the 617 guys, so that's the front line
squadron at Marham.
Will embark with 17 squadron operational testers.
If 617 can dip their toe in the water of
carrier aviation it will be incredibly useful.
If we can get a few of their pilots carrier qualified
that will be a good thing.
We've ultimately, we currently got about
two people in the
UK military
with experience of flying on to
our UK carriers.
And that's clearly not enough.
We ultimately need to get to the point
where all of the squadrons have all
of their pilots carrier qualified.
So the more we can do now we just gotta start
we start growing that capability
that carter of pilots who are carrier qualified.
So I would've thought 617 will send
a couple of their guys
out with 17 and just start building
building the capability.
Because we as testers we're gonna step back now
and just let them do their thing.
And hopefully we've provided them with
a safe envelope, but also
a wide envelope
with which they can operate with immunity
to mother nature and other tactical constraints
that come their way when they're at sea.
That's the whole point of a test pilot
and a test team, is to
provide
as wide an envelope as possible.
That they will stay safe within.
And then we step back and I'm pretty confident
that we've done a good job and we've
given them a really good capability.
The capability is actually far greater than
the harrier ever had when it comes
to landing and launching from a carrier at sea.
If you look at a piece of paper it is
significantly bigger with the F-35
than the harrier ever was.
