Originally Posted by Neartheend
Sorry, but I must beg to differ, 845, 46 48 have not embarked in the past few years for anything close to the harmony limits...
FAA personnel, including those in CHF, may not have been embarked in ships for extended periods in recent times owing to competing demands but I'm willing to bet their time at sea combined with their 'off time' deployed on ops in Afghanistan and elsewhere would breach the RAF's Harmony Guidelines by a long chalk. The same applies to the 40 Cdo booties who only returned from Herrick XIII last October but have been embarked in HMS Albion for Cougar 11 since April.
That's life in a Naval Service dark blue/lovat suit for you. The question is, could embarked light blue air ever compete for operational availability, continuity or cost effectiveness? As I understand it, apart from four weeks late Feb/early March, the French carrier
Charles de Gaulle's air group has been flying almost continuous ops since Oct last year. Would an RAF det be capable of doing the same? If you tell me there are plenty of other RAF personnel sitting around in the UK to take their place every 4-6 months, it kind of proves my point about the relative cost effectiveness of the FAA (even the French version).