Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs by Lewis Page
Has anyone else read this book about the wasteful Defence Procurement Process ??
According to Lewis Page (an ex Royal Navy Officer) :
The Nimrod AEW3 came about because we had "several Nimrods in mint condition sitting around doing nothing", werent the airframes selected the newest and lowest houred MR2's at the time?? I remember airframe 84 at Kinloss and the closest to that being 60 which would indicate this was the case. I am sure two prototypes had the serials 85 and 86.
He claims the F3 cant climb above 30,000ft feet and says this is because while on a AAR VC10 jolly in the Gulf the crew told him so !! Apparently the crew had to descend to refuel the F3's as the Tanker Crew told him an F3 would be burning fuel at that height at the same rate as they were receiving it. Surely a crew wind up or a circumstance of Hot and High ?? (Not looking for details .. Opsec and all that)
He mentions Eurofighter and he does have a point there but claims that Israel bought F15's at 3 million pounds a jet !!
He also claims that the UK could have bought J-STARS but are the Americans selling this technology ??
And for someone apparently researching Defence Procurement blunders surely it is a crime to mention the F4 Phantom but not the debacle of the redesign to take the Spey ??
He also claims the RAF employs "swarms of meteorologists" .. WTF ??
Anyone read it and thought the same ??