Careers and Vampires.
DFCP,
I've no experience with the Vampire as a gun platform (didn't have any guns in them in 20 Sqdn !) so must defer to your superior knowledge. Yes, the Meteor was more of a projectile than an aircraft, wasn't it ?
Turmoil wasn't the word for the aircraft industry in the years immediately after the war. Anybody with a "B" licence, and who could scratch the money together to buy a war-surplus C-47 (refitted as a DC-3), set up in business as "Xxxxxxx Airlines", employing ex-RAF pilots. These would fly for peanuts or less just to keep their "B" licences (on which they'd blown all their gratuities) alive. (Maintenance ? - don't ask !)
But for every Freddie Laker who made it, a score of others went to the wall in short order; another hopeful would set up in the same DC-3 as "Yyyyyyy Airlines"; same again. It was a wonder that the poor old things could fly at all with the weight of paint on them. BEA or BOAC ? Dream on !
I came back on a 8+4 SSC, Boss put me up for a PC, AOC said "fine", C-in-C Fighter Command (AM Sir Basil Embry), took one look and found that, although I had gone to a rugby school, I didn't even play for the Station. Thumbs-down!
In all fairness, I must have been a dead duck from the start. A 30 yr old F/Lt with less than 2 yrs seniority was just what the Command didn't want. (I'd be about 36 before I came into the time frame for promotion, far too late).
You had to have a PC to get past S/Ldr ? You had to have a PC to get to S/Ldr ! Luckily for me, the "Limited Career" PC was introduced in '52. The deal was: "we'll keep you on for a pension, you'll not get past F/Lt".
This was at first open for entry only into the Aircraft and Fighter Control Branches; I put in for ATC - accepted. Then they extended it to "Pilot"; I switched - acceped again. CMB ploughed me for flying, opted back (are you following all this ?) - accepted.
Result: retired as F/Lt. with 23 yrs seniority in rank (can anyone beat that ?)
Cheers,
Danny.