"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."
Ed Set XV 235 was tanking under the above SD, it deemed operationally essential. Now you are saying it is not deemed operationally essential. Are you referring to today or Nov 6? If so, is that why Nimrod has not returned to operationally essential AAR duties?
The fact is, that whilst the BoI may have written the report in Apr07, the Captain of XV235 had absolutely no idea that his aircraft was not considered a fire risk when that incident happened. A Mayday into Kandahar ensued because his own Air Staff had not deemed it necessary to inform the crews of the essential contents of the BoI report. Indeed, you state that within 3 or 4 days of the tragedy Nimrod was considered safe. I would describe it as a failure of leadership.
"My perspective is that he knew, at that time, what caused the crash (Panorama 4 June, BOI diary cease work in Apr). He knew there was no fire in the bomb bay, he knew that XV227's SCP pipe blow out (the subject of the program) was irrelevant to AAR. He knew that pipe coupling leaks would probably continue but he also knew that there is no ignition source in the bomb bay or anywhere where refuel pipes route, for that matter. Basically, he had all the info. He was careful to talk about AAR in the present tense, "is safe". "As it needs to be" means that we are operating on the edge of safety, not in a comfort zone. So, if a fuel leak occurs during AAR, we might suffer other effects, but we will not burn and die.
I'm just pi$$ed off that no-one officially told us that info, and it eventually led to a fear-factor crew declaring an emergency and rushing into land.
Everyone at Kinloss understands why the crew reacted in the way they did but we all now know that they were not in the same situation that our perished colleagues were in. Shame on our leaders, I say."
Last edited by nigegilb; 4th March 2008 at 20:52.