1) The special colour scheme to which you refer has had
No impact on the public purse, since it was paid for by Jaguar Cars/Aircraft Illustrated.
Redecorating a married quarter might be essential and laudable, but I'd be astonished if you could find a sponsor willing to pay for the entire process.
2) Continued flying: You will be aware that (like those pilots who haven't yet been posted) these ageing jets benefit from being flown, while the need to deliver them to Cosford does require pilots to retain currency.
There really has not been much flying, and the Jag is not an expensive asset to operate.
The
PR and recruiting value has been pretty significant, too.
3) Look up 'morale', 'pride', 'esprit de corps', 'elan', 'dash' and 'squadron spirit' in the dictionary.
4) Also look up 'envious', 'killjoy' and 'bell end' and read Professor Plum's treatise on "Trying harder at school and its effect on career outcomes". You really should have read it years ago, I suspect, and applied its lessons.
5) And finally, it is sad. Not just for the blokes who flew and maintained it, and who have been treated with almost superhuman levels of shabbiness, but also for the Harrier and Tornado blokes, whose workload and operational tempo will now increase, and who will suffer progressively greater over-stretch, and to the taxpayer, who will have to fork out billions on Harrier rear fuselages when we find that they will not last until JSF arrives, but would have done had a squadron or two of Jags been retained.
It's also sad that the RAF now lacks a CAS platform with a helmet sight, IDM, etc. etc.
I'm a dab hand with these computers, and here's one I just photo-shopped yesterday.....
