There's actually a lot of truth in Jackos post. We looked very carefully at the option to go to Kandahar and it was possible. We could not have operated at the peak of the hottest days but we were only ever looked at to augment the JFH, not replace them, so that they could have a less punishing op cycle. The Harrier is an excellent CAS platform but we could have credibly relieved some of the burden.
It is certainly nice to be given credit for all the effort we have put into CAS over the last year – I don’t know where you have been Serf but providing we were physically in country, I don’t think we have ever turned down a CAS request and we have always been given positive feedback. We have trained FACs on every one of our dets, except this last one. That is a direct contribution to current ops – fact.
Our HMS and data-link really speed up the whole CAS cycle but I know that the Tonkas do a lot of CAS now and should be given credit for it. JFH and Tonkas are going to find themselves even busier in the coming months as they pick up all of our exercise tasking and we wish them all the best.
Franky, it is all water under the bridge now so please let us retire with grace. We know the jet had limitations but we worked around them and always got good results. It is nice to see some misplaced preconceptions knocked down but we are all working hard in the current climate and we don’t need to be sniping at each other. Far from it, JFH and the Tonkas should be hassling to get hold of our HMS kits! 
Last edited by Joker1; 29th Apr 2007 at 19:16.
Reason: typo!