Thanks for some more good points:
1) Beeayeate & Maple 01: Why not ground the B52 ? C130 ?
Very reasonable question. An answer might be that its not just the age of the PR9s, so much as how useful they are for the lives at risk. Boeing built 109 of the late model B52H, not just 30 like Shorts built PR9s, they still have 75 B52Hs on active service together with 10 in attrition reserve, not just the 4 PR9s, and they are not afraid to spend the money needed on simulators, major technology upgrades, and even discussing 4 billion dollars for re-engine-ing the fleet for a life extension beyond year 2025 towards 2042, unlike the PR9s for which no-one wants to spend any money and which will be lucky to last beyond 2006. Meanwhile the B52s are a major capability for the projection of US strategic power abroad and cannot be replaced by Global Hawks, whereas it appears Unmanned vehicles, satellites and other reconnaissance assets could make a good stab at replacing PR9s. Similar discussion for C130s.
2) Beeayeate, FJJP and Jackonicko: "assymetric". Has this been proven? "Speculate all you like"
Hope I've not jumped the gun mentioning night asymmetrics, but the comments from the Marham staish mentioned "emergency landing techniques". Actually, it doesn't matter what any immediate cause of the accident was: if it had been a simulator, they would have walked away giggling, and as it wasn't, they died. Here is a training situation, well-known for its risk, that has caused endless heartache in the past, and here it is still causing heartache.
3) Beeayeate: blame - don't put it on the Canberra, put it down to the bean-counters.
While you are probably right that bean-counters are a dead-weight and do have a say, they tend not to make policy. One of their airships is probably responsible for these beloved machines still being in service. One of them needs to have the courage now to come forward and acknowledge what the flight safety folk these days call the "error chain" - safety follows when ALL the little things that go to make an accident, not just the one thing a pilot did or did not do, are given attention.
This particular chain can be broken at once, guaranteeing no more loss of life in training. Perhaps a policy of: don't bring out another T4: restrict the PR9 to only those already qualified on it until it leaves service: do their asymmetric training if necessary on any 2-engine simulator. By the way, an old b737 sim is not much more different from a PR9 than was a T4: you can fly it at speeds similar enough, the engines are in percent even. And the Nav could have the day off !
4) Jackonicko : "Is it your feeling that ...this training is killing more aircrew than it can possibly save?"
Yessir, it is. Asymmetric training is not required to save aircrew on bang seats - it is required to save airframes, especially as here those in short supply.
5) Pirate & keithl : "calling the Canberra dangerous is overstating the case"
Perhaps, but unsafe was the opening message and the T4 most certainly is unsafe. It has first-generation jet engines, not resistant to FOD or birds or icing, and as keithl says, prone to surge, prone to bleed valve malfunctions, prone to not accelerate together, with hugely different thrust feel from the PR9, in a very different cockpit with very different canopy, instrumentation, different throttle and HP cocks, doing asymmetric training which has a history of being a testing manoeuvre, doing roller landings which require absolute concentration on rpms to get right - yes its unsafe to do that. Worse we knew that 30 years ago, and it is still true.
And why, oh why, do pilot training with a navigator on board, knowing the history ? What can't you do from the front that needs to be done ?
6) Pirate : "I'd fly one again tomorrow."
So would I, in my dreams. Ah, the joy of racing back into the Akrotiri circuit in a T4 for a run and break with an over-confident JP, quietly closing the HP cock during his clever tight level break while he looked out of the window, then opening it again so it all looked right but the engine was out, tee hee ... However, the Canberra does not pass the John Selwyn Gummer "British beef is fine for my daughter" test - I would not want my lad posted to 39 Sqn to fly its ancient airframes.
Sorry - prudence and a bad accident history say it is time for the Canberra to leave the front line.