Nige,
I'm similarly confused (to a point)...for the Kinloss engineering side I believe the general trend has been to acknowledge that the lineys are doing their best, but for a long time now thw workload has been increasing, whilst the manpower and experience are decreasing - it's an acknowledgement that whilst this inevitably leads to a reduction in service (so to speak) it's not something the groundcrew have control over. The steel v ally bolt stuff - not familiar with the story at all, but if it - and other similar bodges - occurred then clearly the experience level was insufficient for the job...I and others are simply blaming those on high who make the decisions on manning rather than the poor devils who do ever more with ever less, when somebody at the base of the food chain says 'just doing what I'm told' I blame the guy at the top of the chain - what do you expect an SAC to do, when even Harry Staish's are expected to bend over and grin while the bat is inserted?
Have you posted the 30 recs here at all? Perhaps they're buried somewhere in this thread? If the 6 AAR recs are completely fixed by not AARing I don't see the problem, provided it is accepted that AAR will not happen, ie operational need or not.
Dave