A very sad decision which has taken out an incalculable capability for our military. I spent 15 years on the Hunter and only know too well the level of expertise that will be lost forever. In addition, the local community who, for the most part, gave unstinting support to the station will take years to recover from this body blow.
I always feared that the Nimrod force, in it's effort to just get on with the job without making a song and dance out of it, let itself down. The aircraft only hit the news when something disastrous happened such as Toronto, Firth or Kandahar. It seemed to be considered below those involved in Maritime
PR to get the press inside the Nimrod story. Perhaps it was the distance away from the London-centric news organizations; I only hope it was not the perceived difficulty of filtering out the more sensitive nature of some of the tasking compared with the easily handled tasking such as SAR. I was always amazed at how often the RN Seaking unit at Prestwick got into the news compared to the frequency of all of the RAF SAR forces.
Has someone told the Spanish fishermen that they will no longer have the ability of "feeling unwell" 200+ miles from the coast and expect a cab to pitch up to take them home via Truro Hospital? The Helicopters just will not have the top cover. I know that the C130 has been trying to carry out this task for a while but I also know it's severe limitations and how difficult this role is to support due to other commitments of the transport force.
Good luck to all those in and out of uniform at Kinloss.