I was at a meeting in the early nineties where an Air Rank Engineering Officer ordered the scrapping of spares for a certain ac type that has only just left service. It appeared that he would rather see the scrap value added to his budget than pay for the storage and wasn't interested in the possibility of selling said items for full value to a foreign air force, because the benefits would not have been seen whilst he was in post.

This was just after the start of NMS (New Monetary System?) - which introduced budget-holding to lower-level organizations.

packaging
 

back in 1990, whilst working in 3rd line maintenance, I needed a new resistor to mend a tornado control panel.
The said resistor came wrapped in grease proof paper, inside a plastic bag, with an NSN ident label. This bag was wrapped in further packaging, then sealed once again in another plastic bag, with another label on the front.

I can't remember exactly how much this resistor had cost the RAF, but I do remember this, we could have purchased over 10,000 of the same resistors, direct from the RS catalogue.

Money wasting has always been the one thing we can rely on the MOD to do really well.

Typhoon, MRA4, A400M, FSTA...........

at least we have enough body armour for the boys and girls in the thick of it.

:yuk: