anotherthing,
I am surprised that with your "extensive time flying professionally in previous career" you do not realise that as I described in my post, a departure in weather that is below arrival minima can not return to the aerodrome of departure.
Perhaps you think that flights should be limited to departure minima which are equal to or above arrival minima? - A serious question in relation to aerodromes OCAS and VFR aerodromes in particular!!
The "security" issue you use is also rubbish. Aircraft interceptions do happen. Mostly for "sleeping radios" or where the pilot is blisfully unaware that they are out of range of the ATC unit that they are tuned to and the transponder is not set to comms fail.
If the UK government wishes to provide some assistance in the form of an aircraft that can guide me in my comms failure situation to a safe landing then I have no problems with that. Just don't expect me to sit at GWC flying triangles to try and get one!!
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Perhaps, we should ask Finals19 what they would do in the following scenario;
They depart Fairoaks, 1000 ceiling and 1800m visibility. The weather is the same over all of the UK.
When level at 2400ft in IMC, they experience a communications failure.
Based on a routing to the west and then south (remaining outsie controlled airspace until the Solent CTA boundary north of BIA) to Bournemouth what would they do?
Based on a filed flight plan to fly the standard outbound route and join at HAZEL (4000ft to make it easy) what would they do?
I bet that if you did a survey of crews who use Farnborough, aside from a few operators with lots of local knowledge, the comms failure scenario would result in an entry into controlled airspace. Furthermore, many crews would not realise that they are in class G and don't have a continuous ATC service from the moment they call for start.
As a pilot with "extensive time flying professionally in previous career"which of the following is less dangerous for a public transport operation;
1. Having no communications, flying in airspace where there is a lot of traffic IFR and VFR with no equipment requirements and most not receiving an ATS while trying to figure out where there is an aerodrome at which you can make an instrument approach in IMC but you can't be sure if that proceure will be available or if ATC will be available of that there will not be other IFR flights holding and following that procedure at the same time as you.
or
2. Fly in airspace that is a known traffic environment and covered by ATC radar surveilance. All traffic will have the required equipment and will be not only deconflicted from you but also told about your situation. The flight proceeds according to what was planned to an aerodrome that had been checked in advance for performance, NOTAMs, availability of safety services and appropriate weather.