Gnd
To have a 24/7 capability in the UK you need a miniumu 6ac (2 on immediate readiness, 2 on reduced readiness and 2 in maintenance) plus 9 crews (allowing for sickness, leave and courses).
If you have Northern, Southern and Falklands Q - that is 18ac, 27 crews plus ground crew. However, for the Falklands you have to man for "harmony", which is 36crews in total - which would make 54crews in total.
Now you need to keep them current, which is 180hrs per crew per year (absolute minimum - should be 220hrs). That's 9,720hrs per year which would need at least another 35 jets to support it.
So that's 54 crews, plus 53 jets plus groundcrew
just to do the standing QRA task.
Now do you see why 200 Typhoons don't go very far when you want to do Air Defence, Strike, SEAD and CAS with the same aircraft type?
The B Word
