Events dear boy events
One of our past Prime Ministers (Macmillan) famously answered in response to a question “Events dear boy events”. Ever since he did that I have always thought if only more politicians used it as a perfectly good reason (not excuse) for changing their mind about something we would all be better served.
There have been some ‘events’ in the military aviation scene recently on both sides of the Atlantic. In case the following letter to the Times (no I did not write it) does not get published I thought it deserved an airing here:
Sir,
Our troops in Afghanistan
It is often said, by the Prime Minister and others, that our troops deserve the best. Mr Cameron has declared his determination to ensure that this happens. It is not, however, happening in Afghanistan, where our soldiers are poorly supported by the Tornado. This is not surprising, as it was not designed to operate in the close air support role and the ‘hot and high’ conditions of Afghanistan. It is understood that one aircraft has been lost, and another very badly damaged, because of the difficulty of operating the Tornado from the one runway available at Kandahar. Because it was not designed for this task the Tornado necessarily takes much longer to get airborne from alert and has a very poor mission reliability, with many planned missions cancelled every month. This has resulted in the US Air Force having to step in, to ensure that our troops get the support where and when it is needed.
This is in stark contrast with the record of the Harrier, which spent five years in Afghanistan and achieved a spotless mission accomplishment record. All this was achieved with far fewer aircrew and engineers than the Tornado requires. The Harrier was designed for close support of ground forces, operating from austere bases, and it is arguably world class for that mission.
Perhaps the time has come to face the realities that a specialist aircraft is needed in such difficult and limited circumstances, and to redeploy the Harriers for at least as long as UK remains in Afghanistan.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Dow
While I think nobody is very likely to stand up in the house and use ‘events’ as a reason for putting out Harriers back in the Stan there is another recent ‘event’ that poses an interesting juxtaposition.
The USMC have recently had to come to terms with a formal slip of the F-35B in-service date of years rather than months and I guess are having to plan their act to accommodate this ‘event’. I also understand that some of their B+ pilots were very impressed with the GR9s performance in recent Red Flags.
So does this mean that the MOD will be able to cut our deficit to the bone overnight by flogging 77 nice jets at a very reasonable price?
I know I put a question mark at the end of the last sentence but I don’t really want PPRuNers to answer because sadly (but realistically) wot we think does not affect the price of fish.