I'm on one of those courses that was sent away for a month. We were told that due to the bad weather they've had over winter (although, surely we should be used to it by now) creating a back-log of people who should be on their MCC and the fact that 4 instructors have left to go to airlines we would only manage one flight a week if we stayed around so to go was our only option. I hadn't actually been told anything about these cracked spars so thats news to me.
We have been assured that we will still finish within the 65 weeks that we're meant to, but we'll see. It certainly seems like some poor planning and management of the situation to have not seen it coming earlier. Also the next few courses coming along to the IR stage are not small courses so who know's what will happen to them.