LJ,
I'm not going to get into a willie waving contest, I agree with many of the comments both you and other posters make and many of them are perfectly valid.
What I will do is demonstrate how someone who 'used to sit 10 feet away' can still only get half the story and make an incorrect assumption. In an earlier post you stated, in a manner such that a degree of knowledge was implied (apologies if that was not the intention but that's the way it came across), that the MRA4 bomb doors were speed limited to reduce the impact of the infamous suicidal seagull. The correct part of that statement
is that the bomb doors were speed limited (as were the doors on the MR2, they just had a higher limit). The MRA4 doors were limited because the clearance testing was removed from the test schedule (along with many other aspects) as a cost saving measure. Nothing to do with seagulls, suicidal or otherwise.
The Sonobuoy clearance was delayed due to the paperwork waiting to be processed by the Independent QA (QQ), the MOD were still negotiating the contract for their next package of work before they could start, the testing was complete and successful.
So if you, as someone who sat not 10 feet away, can get these small and rather insignificant (in the larger scheme of things) facts wrong, what else was being incorrectly assumed/inferred/interpolated by the people responsible for preparing the parliamentary responses and ultimately, the briefings on which the fundamental decisions on the program were to be taken? I suspect we will never get a truthfull answer as to why MRA4 was canned but until we do, threads like this will continue to flourish.
p.s MOA
Hope life on the other side is suiting you well? Take care dude.
Rgds,
SFO