nigegilb:
Someone mentioned to me the other day that following H-C report, reds and greens might disappear and people will be reluctant to put their name to paperwork, effectively grounding aircraft unnecessarily.
Strikes me you are touching on my other great soapbox item, the Powers of Subordinate Commanders! So gather round and I'll tell you tales of long long ago , when even Pontious was a Driver of Aerial Perambulators....
Most of my RAF Career was spent in total ignorance of AOC's, C-in-C's, CAS's, etc etc. The only brass you were accountable to, and who in turn were expected to mind you in turn, were the boss (ie Sqn Cdr, etc) and the Station Commander. Occasionally a charming elderly gentleman with loads of medals, rank and a sword would come to visit but then the boss and Stn Cdr were the ones who had you charging round in circles for his visit anyway. In the meantime everything started and stopped with the boss or Staish. That would include a policy about Captain's discretion, ie a good boss (as mine were) would back up his captains' decisions as to what fuel, what mel, what diversion, decisions etc they took, unless of course they were simply unjustified. Thus the boss exercised his discretion over his subordinates' discretion. They also took on and won battles with NAAFI, MPBW etc with the support of their commander, ie the Staish who used his discretion. As I understand it these same Subordinate Commanders have lost a lot of their powers and hence discretion. They have to get it back and start commanding again. The day to day cost may well rise as a consequence. All that I might say is that the MOD is about to hit by costs as a result of H-C that will greatly outweigh the bean-counters' savings in slashing Airworthiness, and of course the price in lives lost has been terrible. I have railed about all this before and been told that the clock cannot be put back. It must be!