GeoIntel wrote:
The politicians have two choices, debate the niceties of Civilian Air Safety requirements, or order the highly vulnerable maritime reconnaissance resources "As-is" into the air to protect the Oil tankers, knowing full well that many, if not all will be destroyed......
So tell us all what is incorrect in that statement during a war?
Far be it from me to suggest that you are being deliberately obtuse, GeoIntel, but are you? Even in my safe featherbedded cuddly cold war days the CinC, etc, had the option to throw the book out of the window and declare Operational Conditions. Of course he would have to justify it if he had done, else he might simply declare a State of Emergency to fly in a plane load of earth for his roses. Would never happen of course, but you'll catch my drift. It seems that one has to dot the i's and cross the t's these days. The military point of airworthiness in particular, and Flight Safety in general, is Force Preservation, ie not losing Tornados, Chinooks, Hercules, Nimrods etc, and their crews to avoidable accidents but preserving them for throwing at the enemy if needs be. XV230 came down without any input from the enemy, all that was needed was the Gross Negligence (familiar phrase?) of the MOD. That is endemic, cannot be quietly 'fixed', but needs root and branch reform and the creation of an independent MAA, well away from the MOD.