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Old 6th Sep 2007, 19:18
  #63 (permalink)  
WE Branch Fanatic
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Devon
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Hmmmm.......

I wonder if the difference between the 800 and 801 in their attitudes to radar had something to do with the reduction in air defence skill levels as the Fleet Air Arm was run down in the 1970s. Did all the pilots have experience in using the radar? I believe some sets of Blue Fox were delivered on the way South. That might explain it.

Also, the FAA run down may have meant that the Flag (Woodward) and his staff lacked experience of using a fighter as a task force weapon?


My theory as to why Sharkey Ward comes across as frustrated and angry.

Whilst in a bookshop I noticed one called Forgotten Voices Of The Falklands, a collection of comments relating to various incidents during Operation Corporate. In the section on the loss of HMS Sheffield the then Operations Officer of Broadsword comments that since the run down of the FAA in the seventies, there had been little practice of using aircraft as a task force weapon for air defence (or anything else).

This would appear to support my theory.
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