Well done John Nichol and Clive Loader who provided cogent rebuttal of the specious questioning of the point of having an independent air force. Shame about the highly biased and ill-informed spoutings of the likes of Max Hastings and Tim Collins.
As with many high-ranking members of the army, they seem wilfully ignorant of the true nature of air-power. One only needs to look at the current parlous state of AAC manning and the droves of AAC types now wearing light blue (virtually no one goes the other way) to see the nonsense inherent in the suggestion that the Army could take on any more responsibility for employing the nation's air assets.