There's always a flaw in the plan
More seriously I agree that pilots didn't join the RAF to go to sea - but how serious is this as a morale issue. I spent some time last year on a course with some groundcrew who were going to be at sea on a carrier during Saif Sareea and they were dreading it. I suppose that this is one strong argument in favour of scrapping SHAR - we don't need to send RAF pilots to sea as a matter of routine as we can just send a navy squadron with the same plane.
Incidentally does anyone know if the current 2 x RN squadrons will be exclusively assigned to carrier ops or will there be moves afoot for a truly joint organistion? Eg while 801 squadron are flying from Italy bombing Serbs (for example) an RAF squadron will be at sea doing their thing?
PS - Archimedes - you wouldn't happen to hail from the same purple establishment campus outside Watchfield as I do would you? (I'm not at the purple place but the academic place but I am spending insane amounts of time there at the moment)