I believe the last stats that I heard were that on three years on det in a sandy place the J has only missed 4 requested tasks due to unservicability. Very unreliable? I think not!
Not so. Only
my personal experience here, but on my most recent desert sojourn, one of the J's was laid up for several days with prop issues, undercarriage issues, and other mishaps. The other one lost sorties to anti-skid problems due to the harsh conditions of going in and out of Bastion strip.
Both the Ks, however, managed to soldier on nicely - one with a badly crazed window, no GTC and a myriad of other faults, and the other with some significant airframe damage that had been temporarily repaired. They built them tougher in them days, you see. The
Js 'superior reliability' is the real myth - just 'cos it's newer and fancier, doesn't mean it works better. I'm sure alot of that is due to the fact we are flying the arses off them, but the fact remains that the K can carry alot more snags and keep going - which is just as well, given that they're falling apart!