Re: Terminology
'He was the pilot' - He would have been the Aircraft Commander, but you are correct that Captain is civilian term. The military did use the term Captain until sometime in the mid '00s when someone decided to change it. Made doing Captaincy training sorties confusing as Commandercy didn't sound right.
'The RAF was reputed to follow a strict no-blame policy where you could get away with murder as long as you owed up to it (and didn't make it too much of a habit).'
It's not a no-blame policy, it's known as a 'Just Culture' where honest mistakes aren't punished* so that lessons can be learnt. However deliberate failing, negligence etc. are still punishable. There's even a handy flowchart so you can decide what the outcome should be and be vaguely consistent.
More details in the Manual of Air Safety.
*although it's taken the Army a while to get onboard with that idea
Biting the hand that feeds IT
