To those nay-sayers...
I have personally seen that the RAF did absolutely nothing for a commonly used aircraft Maintenance Programme for approx. 20 years. 5-yearly reviews just penned-off. Warnings of maintenance requirements routinely ignored.
This is the standard the glorious RAF had plumbed to - that is now being revised through the enforced introduction of MIL 145/M. The obvious lack of impartiality of the current MAA should quite rightly be removed to at least an independence from MOD budgets.
MOD (not just the RAF) in my humble opinion cannot recover from this fully developed and completely institutionalised 'arrogance and ignorance' towards airworthiness and flight safety.
Further to this thread: Grob aircraft are NOT combat aircraft - just what "emergency measures" do you see these light training aircraft going through?
To help LEON's traditional issues: I had often proposed the theory that the MOD could (if it wanted to) declare "COMBAT OPS" where, for nominated aircraft, they could indeed drill/punch holes, without external influence, where they wanted and glue artillery into them...but those aircraft would/could NOT fly in "non-combat zones" unless those mods were properly OEM tested and supported and/or for one-flight-only for de-modification/rectification to the formal airworthiness standard as listed in the RTS. I assume that, as it wasn't invented in MOD, my proposal was ignored.
Finally: If there was a truly independent authority it would be as clear as the CAA in releasing the detail behind its decisions and "politicking" would soon be spotted and political decisions halted in the name of flight safety and airworthiness rather than cost and politics. The previous (and possibly still current) MOD/OEM practices of hiding facts to make a contract work could also be prevented by independent reviews of test results such as that seen during the A380 wing load test failures which Airbus classed as a success.
Rant over...and now breathing less heavily