You get cowboys in military and civilian flying, but I do think that THIS RAF crew (Pixton and Marden) were exemplary professionals.
I also think that to go to such lengths to avoid the core fact is absolutely disgraceful. The Cessna pilot was acting with such gratuitously stupid and cavalier disregard to basic airmanship and common sense that he was criminally negligent - whether or not he remained just within the letter of the law). Whether or not he was technically entitled to be flying at the height he was (and in view of the 500 ft rule that's dubious) and whether or not he was legally taking photos (not for hire or reward) as he blundered aimlessly around over Carno he did have a duty to maintain a proper lookout, which his actions made impossible. Exercising a legal entitlement can sometimes just be pig headed stupidity. It's like stepping out onto a zebra crossing without looking first. The car driver should stop, cos you are entitled to step out into the road, but who is really to blame when he hits you? Notification may not have been mandatory, but it would have been wise. Why did he NEED to be where he was, doing what he was doing, in other words? Even if he was legally entitled to be flying at 350 ft where he was doing, he should not have been there without good reason. Had he been somewhere else a good man would still be with us.
This isn't about tribal loyalty. I have no tribal loyalty to RAF aircrew, whatsoever. In this context I'm just a PPL (so I'm part of the Cessna pilot's tribe), and I know what I'd have done in this idiot's position. If anything I'm angry because his behaviour reflects badly on me and people like me, and does so unfairly. Most of us do have some vestiges of common sense, and do try and maintain some semblance of basic airmanship.
Your attitude reminds me of the coverage in Pilot at the time, and I'm frankly astonished that any professional pilot could be quite so perverse. This bloke's poor airmanship and total lack of common sense were to blame for this accident, and yet you won't condemn it, but will make snide remarks about "the views from some that the RAF crew could do no wrong."
It sounds almost as if you don't think they could do anything right.....
Do you have some kind of resentment towards military aircrew, perhaps? Were you turned down by OASC? Did someone in a zip-up green romper suit molest you in your pram?
Sorry to harp on, but this really grips.....