OmegaV6
I take the point about poductive tasking and don't want to see aircraft flying hours used as a box ticking program but on one hand this thread is about more aircraft (and I assume that this is becuse of a shortage) and on the other hand the flying hours per day seem to a civilan observer to be very low.
Thi first question that an outside observer has to ask is why this is so, stopstart has gone some way to sheding some light on this, another contributor to this thread said that I might have a point so I suspect that what I am thinking might be half true.
Perhaps it might be of value to the RAF to get a few of your planners into the ops department of a charter airline for a few months and see how the other side works, I think that it would be time well spent even if it only proved that the RAF had got it right in the first place.