scotia wrote: [i[When
the Prime Minister learned that, in 1952 alone, the RAF had lost no
fewer than 232 fighter aircraft and 141 pilots (ninety four of whom
had died in Meteors, forty in Vampires and seven in Hornets), which
represented a one-in-sixteen chance of a pilot’s being killed within an
eighteen-month period, he wanted to know what was being done about
it. Having studied the problem, the Air Minister advised Mr Churchill
that these figures ‘are not abnormal and there is no cause for alarm.’
[/i]
The trouble was that those who died couldn't tell them what the trouble was.
TJH