RAF Gunners welcomed home from Helmand

The latest lot of RAF Regiment gunners have returned from Helmand and we are relieved and proud to see them back.  Read more…Ministry of Defence | Defence News | History and Honour | RAF Gunners welcomed home from Helmand

One of the accompanying photos is captioned “The Mayor of St Edmundsbury, Councillor Ian Houlder, and Officer Commanding 1 Squadron RAF Regiment, Squadron Leader Dave Crook, take the salute”

Now SQNLDR Crook must have had a good deployment because he has apparently been promoted to Group Captain as you can see from the photograph:

 

It’s a real pity (and a bit worrying) that the truth makers at the MoD don’t know their badges of rank and can’t tell a Group Captain from a Squadron Leader!

The Life Guard and the RAF

It seems that former Life Guard and international crooner James Blunt had a bad experience trying to get to a morale boosting concert in Afghanistan.

On the face of it everything that could go wrong at the hands of the RAF did and the concert had to be cancelled.

As  former air force officer (in my case the RAAF) it really hurts to hear these tales of woe.  Being a fighter jock is great and glamorous but the real projection of strategic power in the sorts of conflicts we chose to fight these days can only be achieved by the so called “trash haulers”.  But it appears that they aren’t very good at it.  A big size 12 boot up the arse is definitely required here.

Rivet Joint morphs into Air Seeker

 

At last the coalition seem to have taken a sensible procurement decision to forgo “Made in Britain” kit and acquire three US RC-135 W Rivet Joint aircraft for the joint electronic intelligence role.  These will replace the ageing Nimrod R1s.

This will provide four advantages over the Nimrod:

• The RC-135 airframe is mature robust and virtually indestructible having been developed from the evergreen KC-135 tanker which is still in front line USAF service.
• The RAF will now have full interoperability with the US, unlike the Nimrod
• There will be three of them rather than only two Nimrods
• They're available now

Lets hope that the Government and its recently appointed new head of MoD procurement will will take lots more sensible defence procurement decisions rather than buying only British kit (because it keeps British jobs) like the previous and utterly incompetent government.