Hi Tim, I still don't think you have swayed my opinion on St Mawgan. The HAS complex is no use to MPA and they are a legacy tactic for the RAF and inefficient (especially when they are on the wrong side of the country) and we don't need nuclear storage. It's location was it's downfall, one of it's main reasons for existing was as the US airbridge for WWIII and that went with the cold war, another was as an MPA base and the RAF made it's choice for good reasons. Kinloss doesn’t need a monstrous hangar, it has 8 or 9 already and loads of pan space, it has reserved airspace too and not just a secondary airfield but a fully operational one next door.
I totally agree there should be no special cases, just objective decision based on the fact and not personal preferences. I actually have more personnel reasons for wanting MRA4 to go to Waddington but I don't think it's the correct decision for the MRA4 or the RAF.
Easy, I'm sorry to hear you struggle with 7500ft at sea level, that can't be fun. So how do the Lossie Sqns manage to train for CAS if they are so badly placed? I think that's a pretty short sighted reason for choosing the location of an airbase for the next 20 years or more. I would have thought that at some point soon operating fast jets in the south east with airspace getting tighter, real estate in demand and the NIMBYs will become undesirable, hopefully we are looking far enough ahead to cover these issues too. I can't vouch for Lossiemouths' flying days lost due to weather from it's 2 runways, at Kinloss it is single figures and we often struggle to find another UK military base to use as a diversion in the winter (all being relatively close together and affected by the same weather conditions within an hour or two). As for the geese, yes they are a hazard and we have good procedures to mitigate against them, but the more regular flying you do the better as they modify their flight paths, at the moment with erratic occasional aircraft they don't learn (well, a few did the hard way!).
Unfortunately you’re almost certainly right about the politics clouding any rational decisions.