Originally Posted by
cynicalint
Without detracting from the argument about undervalued engineers, the same principle applied to QFIs. Civilianise the training, the trainers recruit ex servicemen cheaply, the RAF does not train QFIS, the supply of RAF QFIs dries up, the civilians cannot produce the goods and the system fails. Penny pinching by accountants, who understand the cost of everything, but nothing about the value.
The same went for a lot of the RAF, they got rid of Painters, aircraft welders, etc and farmed it all out to civi street to save money, so everything took three times longer to get sorted and often not as good, one did wonder what they would have done in a war when the manning that kept everything running in the background was no longer there. People took pride in their work and the job they were doing in the military, a company doing it on the cheap to get the contract, not so.