Earl...you are a man of similar sympathies to myself I see..sadly we are "old hat" and have been overtaken by too many events to be the accepted wisdom anymore.....one could wax lyrical as to why...not least our modern generation of politicians knowing so little of what you speak ,and why it is so neccessary to ensure our military are up there with the best.....look only to the GR9 and MRA4 decisions to see this.
Nice pic of the SARTU 139s ..but of course they are there not for UK Mil training but are part of a major foreign nation training contract so not available at all for tasks such as FOST etc......although they might fortell as to where FBH would like to be in the future under the MFTS contract that is forthcoming.
What all these commercial contracts do mean of course, is the total lack of military control and command. When everything belonged to the military, it was in theory, possible to redirect assets to meet urgent needs whatever they were perceived to be......if it ain't in the contract (which it usually isn't!) then it can't happen anymore. Low cost and supposed affordability comes at a heavy price IMO.
Cheers
