JF,
I haven't said the SI was 'outrageous', or that anyone was incompetent, nor would I. But I do think, after around 30 years as a military aircraft engineer at most levels up to and including EA and RTSA, that it's something I never would have approved, nor would anyone in my Service's engineering command chain.
I see an engineer's job as making the aircraft fit to complete a sortie without the need for in flight checks by the aircrew. It's not their job. They're not trained to do it. They should never have to do it unless (and a big unless) the aircraft has been prepared for a Check Test Flight that calls up such a check. CTFs would be limited and normally non-operational.
What really surprises me about this, and leads to some relevant issues, is what the RAF system was doing allowing a station to implement a local in-flight check against a known problem. What is being described here is something that is utterly foreign to my own experience. The fact that the BOI didn't pick it up is astounding, in my view.
The fact that the aircraft got an RTS at all is another aspect that has not attracted anything like the level of attention it should have.
I have come to the conclusion that while Haddon-Cave gave the Project Teams, QinetiQ and BAES a real pasting, one area that got off lightly was the RAF and its own airworthiness and RTS system. This is not the only time I've seen practices that just left me staggered, only to be told 'Ah, but this is how the RAF do things - we are, after all, the professionals.'
The point is not, repeat not, an anti-RAF one - but when things like this go wrong, an organisation should take a long hard look at itself and find out what it can do to reduce the risk of a re-occurrence. I just don't think that's happening. I'm sorry to say it (as I have many RAF mates I utterly respect) that it would have been far better for the MAA to have been set up under a non-RAF (and even non-aircraft) engineering lead - possibly from the nuclear side.
Best Regards as ever
Engines