I was lucky enough to be involved in conversation with a senior Crab last week. Two interesting nuggets of information:
1. With the demise of another F3 squadron, the maximum out of area deployment that the AD force could sustain would be a much smaller number of jets that I would have guessed. Certainly, for those of you in the dark blue, far fewer than you will see in the simulators at Dryad, for example.
2. The reason this run down is acceptable is that it has been deemed that the UK will not conduct operations, without allies, against a fighter equipped air force within the next ten years. I suppose that this is a valid assumption, because if we ever wished to do such a thing, it would turn out to be impossible!
Thankfully, for the moment, the US seem to have enough carriers to go round.