I have to confess to being that "bearded old duffer"
Lest someone following the thread on the ATC forum take offence, a few points of clarification on the incident in question:-
It occurred in 2001, before the update of the NORCA, before B1 got renamed (yet again), before all sorts of changes in the airspace in the region.
Since Sept 11 2001 largely did for the NCL-based operator I was flying for at the time, I have not been around that area much, so I can't comment on how much better it is now.
As for the incident itself, the culprit was NOT one of our own brave flying machine driver chappies. It was a Turkish F15 flying for the first time in UK airspace, and apparently the pilot confessed to having paid no attention at brifing time on the rules of the air in the UK. He was just having fun. Apparently he saw me at the last moment and stuffed everything in a corner at the same time as I was trying to feed all the gin and tonics into the sidewall aircon outlets.
Those in blue suits who know me know that I condemn poor professionalism wherever I see it - whichever side of the civvie/mil or skyjock/blippusher divide it occurs. I am very well aware of some extremely professional mil pilots around. I am also aware of a (very) few cowboys. The same happens in civvy street.
As I say, I can't comment on how much extra sticking to airways (where available) would add to most routes out of NCL nowadays. In those days it would have been completely uneconomical.
There are, of course, still a significant number of civil airports out there with little or no access to airways.
This Sunday's programme should be interesting as well.