As i see it the only good news is that in actual real money terms the cost to the RAF/MOD to prevent another
PR disaster is by their standards relatively low.
It stacks up well against one of todays stories about the Watchman Drone which was 4 years late £400 million OVER BUDGET and has only had the equivalent of 6 Days operational use,plus is not doing anything useful.(investigation about to start).
The actual cost of getting a reasonable number of useful air frames back into ATC service is paltry compared with anything else the services do, and gets plenty of
PR points. What they do not have is anyone who knows how to go about this in their mainline system so that is the stumbling block.
They need to be talking direct to the BGA to effect a plan that covers both recovery and the ongoing regulation trail. The BGA could also benefit by this as any 'profit' made will go back into their operation rather than contractors shareholders.
When you look at the facilities sitting around at Syerston requiring some proper management and motivation the actual cost to get them producing the goods is minimal compared with the cost of running the place that has produced NOTHING for years. We can not change the past or what happened with the 'changeover' but it only takes some sound management and manpower motivation (including proper paid tech staff) to get the show on the road.Apart from anything else a recovered fleet has value and surplus machines could be sold to offset some costs. It needs the BGA/Engineering to be given a short term contract to oversee this.