our ability to operate maritime patrol aircraft is being maintained.
Which is not the same as saying we actually have any aircraft to operate.
Only one Nimrod MRA4 had been delivered to the RAF and it had not passed air worthiness tests....
Think about this one! It was (apparently) delivered to the RAF (which would require an agreement by ACAS that it was airworthy), yet it (apparently) wasn't. Who in DPA/DE&S would knowingly deliver an unairworthy a/c to the Customer?
......the project was hundreds of millions of pounds over budget, years late, and needed considerable extra funding to rectify long-running technical problems.
As advised in 1998 to the MoD(PE) 2 Star responsible for management oversight of the programme. We still wait for him to be asked to explain his actions (or rather, lack of).
See above question^^^ Same 2 Star ruled in 2001 (letters dated 10.1.01 and 16.3.01), that it was acceptable to deliver unairworthy a/c to the Services, having declared they were airworthy but in the full knowledge they were not.