Without wishing to cross swords with the monarchists, the reality is that the vast majority of the population realise we are involved in an illegal and immoral war in Iraq. Some more enlightened people (and the media) have been trying to distinguish between the war itself and the armed forces, who have to do as they are told and who are being put in harms way often with crap equipment (ever been on a VC10 lately?). They need and deserve our support.

And then along comes someone who goes for jollies. All the good work shattered in a weekend.

Only the British can shoot themselves in the foot like this.

Rotorheads or JetBlast?
 

This thread is getting way off topic; Rotorheads is not the forum for assertions about GW2 legality, Monarchist/Republican sentiments, etc.

Back on topic, please, or this will founder into JetBlast :=

I'm glad thats all you are going to say on the subject, because I get the feeling that if this was an audio post, your voice would be rather muffled:


As you are talking out of your Arse!

Homonculus - no, only the British press can make a scandal out of something that is not.

Training sorties are exactly that and if any training benefit is gained from the activity, it is by definition justified. I flew PW for 2 hours over the sea teaching him SAR techniques - he is never going to be a SAR pilot (not because of lack of ability) but the training benefit was there for him, the Radop, the winchman and me as the QHI. Want to call that a waste of taxpayers money as well?

field landing
 

Surely as part of training a field landing is appropriate? Don't really see what the fuss is about.

A much more relevant complaint, in my opinion, would be the flight, at tax payers expense, to a friend's stag party.............don't quite see how that could be argued to be a training flight. If it was a training flight, is it normal practice in the armed forces to allow friends to hitch a lift on these flights?

Anti Royal garbage deleted

Andy - that flight involved the London helilanes and over water transit and the hitchhiker was a serving British Army Officer (PH) - just because it ended on the IOW and the 2 Ps went drinking doesn't make it a waste of money - it is no different to landing back at Odiham and going to happy hour.

...or perhaps at a golf course in Scotland, for a couple of rounds:rolleyes:

HRH
 

I personally found the Wessex 5 very handywhen I carelessly lost my driving licence for 18 months...............................How else was I to get home at weekends?

Bloody good show old boy.....

However, the MoD was forced to defend his actions after he used a Chinook helicopter training exercise to fly himself and his brother, Prince Harry, to a stag do on the Isle of Wight.