The SUN newspaper came up with the headline several weeks ago and there was no truth to it – a fact that was established about 2 minutes after it hit the press. You may have noticed that the “government” has already responded. Sadly the whole idea of the no. 10 petitions site is diluted by the number of misinformed and generally daft petitions on there. This was one of the former.

The e-petition asking the Prime Minister to “to Allow the Red Arrows to Fly at the 2012 Olympics” is ongoing. This is a response in advance of the closing date from the Government.

It is not true to suggest that the Government has banned the Red Arrows from celebrations to mark the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The organising committee of London 2012 will decide what to include in the celebrations – but with five years to go, decisions are yet to be made on what the celebrations will look like, although you can be assured that they will be a spectacular showcase of Britain’s best.

Tried ebay? They appear occasionally, and earlier in the year at least there was an Australian shop selling 2 or 3 of them on ebay too.

In fact, Vol 1 and 2 are available now on ebay – vol 2 for £4.99 as a “Buy it now” item, vol 1 in auction with £3.99 start.

http://music.search.ebay.co.uk/Shuttleworth_Records_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQcatrefZC12QQfromZR40QQsacatZ1071

* Just going by comparable PFIs and the like y’know 😮

A PFI is only comparable with a 40 year long robbery of the public coffers…;) 😀

Mr Brown likes them though…:rolleyes:

Don’t just blame the civilians – the forces have f**ked themselves up too.

I think around 1/3rd of the RAF are now officers – whereas in WWII the ratio
was around 1 officer for 20 enlisted men.

Turkeys do not vote for Christmas, and the officers will not vote to reduce the officer corps.

I don’t really see your point, although I admit some people in high places will use their time to ensure a decent retirement (or chairmanship/directorship!)…

As for your stat, I think the figure is closer to 1/4, and you have to remember that a lot, if not most of the jobs now done by civvy contractors such as VT, Serco and Babcock are those that would have been done by “the ranks” in a former life.

Regarding the title of the recent article”Is the R.A.F. broken” hasnt there been some mistake? Should it not have read “Is the Royal Navy broken”

Well, it is Air Forces Monthly, not Navies Monthly…;)

On a serious note, well done AFM on a very good article.

One of the runways (22) was still visible on googleearth until a month or so ago

This Flashearth link shows the remaining runway, before it too disappeared.

I doubt that, but I could very well be wrong. The BBMF aircraft don’t normally participate in filming duties (Fluffy?) and I can’t see them making up ‘474 just for the sake of a few seconds of film.

Not being cynical at all, but I expect if enough cash was thrown the MoD’s* way then…

(*who would then guarantee the BBMF wouldn’t ever see any of the cash…:rolleyes: )

This was posted over at UKAR an hour or so ago by an eyewitness. The posters there were reporting it was a Hurricane (unconfirmed as TBs)

UKAR Thread

To answer the question, I’d buy four of the RB-57Fs from the boneyard, four C-141s for their engines (giving plenty of spares), and pay NASA to bring them to the same standard as their WB-57Fs.

Jacko, don’t you actually mean we should get a civvy contractor to buy the PR.9s for 50p each (oh no, we’ve already sold them – ok, can’t do the 50p bit then), and then lease them back to the RAF for £2m/flying hour?:diablo: