Well let's get a few things straight here.....
Of course we are in the military and if HM Queen says go to sea for 6 months of the year then so be it, but lets be clear about 3 things. One is make sure that me and my colleagues are properly trained, if you really want a contingency force of wokkas or Merlins, then you will have to resource the training properly. Secondly, in the 6 months I am back in UK if you think that I then going to play a part in the Army exercise schedule with many weekends away or even day running to Salisbury Plain, you will soon lose me.
As to losing our jobs-remember, it is highly unlikely that any RAF aircrew have or will lose their jobs. If the Air Manners really did think that they couldn't manage the outflow of aircrew by natural wastage and creative posts (like the new international RAF kipper fleet), then I am sure that they would have made at least one of us redundant over one of the last 2 redundancies announcements.
Finally, I did not sign up for life at sea-of course I will do it, and have already done it on numerous occasions, but given the choice I would much rather the Fisheads to do it. And this is where we have to be honest in that the majority of the future cost to Merlin is not the marinisation upgrades, but just in keeping the Merlin force flying-whichever Service operates the fleet.
Now as to everyone getting fed up with the inter service rivalry, for christs sake, about bloody time that something gets done as I think we will all agree this is negative, corrosive and reducing operational capability as the mutual trust has all but vanished.
I quite like the idea of a Defence Helicopter Command, one SDH and ODH for all rotary. If CGS has the experience and qualifications to be the one proper Rotary Wing SDH then great, but personally I think CAS should be, especially as it looks as though future CAS' will be from a rotary background. Certainly the MAA see that qualifications and experience as key to duty holder roles.