Royal Air Force

Thanks for that, given all the time and money spent on these aircraft it seems a waste of money. However, of course the government are still sending out mixed messages on a withdrawl from Afghanistan. The current CDS said a few months back that we could be there for 40 years, and I can well believe him. Especially when Afghan army units are having half their troops desert.

i can c em shutting linton as there due round 2016 to recieve twin engine training aircraft. plus from a conversation with the raf in atc they couldnt move the entire training programme to valley as theres not enough airspace for training props and jets.
only time will tell. and its propsed that there doing away with the tucanos for some smaller itailian jet for training

IMHO opinion they should never have bought the Tucano, but as the government admitted it was a political decision. They were built in Northern Ireland thereby putting money in the economy and of course jobs, and we also got landing rights in Brazil for the Falklands airbridge.

As you say Valley cant cope with all flying training, thats why Linton didnt shut in 94. Cant honestly see it shutting.

If what I was told about the Hawk T1 is true, there will be plenty of room at Valley. The T2 order is small (off the top of my head, less than 30). I heard from a Hawk Pilot that there is an 'out of service' date for the T1 (within the next 5 years) but I haven't seen anything on paper.

Yes the Hawk order may be small, but youll be mixing advanced fast jet(why does the RAF use that term?) with basic flying training, and the consequences of that could be lethal.

Lossie looking dodgy:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-eas...ey-shetland-11590130

To close Kinloss AND Lossie would probably be politically unacceptable. How about move the Tiffies from Leuchars to Lossie and close Leuchars instead. At least there was no suggestion of single-basing the Tiffies at Coningsby.

Close Leuchars?? Well where would very senior officers fly to when they want to play golf at St Andrews???? You think Im joking dont you!!! Also if you close Leuchars and keep Lossie open then you have a huge part of the UK with no RAF presence, that is the reason why the UAS has stayed at Glasgow.

Leuchars is an interesting one. I did have good contacts in Command, and was talking to one of them at the beginning of the year when she let slip that she couldn't understand why Leuchs was re-equiping with Typhoon, only for it to be closing at some stage - this was well before the SDSR.
She also let slip that I would be out of a job in 2014 so I'm hoping she's wrong!

I thought Lossie was undergoing a massive rebuild plan for JCA, can anyone confirm if this has started?
Also where else would JCA go? Marham is a no no for it.

One of the briefing papers was single basing for typhoon but no mention of that in the white paper, to me it would make sense to move the nothern QRA to Lossie: the government is being forced to take typhoons not really wanted as again cancellation will cost as much as having them. There had been whispers that the 2nd & 3rd Leuchars sqns would be cancelled but it now looks that at least one more will stand up in the "multi role" . Even with 3 GR4 sqns disbanding I don't see how Marham can accom the rest including the OCU If I were holding the strings I would shut Leuchars move Q and the northern Typhoon element to lossie and keep the GR4 OCU up there. I am sure H & I would love to have Leuchars and shut Dundee !!

TED

Do not get me started on Dundee airport!! The city fathers were actually offered Errol in the late forties, and interestingly (well its interesting to me) it did close for a few years.

As for Leuchars V Lossie, well if mr Salmond gets his way then both may close.