Chug,
It all comes down to an attitude to risk, be it the guys and girls on the front line, or the Chiefs of Staff in control. This is what a highly experienced Nimrod pilot, in a position of influence thought of AOC 2 Gp's decision to continue AAR Ops last year.
" Worst part has been the release of info. We've not heard a dicky bird then suddenly the ACC in the Gulf wants us airborne and tanker capable again. One of the SDs says that if operationally essential and if no other alternatives exist then the aircraft can tank, albeit with AOC 2 Gp permission. So, we had a jet AARing over Kandahar 4 days after the accident!! Unbelievable. I can't see how that could ever possibly be considered to be good risk management. The Staish here wanted to get airborne on the Tuesday after the crash as a flag waving exercise for the press and RAF! Why not tell the ACC to back off and wait until we had a better idea of what happened and what we could do about it. AOC 2 Gp should have fired it up STC and through them into PJHQ that we needed to be patient and make sure we were not going to put another Nimrod unnecessarily at risk. We should have told the press the same thing and they would have gone away happy."
Maybe you are right Chug, the Chiefs have their eyes wide open when they make decisions, it is just that they have a different attitude to risk management. In the end, the Nimrod pilot was right, the huge fuel migrations continued, thankfully with no further loss of life.
The problem with risk, is that it is impossible to do anything risk free. Politicians twist this and use the argument to justify sending British troops to war under-equipped to do the task in hand. Hence, the siren call for more independence to prevent things going wrong and more independence when investigating when things have gone wrong. The BoI reporting chain goes to the Station Commander, then to AOC 2 Gp for his comments and upwards from there. The make-up of the BoI often includes colleagues and superior officers in the same world. I am not doubting integrity here, I am just trying to explain why I believe more independence is required. The Herc BoI, completely failed to explain why foam was not on that aircraft. I hope that the Nimrod BoI will at least explain why XV230 did not have fire protection in the bomb bay. The flimsy reason that has been offered so far, under FOI request cuts absolutely no ice.
There has been much criticism of speculation on this thread. For what it's worth the decision to carry on tanking regardless, will be severely tested when the BoI is published.
Last edited by nigegilb; 5th November 2007 at 21:30.