Geointel, I once had a flying instructor who like you was a Yorkshire man. Unlike you he was a man of few words, but I suspect that the ones he would use in your case would have been his trademark "F...ing stuff and f...ing nonsense". It is perhaps for DV to say what "the core issue behind this original thread" might be, seeing as he initiated it, but as I understand it is about the loss of XV230 and the 14 men manning it. That is a big enough issue for myself to grapple with, and I suspect the bulk of the other posters to this thread. For those who might wish to follow you into a digression about "Life, the Universe and the meaning of everything" why not take Safety Helmut's advice and start an appropriate thread of your own?