I'm sorry Bismarck I can't let that go past without at least a small comment.
a. The Hawk line has dried up has it? Please define dried up as I assume the aircraft currently being built for domestic use in the RAF and Export to the IAF do not count?
b. Oh yes the IAF, now I may have been dreaming but I have a distinct memory of being in India on what was almost solely a Defence Diplomacy Exercise in 2006 and then again at home in 2007. Spooky... Oh and hang on I could have sworn that in the tour before that I taught a succession of junior IAF fast jet pilots. Nah, I must be imagining it because as you say
Defence Diplomacy (the latter only covered by the RN, neither the Army or RAF do this).
c.
And why no mention of BBMF and Cranwell? There's another £12M+ per year each.
Again I must have been reading something else because I could swear The BBMF was included in the whole historic/recruitment vs current capability argument.
So Cranwell, well I assume by that statement you are happy to shut Sandhurst and Dartmouth too and outsource officer training to Tesco?
d.
The reason that the Harrier Force is in such dire straits is that the senior RAF have lost interest in it and will not invest money in solving the training dilemma. Now if the RN were to pull out of it I suspect we would see a change of priority, surprise, surprise.
What? I'm simply flabbergasted...
e. No you know what I can't be bothered. You are clearly not interested in digesting opinion or indeed researching evidence. No instead you and a number of other blinkered CVF fans do the RN no favours in trying to convey to the doubters why they feel CVF is essential.
I sincerely, desperately hope you are not a serving member of HM Forces with such a woeful lack of service knowledge and yet such a keen desire to demonstrate your ignorance.
RANT OFF.
Damn that feels better I'm off for a long night in a dutch bar.