With the standard of literacy displayed in the paragraph that begins "Raf chiefs", the chances of any form of erudite technical reporting are slim to non existent. The "ex R.A.F.man" comes from the same school of minimalist thinking ( a pre-requisite for bone idle bone heads ) as "top bosses / experts" etc. and had the average journo actually been sober enough to look closely at many civilian aircraft over the years, it might have noted the odd patch or two of speed tape was also present on the airframe at times. The fact that the tape has been in use for many years, safely, will not have registered with them....or simply been ignored as being precisely that....a fact.