The RAF has always maintained an operational tempo somewhere. I appreciate the gripe about being much smaller now, but not that much surely that everyone everywhere is on a war footing? If indeed that is what you're suggesting.
Finningley,
Without wishing to speak for Camelspyder, we're not far off everyone being operational everywhere. So many of the 'non-operational' posts have either been contractorised, civilianised or just cut, meaning that those that are left are pretty much engaged full time in the business of killing people and breaking their toys or providing direct support to those that are. And given the increasingly Joint nature of things, that could well extend to RAF personnel being operational alongside its sister services in circumstances where the RAF isn't deployed in a major capacity.Add to that the fact that reach back ops are also increaasing, now you don't even need to deploy to kill people and break their toys.
As a set up its lean, almost too lean and there's no fat in the system when you take other commitments like guard, exercises etc on top of ops in to consideration. I started my current job in the spring on the back of a 7 month OOA. What I didn't find out until I'd been there for 2 weeks was that my new boss had to draft a pain & grief statement whilst I was OOA to stop me being deployed again once I got back. And I've had to do similar for some of my juniors since I've been in post, so I don't appear to have been an unusual case.
There's a large element of the RAF that knows nothing other than ops, so I can see why some might be less than enthusiastic about air shows and the likes of Armed Forces Day parade duties.