Release Authorised : Nearer the truth....
Disharmony at Kinloss? Aircrew not flying enough! Not enough aircraft to go around! Engineers working their socks off to meet unrealistic targets!
Suddenly all becomes clear. Too many aircrew vying for too few resources. If all the Kipper fleet aircraft is being ground down for is to keep currencies valid..then they have too many currencies to maintain!
Nimrod aircrew manning levels are still pre Options for change let alone Front line First. Oh but what about the squadron disbandments I hear you say.. well what exactly did that achieve on the aircrew manning levels? Can anyone say exactly how many where made redundant?. ....Not many...and not to the same extent as the rest of the RAF. It was nothing more than a transparent personell move to the other Squadrons.
It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work it out. A = number crew OOA, B = number for pre/ post OOA recovery (given they only take what the rest of the RAF are given). C = Number aircrew actually on the program. Balance that against D =the number of aircraft available and E = an allowance for some maintenance to be carried out. To my mind it is apparent that we have a 'lot of aircrew' and 'no resources'.
To the individuals this will cause some great angst, to them I say that this in no way refelcts on their airmanship and commitment, they are a part of self-sustaining sycophantic system which is at fault. No business in the private sector could exist in this state, so why in the present business like ethos of the RAF are we still not addressing this issue?