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.
Putting airshows aside for now, I can appreciate the level of manning might not have a s much slack as it once did, I seem to recall on occasion, during summer in particular, the ops flight at Portreath had just me and one other when we were suppose to have no fewer than three of us on shift. Mind that was as much to do with annual leave but there were deployments as well. What I find difficult to imagine is; what would happen if one or more of our Typhoon Squadrons had to deploy next? Everything is UK based today!? accepted there is the eight aircraft Tornado detachment to Akrotiri, a sovereign airbase, but I undertant that's all? The transport aircraft numbers we have now are surely greater in proportion to the ratio of 1965 and certainly 1985! But with Afghanistan no longer a serious concern, what keeps the rest of the RAF on a war footing? Where are the Chinooks and Pumas going that the Navy's Sea Kings, Merlins, Lynx and Wildcats aren't?
Are training units on a war footing? Or is the RAF simply seriously short of established man power!? I was under the impression that the new established level was 35,000 while it has dropped below 32,000, so maybe that's it!
Again, sorry to sound like an old rambling idiot, but in 1965, Transport command were very busy re-supplying Aden and many other places, which, locally, were on a war footing with troops on the ground. Khormaksar looked like Heathrow at times with Argosies, Beverlies, Britannias, Comets and all. But they weren't regarded as being at war, nor the rest of HM Forces not deployed in theatre.
FB
