Some excellent posts on this thread, and perhaps time to declare a new political philosophy - Leonism? But lest we shift into a Pete and Dud type exchange, tucumseh brings us unerringly back to our own particular part of the patch. Those who have followed the all too many airworthiness related fatal accident threads in this forum know that the true cost of MOD Gross Negligence is in blood as well as in treasure. His testimony here and elsewhere illustrates the reality of the present UK Military, that at 1* and below you are a potential scapegoat, but above that you are fireproof!
So whether you have a professional concern or not about the airworthiness of UK military aircraft (and who here does not?), plain self preservation would suggest that the corrupt self governing and self regulating morass that is the UK Armed Forces High Command has to be urgently reformed. To misquote Pastor Martin Niemoller;
First they came for the JO's and I did not speak out,
because I was not a JO.
Then they came for the CS's and I did not speak out,
because I was not a CS.
Then they came for the SO's and I did not speak out,
because I was not an SO.
Then they came for me - and there was no-one left to speak for me.