As the parent of a military pilot at the time, I was drawn to the MoK campaign right from the beginning. As a PPL I could only play a very minor part in the years of repetitive debate but the fear of ever finding myself in the position of the Tapper and Cook families has driven me to take an above average interest in developments. The resurrection of this debate depresses me for the following reasons:
1. As far as I recall, no-one has ever denied the possibility of CFIT, so why are we arguing about it? Unless new information becomes available, this debate will go nowhere.
2. Hearing the same distortions of facts used to support arguments e.g. witnesses report that the Mull was shrouded in cloud. Well, the bit they were in obviously was but that doesn't necessarily mean that, FROM THE PILOT'S VIEWPOINT it was completely covered. Remember the pictures we were shown of orographic cloud covering parts of the Mull?
3. And the most depressing of all. The way that MoD and VVSO's have lied about the airworthiness of the HC2. This is compounded by the fact that they continue to to do so while people die. I particularly found it amazing that anyone would fly an aeroplane, especially with passengers, which required a DECU connector to be checked every 15 minutes because there was a history of them becoming detached. As an expert in light duty electrical contacts this was one area which I felt competent to comment on. I did ask at the time how many pilots would take to the air in such a machine and nobody responded. Interestingly, when I have asked a variety of civil and military pilots face to face, everyone said that they wouldn't.
It seems that, the introduction of the MAA and MAAIB has, as far as the FAA is concerned, made thing worse. I understand that they did have a fairly robust Air Safety organisation which relied on middle ranking officers who were unlikely to see further promotion and were therefore much more independent. I believe that this has now been superceded by a far less independent MAA.