"Perhaps one of the reasons RAF techs aren’t keen to get involved with other people's kit is that their experience levels have been eroded over the years by contractorisation"
Fair point Maple, but speaking as a techie myself, a bigger cause is the way "Quality" mixed with H+S has gone overboard in the RAF. We have been dumbed right down, and the professional fault-pickers enforce it rigidly.
"You can't use that power set to start your jet, you're not authed"
"But I used them at my last place, I know how to use it"
"We don't auth those, so you can't use it"
A typical scenario, of the sort regularly played out these days. So people understandably go "sorry, not authed, can't do it. Blah", thereby using the system against itself. Anyone who was to trial the new fitness test at Honington will know what I mean.
Allow people to use common sense and experience again, and the problems such as you cite, Maple, will start to disappear. Maybe then we can start being proper engineers again not Kwik-Fit fitters.
