Waterhorse -
Having taken off the old boots and had an end of week restorative beverage I have calmed down a little now, and in answer to your comment, you will no doubt be pleased to hear that in a professional capacity I try not to let the side down ranting at work and am generally far more diplomatic and tactful than I would like to be on a daily basis. Probably to the point that I tend to use this forum as a bit of a safety valve on occasions having spent most of the day biting my tongue at serial incompetence of the highest order. (Ed - however, that safety valve has more to do with a genuine passion for the RAF as an entity and its people, and an associated horror at what is being done to it, rather than the chance to spew out a few ill chosen remarks and rants).
However, I stand by my original sentiment, and agree wholeheartedly with Antelope - we must stand firm and fight our corner. This wil cost the MOD thousands we can ill afford and that could be spent on kit and making the lives of serving personnel that little bit better.
The forces as a whole are under attack from too many sides these days, whether it be the accountants salami slicing, the politicians lying, industry failing to deliver and once we've got past that lot, the enemy trying to give us lead poisoning! If we repeatedly cave in every time somebody doesn't like what we do or how we do it, then we may as well pack up and go.
And NIMBYism - and there is no other way to describe this - is just another attack on the forces and how we have to operate in order to do the basics of our job. Her life would be perfect without the jets (or something along those lines according to the report) - how long has she been there? If she chooses to make her living from a horse factory in the middle of a tactical training area, that is her choice. She can do it anywhere in the UK; we cannot conduct operationally vital tactical training anywhere in the UK. Having come from a tactical background, I know that it is more than most crews lives are worth to deliberately fly over areas like this - the resulting investigations, paperwork and general hassle are enough to ensure deliberately annoying someone doesn't happen.
People are quick to jump to her defence saying it is her livelihood etc etc etc and are missing the point that it is also the livelihood of those crews who are being asked to go and do the job and then being stopped from preparing for it in the required manner. What about our livelihoods? Quite frankly, the lives of crews and those they are there to support are far more important than a few horses, especially when their presence in a TTA is optional.
And of course, she will have also given a perfect assessment of the aircrafts' attitude and altitude and track over the ground to come up with her view that the aircraft must be operation in violation of various orders or acting in an unsafe and inproper manner that was putting her horses in danger. It would also be interesting to see how high she thinks the trees are and then actually measure them before assessing whether or not the RAF is to blame. However, I suspect that she would not be able to provide fully accurate statements to any of those points.
If my original post offended, well, quite frankly the sentiment behind it stands - even if I was a little blunt. Given her choice of location, I view her complaint selfish and without due regard to the reasons behind OLF and motivated purely by a desire for gain on her part.