But the detractors will continue to blather about "no documentation" and "no configuration control" as if anything not generated and controlled by the RAF doesn't exist.
One assumes this means you reject the need for a Safety Case?
“No documentation” and “no configuration control” were major contributory factors in the deaths of many of our UK servicemen. This Rivet Joint problem has been noted before by MoD, in 2011 if I recall, so the “blathering” has come from them. Much to their credit I suppose; a frankness which was lacking in the past.
The article is based on yet another MoD admission, in the 2013 MAA annual report. In it, the new DG repeats the 20 year old fact that MoD lacks experienced and competent (not the same thing) engineers. What he doesn’t say is that this shortage was a direct result of two of the main perpetrators of the airworthiness scandal decreeing, in 1991 and 1996, that MoD did not need engineers to manage any part of engineering programmes. One fallout from these decisions was the policy that permitted non-engineers to have airworthiness and technical delegation; in fact, self delegation.
However, I agree with your last comment. There is too much reinvention of wheels and duplication. There also happens to be a perfectly good procedure in MoD for using foreign certification and, as far as possible, reading across. I mentioned the transfer to PDS. What PDS Category is the aircraft and its kit? 1,2,3,4,5 or 6? A simple question, but if not addressed problems accumulate and bite you just as you’re looking to issue certification. The decision must be made up front, as it is a major decision point regarding achieving and especially maintaining airworthiness. Not least due to funding and complex contractual arrangements.
The MAA has not revealed precisely what is causing concern at the moment, but MoD did reveal itself when the decision to buy these aircraft was announced. They claimed they would be exactly the same configuration as those used by the US. The problem here is that such a configuration would (in part) breach not MoD rules, but those imposed on MoD by our Home Office. It was too simplistic a statement, something noted on pprune at the time. If that truly was the level of thinking, then problems were inevitable because much else would be ignored.