Originally Posted by
alfred_the_great
the single biggest blocker to aviation innovation (akin to the rapid activity the Ukrainians are going through) are “airworthiness regulations”.
I imagine most of our combat fatalities will come from poorly prepared pilots unable to think and aviate outside a “safe” environment.
You have expressed these sentiments before, atg, so I suspect we shall simply go on navigating around the same old buoy to little or no effect. Let's just agree that to win wars you have to train hard in peace. There is no training value to your aircraft spontaneously exploding following AAR. There is no training value in not being warned of your SSR failing, leaving you exposed to a blue on blue strike. There is no training value in two identical aircraft colliding in poor vis having extinguished illegally fitted strobes that would otherwise blind them. There is no training value in not fitting Explosion Suppressant Foam into a tactical transport leaving it open to being felled by a single round. There is no training value in rendering an ejection seat certain to fail by ordering an illegal in situ uncoupling and recoupling of its drogue shackle. There is no training value in granting a knowingly grossly unairworthy aircraft an RTS, leading to an inevitable predictable tragic outcome.
What 'innovations' did these deliberately VSO directed actions achieve? If you mean that in war rules and regulations may be secondary to military necessity, then we are in violent agreement! If intervening in a fire fight by clinging to the outside of an attack helicopter to enable wounded to be withdrawn, so be it. Such is war. Ukraine is at war. That is why they 'innovate' as you put it. We are at peace and need to preserve our precious aircrew and aircraft as much as possible for going to war. We also need to ensure that the list of airworthiness related fatal air accidents listed above are avoided by ensuring that our aircraft are airworthy. An unairworthy air force going to war will not fare well at all. All that has to go hand in hand with realistic peace time training. Not an easy mix, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not the answer. What is needed is leadership, the elephant in the room conspicuous by its absence today.
This is not thread drift, this is the same issue as highlighted by this thread, the scandal of poor and incompetent leadership in the RAF's High Command.