With regards to the previous comment: "Of course if the Army and RN finally laid to rest the sour grapes they've been dragging around since 1918 over the fact they are not perhaps the best people to run the majority of airpower then perhaps those who run the RAF wouldn't feel the need to adopt a 'best form of defence is attack' plan."
I can assure you that it has nothing to do with sour grapes. It is simply based on real life personal experiences and perceptions that the other UK (and some other foreign) forces have sadly sometimes witnessed. You may not like hearing that or want to accept this but I am sorry to say that it is true and is purely down to 'some' RAF personnel’s own making. (They not only let themselves down by their actions, but also the RAF.)
The RAF are very good at doing many things (and long may that continue) but so too are the other forces who have a different culture and specialist way of working that suits their particular Forces requirements to get things done in often very difficult circumstances.
With regards to the RAF wanting to take over all things aviation, in the so called name of saving this country money and using their greater aviation knowledge, may I highlight the following points:-
1) The RN/RM/Army is already very lean, efficient and cost effective. For example, I suspect that most Army/RM aircraft are still flown by Corporals/Sergeants who are 'also' proper soldiers by trade. You cannot get much more cost effective and efficient than that for their roles. Is the RAF going to follow the Army lead and reduce their RAF pilot’s ranks, pay and accommodation costs, etc to help reduce defence costs? (I doubt that very much!)
2) Not only do RN aircrew/maintainers carry out their normal flying and land based airfield related duties, they also have to carry out many other important ‘warship only’ related roles. Particularly the crews who operate helicopters aboard smaller ships (such as frigates and destroyers) where they need to be virtually ‘jack of all trades' because they usually do not have any specialist workshop personnel or any other shift to take over from them each day. Therefore, whilst a bean counter (or anyone else who has not served on a small ships flight) may think it easy to put any land based Air Force helicopter crew on such ships, this is not true. UK Tax payers get a lot of very good value and expertise from such personnel in the FAA. Thankfully the RN knows that, and no doubt, so do the Brazilians, Danish, etc!
If only more of the biased RAF supporters could recognise the fact that they do not actually know 'everything' about all types of aviation and how best to use it in RN/Army applications.
