Hello mate - good to see you on the forum again...
The best time to PVR (so I am told) is when you are in the last 6 months of a job - that way you don't give MCM too much hassle in finding a replacement for you as they would be about to do that anyway. The 12 months is not always rigorously enforced and sometimes they will let you go early particularly if you have a firm job offer and start date as they tend to view things pragmatically.
On the other hand remember that it is MCM's job to keep you in, so the manning situation could force their hand to do otherwise if you are unlucky.
Don't forget that if you wait until 9 years from your 21st birthday you can leave with £9000-ish and a pension at 60 yrs old, although if I remember rightly you would have a few years to push out yet.
Of course as you are only too well aware, this discussion would not even be required if there was a specialist-type aircrew career path for officers in the AAC. You, like many others I suspect would be only too happy to give up future promotion prospects if left to do the job you are trained to do, the job that needs to be done, and done by a professional - not some amateur flying-tour once-in-a-blue-moon-OC-carried-by-the-QHI-on-exercise-not-enough-hours-or-experience-thru-no-fault-of-his-own-blame-an-antiquated-and-inflexible-system-type of guy.
JCSC is crap, I was in your position a few years ago, but it is not as crap now as it was then. The joint services college in Shriv is v.comfortable and you can even drive your motorbike into the marble atrium whilst drunkenly spouting verbal abuse
- alledgedly.
It is a pain when you're there, but it does pass - people said it to me when I dreaded going but they were right.
Sadly a desk job does arrive afterwards, rather unnecessarily for a would-be professional aviator. Some are worse than others and I am pretty lucky with mine. My advice is to at least give it a go first unless it is adjutant or some clerk's job like that (sorry I meant to say "Valuable career enhancing senior captain future CO's post")
Here's what would help. Does anyone know if there is a change imminent for AAC officers that will allow them to become specialists?
It there is, I bet it would keep my old buddy Empire One, myself and a few others in a fine Corps in need of exactly this type of reform.
Does anyone know if changes are afoot?
Or shall we muddle on through and lose a lot of people as usual.
Good luck EO!!
------------------
Christopher Robin