Canute (and others)
The point of my reply was simply to point out that I was off a similar mindset to you a couple of weeks back and felt I could not justify to myself posting again in this thread until I had done a little digging myself.
That digging took all of five minutes.
Here's another approach.
If I imagine I was TCT, and, as have many of us have done, got caught up in something which snowballed as a matter of over-enthusiasm, misguidance (mine and others) and perhaps an eye on future "benefits", what would I have done when the penny started to drop that I had over-egged the pudding.
I know EXACTLY what I would done, because like anybody with 27 years in military aviation, it is wrapped into my DNA.
I would have collated the exact facts of all the flying and promulgated them every-which way I could. Websites, Facestalk, Twitter...the full monty. Together with an apology, if I felt the difference between my actual achievements and my perceived achievements merited one.
Given no such clarification exists - just some weasley worded
PR crap - my current position is this:
Either all the naysayers on here have got it wrong (that appears to be unlikely, given my own five minute research)
Or, TCT's actions are premeditated and carefully constructed.
IF it proves to be the latter I cannot tell you how **** ing angry I would be, given the waltish nature military connections and the fact that they seem to have been given official endorsement.
So now I am an interested bystander...who wants to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.