So many voices all spot on the button. Demise of 705 (OK.. and maybe the pongo and crab equivalents) was a crazy decision. Cost more not less to do it 'joint', takes longer and the product is worse (stand by for a party-line-tower to claim the opposite!). I happen to know that the FONA of the time (Big Tell) pulled every trick in the book to try and save 705 but he was shouted down by others who a) didn't give a fig for the Fleet Air Arm and its ethos and b) saw a slavish adherence to joitery as being a pathway to promotion in the new (Labour), post cold-war order.
sad sad sad