Sharkey Ward

If you have read 'Sea Harrier Over The Falklands' you know what to expect. A good, opinionated, humorous and self deprecating story. Well the first two thirds of the book anyway. He tells of his Royal Navy career from Dartmouth to retirement, and he certainly can tell a story or two, often against himself, although the Top Gun is pushed a little too much. His story of meeting Her Majesty (p.143) is a highlight!
But Ward has an axe to grind, which he does at length in the last part of the book. To say he is not a supporter of the RAF would be to put it mildly. However, the points he makes are well made, backed up with data and supporting opinions.
I am still in shock that the first embarked F-35 squadron on the new RN carriers was the RAF's 617 Squadron! What arrogance! This must have happened after the book had been completed as Ward does not mention it...
All in all, a good, thought provoking read. But with more memoir and less axe grinding I would have given it another star.… (altro)

This is an extraordinary book. A highly successful fixed-wing naval aviator in Britain's Fleet Air Arm, most notably when commanding 801 Naval Air Squadron during the Falklands War, 1982, Commander 'Sharkey' Ward left the Royal Navy rather disillusioned by the lack of interest on the Naval Staff in Whitehall in carrier-borne naval aviation, The first part of the book is an autobiography of his time at school, under general training in the Royal Navy and his training and operational tours as a naval aviator, becoming a 'Top Gun'. In the second half of the book he describes the decline of the Royal Navy and the 'enemy within' the corridors of power in Whitehall. A proponent of fixed-wing naval aviation, not surprisingly, he shows how the Royal Air Force has tried to undermine naval aviation yet also how much of what the RAF has 'achieved' in its one hundred years of existence could not have been achieved without the support of the Royal Navy and its aircraft carriers. He exposes a number of myths and untruths in defence aviation. Highly successful and very outspoken, he tells it as it is - let's hope, rather, as it was. Like his style or not, like naval aviation or not, all those who serve in the Royal Navy and RAF at the level of Lieutenant Commander or Squadron Leader and above should read this book - there are lessons to learn.

Another simple lesson that is made clear is that the RAF has spent tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money and the return is most certainly that the British taxpayer does not get very much bang for its buck insofar as the Royal Air Force is concerned. Despite the RAF's PR Squadron telling anyone and everyone that, since 1979, its Tornado and Typhoon combat jets have been a great success, the achievements and operational availability of these two aircraft types are highly unimpressive. Depending how one presents the figures, for the 280+ Tornado aircraft the program cost the MoD at least some £47 billion (between 1979 and 2019) and, for the 160 Typhoon aircraft (1998 to date), the program cost thus far (c.2020) is also £47 billion - that's a total of £94 billion on two aircraft types that detailed analysis in this book shows to be not at all good value for money, although the RAF would argue otherwise (but, of course, operations don't lie, though the money men can massage the figures for costs and flying hours). The very much more successful Harrier and Sea Harrier program cost some £7.4 billion for the 190 aircraft operated between 1979 and 2010, yet the RAF advised the government to withdraw the last of the Harrier type in 2010, requiring the paying off of the then only aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal.

£94 billions for the program costs of combat jets that have underperformed for the RAF compared to £7.4 billion for the Harrier and Sea Harrier program. Even generously rounding the figures to favour the RAF, that's £70bn that could have been spent elsewhere - more Sea Harriers and more aircraft carriers and ships would have been useful! Ministers and senior RAF officers have a lot to answer for - taxpayers should be asking questions even today, especially as they see yet another season of RAF flying displays!… (altro)