Let's face it we were stiched at ISK. How come waddo only took so few hits and why
Because you could have seen this coming...Having been until recently one of the people at Waddo it struck me as being an obvious path for the RAF to take with regards to the people sat up at Kinloss awaiting their fate...we knew the training system had been run down in PR09 and the trickle of people through it was hardly keeping pace with the natural outflow of people reaching retirement or just finding other things to do...The fleet is busy (E3) doing something productive which further puts any training under strain.
Now take some of the very capable people up at ISK and start doing the math on keeping them busy but perhaps not productive until a space appears in the training pipeline, then pay to move them and take a place on the OCU. Then wait the 18 months+ for them to achieve CR and a level of unsupervised usefulness....Or you could just leave the trained, already settled and experienced people in place, hope to God not many more leave(!) and rely on the trickle feed to keep you going whilst minimising the spend.
You may have picked up on my tone and that I don't think it's a great way to do business...a great deal of skill is about to walk out the door at Kinloss that would have doubtless excelled at Waddington but I don't believe the recent decisions are being driven wholly by even medium term thinking...They are, as ever and in my opinion, being driven by people under extreme pressure to find savings of ever more expanding dimensions so the right solution is forced out by the necessary action...