Originally Posted by
fireflybob
Personally if I was a passenger and saw one of our Eurofighters on the wingtip I would feel quite reassured.
I can't imagine I would feel reassured at all. I would feel threatened, because it is a threat. The QRA aircraft are there to carry weapons and to point them at the suspect aircraft. They can either threaten to shoot, or shoot - at me in the suspect aircraft. So they are either threatening me, or actually attacking me. Not reassuring at all. Having someone point guns at you and be prepared to use them is not reassuring.
The intent may be to point weapons and make threats or make an attack on whoever is in control of the aircraft, but it threatens and attacks me as well. I can't very well get off the aircraft or away from the people being threatened.
Maybe the QRA aircraft is there because the aircraft I am in has some problem that is not an attack (or threat of attack), takeover of control, etc. In which case "hello there!", but if one just showed up, I would be thinking mainly that the reason it is there is to shoot me down. If the reason was not to shoot me down but just to look and assist, the RAF could send up an unarmed aircraft instead.
The armed QRA aircraft are not there to protect the passengers in the aircraft. They're there to protect everyone else.