Crab
You have missed the point. The costs of running the SAR Force may well be quantifiable but you HAVE TO take a contribution to overheads - (Whitehall etc).
Imagine for one moment that every role in the RAF was put out to tender. If nobody paid for the dozens and dozens of senior officers and the HQ admin support then they would have to find somebody else to work for. The fundamentally difference between the Military and the Civvies is that you have to go to war in the first wave. We may possibly end up joining you but only in extremis - I hope!!
G
