Orca,
A good academic post on 19 Feb-not saying I agree, but certainly thought provoking.
AW, I think that you might find that even if 1SL does care two hoots about CHF and Merlin, rather than all his other floating toys, I think that you will find find he will be struggling. Neartheend might be a little closer to the truth, but even then a Joint Force Merlin is looking a tad optimistic, as any Merlin Force at all is looking dodgy if MLSP is not funded.
I know that some of the Merlin guys cannot believe that we were willing to sacrifice them in order to ensure the survival of Puma, but if the posts and rumours are true and due to the dire financial situation the people at the top directed that a RW type was to go, better the type that was not RAF don't you think? Otherwise we would have not only been looking at handing over Merlin to the Fisheads, but binning Puma, with only one RAF RW then we were not looking in a good position.
However,due to some good work by our Airships we now have enough cockpits for our Merlin guys to transfer into when they switch off the lights at Merlin OSD, with Puma safe, and our new buy Chinook. I reckon that Defence still has a pretty capable (and affordable) RW capability across all environments.
I think it always does pay to have the right people at the top informing the high level meetings where these kind of decisions are made.
Last edited by MaroonMan4; 26th February 2012 at 11:35.