Noting that
Ascent, a 50/50 joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Babcock International won the contract in May 2008
it has now taken longer than WW2 to get to the point of announcing a choice of aircraft, which presumably now have to be ordered, built, tested, RtS'd etc, and will in the end cost more than WW2 in financial terms. Isn't it great that instead of 'Action this day' we have teams of committees to pass the buck and hoover up the money because in our new management style no individual is deemed able to do so.
No doubt this will work - for a very few, very expensively trained aircrew - but we seem to have fallen way below the drag curve and the only real winners appear to be Ascent. And as yet no mention of rotary/DHFS, which was supposed to be part of this monolith but went in to the 'too difficult' tray some time ago.
I too mourn the passing of what was considered one of the best flying training systems in the world that many other countries tried to emulate. No one is going to emulate this!