While the airworthiness folk are inevitably (and quite rightly) cautious, I remain puzzled by the fact that Boeing, the US DoD and others all viewed these aircraft as being perfectly airworthy and fit for service, and by the fact that one of the Boscombe project pilots viewed them as fit for release. There were also suggestions that had these not been delayed, they'd have been judged entirely acceptable under previous Defstans.
Is all of the money wasted on storage for long years, the abortive 'fix-to-field' and now 'reversion' a massive piece of ar.se covering because of a change to the rules and regs surrounding how airworthiness is judged?
Worse still is the way in which the Government are now trumpeting reversion as some kind of 'pride-worthy' and 'significant' expansion to SH capacity.