CT - if you're still there.
Hmmm, not sure that the Italian example is great - they did insist on flying 25 hours per airframe with Lockheed in the US before flying them back to Italy and they did benefit from the changes that Lockheed were forced to make by UK/US and Australia. They also paid top $ against our 'pin Lockheed up against the wall until they give us what we want' attitude (which is good for the taxpayer but bad for on-time introduction to service).
Fair point on not repeating trials unnecessarily, but lets be clear that the data has to be available and one of the great things about selling off your military T&E outfit is that not everyone wants to hand over their proprietary or nationally-sensitive information to QinetiQ. I recall that this was an initiative that the IPT were going to persue with the other customers a while back - wonder if it got anywhere.
On the subject of 'coming out with a clearance that says yes you can do it unless we find out later that you definitely can’t', I doubt whether the people in high places (like at DPA and AOC 2 Gp) are prepared to sign off the risk themselves without QinetiQ advice. I can think of at least 2 instances on the J where QinetiQ advised the IPT against doing a trial on the grounds that there was no point, but the IPT insisted on having the recommendation backed by data that was very difficult to obtain and delayed the clearances significantly. Back to the point that has been repeated several times on this thread - QinetiQ do the work required by their customer - the IPT. Agree that the low-grade DAC business was a nonsense but if the requirement was missed by the IPT - it's hardly QinetiQ's fault.
Still waiting for some J pilots to apply for ETPS - that's the most effective way of improving the J knowledge at BD.
SS