Very gracious of you JP, but the only people who can answer your question are the Airworthiness Authority, ie the MOD. Anyone else would be merely expressing an opinion. An aircraft captain when accepting an aircraft from the engineers can only confirm by studying the F700 and from his/her personal inspection of it that it is serviceable, not that it is airworthy. The Nimrod tragedy no doubt happened to a fully serviceable aircraft. The Hercules was unfit for purpose, in that it was very vulnerable to battle damage throughout the time that I flew it in blissful ignorance. Thankfully that is no longer the case, thanks in part to this forum, to the likes of Nigegilb and Flipster, and to the Coroner. Regretfully it was not thanks to the Airworthiness Authority who ignored pleas for that deficiency to be sorted out long before the terrible accident that resulted.