Jackonicko - What Wills did is nothing out of the ordinary - some of my best nights out/weekends away have been as a result of training flights of some type or another... I bet there are very few military aviators who can honestly say that they have not taken part in a training flight which has resulted in an over-nighter somewhere.
What grips me is that people think that the public are stupid enough to swallow this nonsense about it being a normal and legitimate training sortie. If we're going to treat the Royals differently, lets have the courage of our convictions and be honest about it, and not sink to New Labour levels of spin, deceit and trickery.
Wrong.
but that's a fig-leaf to cover what was a taxi service for W&H to go to a party.
Wrong
It would be interesting to compare William's training with what is usually required for the award of wings.
Jealousy?
And what's next? Perhaps a single stroll across Dartmoor and he can have a green beret and commando dagger? Or a day's classroom teaching and a tower jump and he can put up para wings? And wouldn't a DFC and an AFC look nice under those wings. Why not blur the qualifications for those, as well?
Ridiculous statement with a splash of jealousy thrown in?
Winco - you are 100% correct - there is a major shortage of helos in-theatre... However, you still need some back in the UK to train both new crews and crews about to go out on rotation.