Courtney
Wise words, old chum. However, money is tight and I personally don't believe the Reds meet the required 'value for money' mantra anymore. During my time on BBMF it always was a source of amusement that we were 1/3rd the cost and serviced over 3 times as many airshows, families'/at-home days, fetes, etc... In terms of "
PR bang for Buck" the BBMF wins hands down (and I choose those words carefully as a FJ mate).
There must be a cheaper way to do what the Reds do and if it could be made more cost effective then I suspect the axe-sharpening would not take place every year. How about moving them to Leeming to blob up with the Tatty Ton? Or moving the Tatty Ton to Scampton and shutting Leeming's runway? Or something else? There has to be a way to make this cheaper (save for buying them some Cessna Aerobats equipped with smoke cannisters!
). The idea of moving to Waddington was madness as it is rammed and thus needed a new-build HQ (and we all know that DIO get ripped off by their Regional Prime Contractors by at least 40% over the market rate!).
Here's a really 'off the wall' solution - why not put the Blades on contract to do something with some cheaper jest like L39s?
I also believe that BEagle's JENGA simale works as well. We are at crtitical mass in certain areas, although the use of FTRS QFIs or Sponsored Reserves under MFTS could plug the gap for a while to come. It's also cheaper, too.
LJ