I'm not quite sure how pointing-out well-established facts renders someone as being eithear "myopic" or "loyal", and whether or not he's flown the aircraft in question is of course completely irrelevant!
You'd be hard-pressed to find any aerospace commentator that could offer any plausible defence for the withdrawal of either the Jaguar or the Sea Harrier, but at the same time it would be rather optimistic to assume that we could substitute either fleet for a suitable number of Typhoons. By all accounts, we're probably financially obliged to buy all of the Typhoons we've asked-for, and that has no doubt had more than a little influence on the decision to dump the Sea Harrier and Jaguar. But anyone can see what folly it is to withdraw the very aircraft that are so ideally suited to the kind of theatres into which our beloved government seems to keen to send our forces. Anyone with a grasp on operational needs (rather than an obsession with book-balancing) would probably be more inclined to hang-on to both the Jaguar and Sea Harrier, and get ourselves out of the endless (and hideously expensive) JSF saga, and "navalise" Typhoons for carrier operations in 2012-15, if and when we get our new carriers. But then, that would make sense, whereas we're talking about politics here!
