tuc:-
We don't learn, do we?
No, we don't. Mainly I suspect because we don't want to. There is a theme running through this thread, and elsewhere, that Airworthiness is for wimps. Real men would jolly well go to Waddington and simply kick the tyres and light the fires - job done!
This simplistic attitude in a profession that should know that going to war in the air means confronting two foes, the enemy and the air! All you have to do to make sure that the latter prevails, before you can even close with the former, is to do nothing. That has been MOD policy for nearly thirty years. The only difference now is that it professes, via its subordinate MAA, to want to change all that. The irony is that now it doesn't know how to, thanks to the thorough demolition of Airworthiness expertise that it presided over.
This isn't just about Rivet Joint, or Nimrod, or Chinook, or Seaking, or Tornado, or Hercules, or indeed any other fleet. It's about all fleets. It's about your fleet. It's about your ability to go to war in the air!
"La, la, la! I can't hear you!"