The Sunday Times got one hell of a bite!
Fellas
The article that kicked this off had me worried until I got to the bit about Linton closing, then the bit about the dear old F3 lasting till 2015. Both of these comments are wildly speculative. Here's why:
To close Linton one must also close Church Fenton, as Linton's where all the accommodation for the newly-established EFTS, plus ATC and fire support services comes from each day. This means another major move for a large organisation & RAF Lincolnshire airspace is full. MFTS will feature a 2 aircraft type solution because of BAe's successfull lobbying to Prescott to make us buy the Hawk 128. It's so expensive (over £20 million each) we can only afford a few of them and must, therefore, reserve its use for TWU-type training. The Tincan replacement will do the job of Linton & 208 Sqn, so Macchi 311 or PC-21 hot favs here. Whatever, these plus 128s will not work together at one base plus one RLG. It will simply be too busy and the different cct speeds/dimensions will cause chaos. Llanbedr is being sold as we debate. There is insufficient airspace.
If I were to offer a base rationalisation solution, it would be to bin Valley (sure this would be popular) and move AFT/TWU to Leuchars, with Typhoons going into Leeming instead. The cct stages of trg could be done on mini day-dets to Kinloss. Loads of airspace (low level and the 613s) for lots of trg aeroplanes to buzz about in. Reds move to Waddo but retain Scampers airspace to practise. Scampers closes and CRC moves to Boulmer.
The F3 is creaking and the gingers are struggling manfully to maintain it until 2010, let alone much longer. 2015 is, frankly, unachieveable. XXV is indeed scheduled to go in Mar 08, leaving a morphed set of units at Leuchars.
For me, the biggest scandal of all is that while we are being subjected to petty penny pinching and lean lectures from the high-priced help, the same high-priced help has allowed MoD main building to be refurbished at a cost of....wait for it, and this is no spoof.....£3 billion. This is nothing short of a criminal act and where we should be directing our anger.
In sum, I await the formal announcements on basing and force sizes with the same trepidation as anyone but please, folks, let's not give this one piece of rampantly speculative Sunday journalism more credit than it deserves.