Pobjoy
I see your point as well. But as they say in a variety of fields "past performance is not an indicator of future results". It could be that the flying is so benign that the mitigations are totally treating the risk, or that VGSs are full of Burt Rutans and Chuck Yeagers, or that they have had a good run of luck?
Now if you find significant issues with the assurance of your aircraft's airworthiness, and as a newly formed organisation you discover working practices that does not chime with the way the rest of military do business, plus that you know that if there's an accident that these will probably add up to end RAF-sponsored youth engagement flying - what would you do? Ignore and hope you're lucky whilst you try to sort it out? I don't think so; the last time we did that type of ignoring the QC had the military for breakfast.
So, I still believe that the decision was the right thing to do, however, with less than a handful of aircraft flying after 14 months something seems strange - there must have been some deep rooted issues and that, maybe, after all, we were incredibly lucky not to have a significant event resulting in a fatality(s)? This whole process is costing mega bucks and so they aren't doing it for fun!
By the way, I agree, they should have left the G109Bs on the G-Reg, got all the instructors BGA/EASA gliding instructor ticks and run it under the RAFGSA/BGA umbrella many years ago. However, that's not where we are today and to put the Grob 103 Acros and 109Bs onto the civilian register would take much cash and effort. So I guess they're stuck in the rut they find themselves in - 14 months down the line with only a handful of aircraft flying.
LJ
