no longer do.
Life ex wings and then heaving them around the skies with 4 thousand pounders, a phimat if they still have any and a compatible ECM pod hanging off them.
You also have a lack of laser designators as I believe the RAF returned them to ferranti who scrapped most, though the odd one appears on EBay. And then trying the get the NavWass working again after all these years.
We do not seem to hold war reserves anymore to the detriment of a case like this, such is the rush to “extract the best return to the taxpayer”
Perhaps give them Hawk T1’s to free up their L39 training fleet, at least they can be used as light attack aircraft