Biggus
I, for one, take your point –re faults entirely. But, given the MoD’s tendency to lie through their back teeth on this subject, and the verifiable fact that in 1991 they pulled almost all funding for fault investigations – and with it the capacity to actually carry out investigations properly, resulting in an instruction to Engineering Authorities to reduce the number of requests for investigation – then I believe Tapper’s Dad and Da4orce are better to ask the questions. This may seem a long time ago, but the effects take years to manifest themselves, and when they do they are almost impossible to retrospectively correct.
The above relates primarily to electronic equipment (sea, land and air), which bore the main brunt of the cuts. The main effect on aircraft (less this equipment) was increasingly poor configuration control, which of course impacts on the ability to maintain a seamless airworthiness audit trail. On more than one occasion the Defence Select Committee has given MoD an ear-bending about this, so this is in the public domain. The problem is that the Committee don’t dig deeper or follow up, so nothing gets done.
Similarly, this doesn’t mean all aircraft and equipment are not airworthy or safe. But it does clearly demonstrate a failure of process and lack of duty of care, compounded by the prevailing view in many IPTs that these processes are a waste of money.