tuc:-
H-C avoided the issue of senior officers lying and making false record, whereas LP didn't.
Not only avoided VSOs actions, but by moving the timeline of the start of airworthiness problems he implied that they were responsible for his "Golden Period" rather than the subverting and suborning of the Air Safety system and hence the breaking of it. H-C thus became part of the cover up, as is the MAA (which quotes H-C as its corner stone).
If this were just about the disgruntled "muttering" of a few old men about other old men and their actions some three decades ago, then the apologists cry of "time to move on and leave all this behind us" would be valid. The problem is that the system was broken and remains broken with no apparent possibility of reform.
The whole point of an Air Force is to gain air superiority and then to exploit it in order to defeat an enemy. At some point this nation will be faced by an enemy Air Force which will be trying to do just that. We saw at the start of WWII what happens if you have aircraft not fit for purpose ranged against those that are. It was our good fortune that we soon had the aircraft and systems (such as monoplane fighters, 4-engined bombers, radar, etc) to overcome that initial reverse and hence assure our defence and contribute to our ultimate victory. In other words the deficiencies were not systemic. Now they are, and unless and until we are honest with ourselves about what happened, why it happened, and what we must do to reverse it, UK Military Airworthiness will remain broken and our future security compromised.
The apologists will claim that the exigencies of the Service require that the past actions of VSOs not be questioned. I would respond that the exigencies of this nation require that they are! The MAA and the MAAIB must be made independent of the MOD and of each other. That requires that the cover up ends now!
Self Regulation Does Not Work and in Aviation It Kills!