Claudel, I think everyone on here accepts that the AC perform these tasks well, and the wider military perform the other tasks mentioned in that article well also. They are operations that they carry out virtually day-in day-out, so they ought to be good at them, and they are.
But air ambulance, and possibly HEMS, are civvie ops in most countries. And civvie operators tend to give better value for money across these spheres. "Value for Money" as the thread is called, is intended to ask about value for money in the military operations sphere. On a day-to-day basis aircraft of 3, or at a push 4 types may be used in these 'civvie' roles, and also 3 or 4 aircraft out of the fleet, or about 16% of the fleet maximum.
I am much more interested in debating the value for money of the rest of the fleet, the 84% of airframes which are theoretically there to provide a military role for the Defence Forces as a whole. And the State. On a cost V benefit analysis it seems to me to be very poor value indeed. Mainly down to the AC management thmselves. I am open to someone making a case that I am very wrong, but it hasn't been made in this thread so far.
