Out of trim,
And what did a slack handful of Skyhawks/Macchis do? Really? Yep, they could do "stuff" just not coalition "stuff" and would have merely inconvenienced any serious aggressor. What would the tiny force of F16s proposed have provided apart from an ego chariot? At what cost? War is changing; it's getting more expensive to play in the first division - we've made the choice to cling on by our fingernails by distorting the budget to buy totemic capabilities and culling some core ones. Perhaps a little rebalancing of thought as well as budgets would do the UK good. The RNZAF, albeit probably with a metaphorical pistol to its temple, has rebalanced to face the political-economic realities it faces. AT/SH/MPA are essential to it's future path; the airshows might lack some whizz and zoom but their sailors are protected and their troops have mobility.