Beags, thank you for neatly summarising the story so far. I am sure Chappie will not be the only one to benefit from an excellent insight into how we managed to get into this mess. I agree entirely about the fastjetcentric air force ignoring the plight of helos and AT ac. I was assured by AOC 2 that there is now a recognition that priorities need to change. Hopefully we will see movement towards this new thinking in the way of more funding, probably in 2007-08. Barring UORs, there is no new money on the table. And the big philosophical divide occurs where decisions have to be made about sending crews into danger without proper equipment. I am in the "no" camp. I also believe that "night" should be used as much as possible to reduce risk. Period. This is where we agreed to disagree. I do not think US or RAAF would ask their guys to do this. We should take a lesson from them.
Chappie, wish you a rapid recovery!