60% manning sounds pretty good when taken at face value, I would however be very interested to know what percentage of that is now (or soon to be) inexperienced ab-initio Aircrew? The question should perhaps be.. ' where are our highly skilled and combat experienced Aviators going and why? '
Being at the coal-face, I can tell you that it's very hard to maintain the skill levels required of an Attack Pilot post Herrrick tour when you're flying 5-10 hours per month (including the airtesting that I do to provide cabs to feed the hungry mouth of CTR).