Maintenance Command was jointly manned, civvies + uniforms, from its formation in 1938, and worked in parnership with Civilian Repair firms from October,1939. Business was debending damage caused by P/O Prune and other enemies. From 1945 it was reduction to produce (=scrap). All that changed in 1955: UK lost the luxury of dumping Mk.1 (say) Hunters, replaced with (say, Mk.4) after months’, not years’ use. The equivalent of dumping a car when the ashtray was full. UK had to buy its (say Mk.6 Hunters) without US Aid, so they stayed in use from 1957 into 1980s. We had to invent Major Servicing and understand fatigue. Certain types were assigned to other MUs – you all go on about F-4M at Saints, but Aldergrove was also muchly involved.

As volume declined, as the whole Force declined, so it became sensible to form at Saints a Centre of Excellence in Major Servicing. Hence funding the Superhangar, and hence nomination of the SofTT to be all-uniforms fixed wing airframes Heavy Maintenance Centre. All that then came undone when (bean counters and consultants) measured Saints’ cost and time performance as adverse in comparison with aero industry best practice. Sometimes unfair, sometimes not. BA, for example, had turned round its VC10 Heavy Checks in fewer weeks than did Saints in months. (Not Saints but Finningley was ditto on Wessex in comparison with 28 Sqdn’s Majors at HAECO/Kai Tak). Culture, practice at MUs was that visible cash mattered, whereas time did not. So: “waiting for spares” was cheaper, thus better, than stocking piles of just-in-case parts that might rust into obsolescence. So: pre-price a “readiness” deal with a Civilian Repairer and delegate to him that balance between nugatory capital and nugatory time. And avoid diverting uniforms into jobs that civvies can do. MoD can terminate civvies when workload or performance declines.

So all that is why airframe maintenance is now blowing in the saintly wind. Don’t need to agree; do need to understand the logic.