Page 16 - Demo
P. 16


                                    16plan to show that the mission was, just, possible. Peacetime thinkingthen came into play at a meeting I held to determine the effectiveness of1000 lb bombs against the Port Stanley runway. Ken Hayr had somehowobtained the runway%u2019s specification from the British consulting engineerswho had built it. I showed these to the man from Farnborough, who hadpontificated to us for many years about weapon effectiveness, and askedfor his assessment in this particular case. Much to my disgust, to put itno higher, he refused on the grounds that he could not carry out the trialsnecessary for the formation of his opinion. Whoever did the work %u2013 HQStrike Command? HQ 1 Group? %u2013 seemed to have got it right.A more cheerful event was the discovery, and removal from theVC10 in the Museum at Duxford, of some engines that had quite a lot oflife remaining. And at the rate at which the VC10s were flying, weneeded every hour of that life. In a wider perspective, we quickly learnedthat the wartime rates of effort postulated in TSD 784 were rather belowthe rates we were experiencing.I am sure that I have overlooked many other capability enhancements.For that I apologise; perhaps they will be mentioned during thediscussion periods.The Committee held its last meeting on the day the war ended. I thinkit had fulfilled its purpose; but then I would say that, wouldn%u2019t I? But thepresence of my F6 friends meant that we could no longer work with thedispatch to which we had become accustomed.Some lessons are there to be learned. The innovative spirit,inventiveness and overall competence of our men and women was fullyused. We should never ignore these characteristics. A clear,unambiguous directive, and to be given the trust to achieve it withoutclose supervision, does wonders for morale and performance. The lessonabout the prevalence of the peacetime syndrome has, I believe, beenlearned by the Royal Air Force of today. Money is important, but is noteverything. Winning is.
                                
   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20