It certainly raises some difficult questions for some, Tom. Lossie has had a hard time retaining engineers for a long time now. Even those unsuccessful at getting redundancy are cutting their losses and banging out earlier than they would normally have planned to.
The oil industry and it's lucrative wage beckons. For years now guys have been leaving for salaries the RAF can't compete with. I know of someone who left 19 years into a pensionable engagement of 22. Sounds like madness but if you really are that disgruntled even the promise of a pension isn't enough for some.
Sad really that it's been allowed to come to this.