Fast Jet Q

[Stan Woolley]

In the 70's and 80's how many wannabees started out trying for Fast Jet places?

What was the highest prize?

Brag away ! :ok:

[kintyred]

Joined in 83....wanted Harriers, filled too many sickbags so they sent me helos. A simply awesome 30 years followed....made me feel sorry for the rest! Nothing could have provided the variety I had on the Chinny. Took many FJ mates flying and they were all blown away by the machine. Only rotary aircrew will really understand where I'm coming from but nothing beats a full day's tasking, preferably in the Falklands (!) or a multi ship deliberate op in Afghan.
One day I asked the Herc det DA if it was possible to do an airdrop resupply to Sangin.
'No way,' says he, 'too vulnerable at 2000' and 180kts.'
'OK,' says I, 'we'll just carry on landing there.'
OK, it wasn't Vietnam but it was the best military flying the last 30 years had to offer!
(Read Low Level Hell by Hugh L Mills and then ask yourself what sort of read your own military flying career would make!)

[Stan Woolley]

Great stuff guys but how many people started the process ? I'm interested in the fact that you were the one out of x starting the process.

Can you take a guess what x might be ? Taking into account every possible place where people could get chopped.

Thanks

[rolling20]

Looks like one for Courtney.....He has a great insight into it online.

[Courtney Mil]

I started on 24 course at Linton in 1977. Out of my course and the equivalent at Cranwell I think I was the only one that made it all the way through to the fast jet front line, for one reason or another. The rest mostly ended up on heavies, Vulcan, Canberra, one or two rotary, some went Nav, a couple left altogether.

Thank you, rolling20.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Pre-selection: Of the 10 or so boys who talked about becoming fighter pilots in my school CCF, and had the education and other pre-requisites, I was the only one who actually applied. This at a school where 10% joining the Services each year was normal, and we had masters who had fought in WW2 in all 3 Services (a Spitfire pilot, a Destroyer Lieutenant, and a Paratrooper Sergeant who'd been on the Bridge at Arnhem; our CCF RSM was the ex-RSM of the Scots Guards, so boys knew what they'd be getting into). From dim memory, most decided not to apply because they didn't rate their chances of passing, and about a quarter because they thought they'd get killed.
I think 2 joined the Navy, 1 Royal Marine, 6 Army, and me.
Officer & Aircrew Selection. For Part 1 (Meds, interviews), I remember mine was the 39th name read out for each little bit. For progress to Part 2 (Leadership tests), my name was the 8th, which quite shocked me at the time. I don't know who passed Part 2, but I reckon at least 3/10 of my flight were failures on their leads.
On the UAS, I knew 8 aircrew on Cadetships in the years around me. Six Pilots: 4 made FJ pilot, 1 multi pilot, 1 continued his medical degree at the RAF's advice, and eventually became a civilian surgeon. The 2 navs became 1 FJ and 1 ME.
One guy applied 5 times to be a pilot (The maximum possible, starting at age 17 with a year enforced between each). He was accepted on the last attempt,and eventually made FJ pilot - never give in!
On Initial Officer Training, I think there were 14 baby pilots. One, nicknamed Mad Dog, failed the EEG; it turned out he was actually mad. All passed IOT first time.
Graduate Short Course BFTS (all at least 100 hrs UAS Bulldog). From my course of 10, one was chopped (eventually became a FJ Nav), two streamed Multi-engine (one of whom always wanted Multi), and seven progressed to FJ Advanced. Six passed AFTS and all made it to FJ front line, the other was restreamed Multi. All the Multis made it to Squadron service. 3/12 failed AFTS (some others joined our BFTS survivors), all 3 went ME (I think 2 Canberra and 1 Herc). I vividly recall the third one being chopped, as that left me being the worst guy left.
No one failed my Tac Weapons, and having come last at AFTS I came top here. It was extremely difficult to predict how most of a course would do, no matter what had happened before. One pilot failed OCU (out of 7). One Nav failed Squadron workup (out of 7 ab-initio).
I think these stats are typical for the early/mid '80s, except BFTS. 10 Front line aircrew out of 10 was very rare, 6 FJ pilots, 3 ME pilots (2 Nimrod, 1 Herc), 1 FJ Nav. Most BFTS courses were not Graduate Short Course though. I remember the next Direct Entry BFTS course started with 14 students, and by BHT was down to 1 student (who then went all the way to FJ).

[Dan Winterland]

Very similar era to Fox3 - in fact we were at BFTS at the same time, different Sqns though.

OASC - three got in out of 36 for pilot training. One FJ, one ME, (me!) and one ended up as a Nav.

EFTS - 8 out of 9 passed. The one failure left the RAF.

BFTS - out of 16, eventually 4 FJ (1 Jag, one F4, one F3, one GR1); 5 ME (2 C130, 1 VC10, 1 Victor, 1 Andover); 4 Rotary (2 Chinook, 1 Wessex, 1 Sea King); 2 Chopped (1 Nav and one PI), 1 VW.

METS - 8 on course - all passed. (No one fails METS!) 4 C130, 2 Victor, 1 Nimrod, 1 Dominie.

Thirty years later, 3 of my BFTS course are still in the RAF. The Nav, one rotary and one FJ - who is now an Air Cdre. The remaining pilots who are still flying are spread around VS, BA, CX and Thomas Cook.

[Pontius Navigator]

Can't rate "out of" but in late 80s we got a fair number of pilots 're boarded for NAv. My course had 5 out of 7 restreamed. Only one of 5 qualified as nav and he didn't make FJ.

Of the two navs, both qualified. Last I heard one was an Air Cdre and the other capt and both had got FJ.

[Hempy]

If the RAF is anything like the RAAF, if you mentioned it you had no chance.

[rolling20]

Pleasure Courtney.

[Stan Woolley]

Thanks that's very interesting. I thought that the FJ people would have some sort of figure that had become a kind of folklore. Like one in five hundred or such.

Thanks very much, I'm writing something and the question arose. Any others would be welcome ?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I don't recall any mention at all of the statistics at the time; no-one knew or cared. The only thing of any interest was how you personally could get better to pass the next trip. If you could help a course mate do that too, you did. You got chopped up to end of BFTS because you weren't learning fast enough. You got chopped after that to stop you killing yourself (and maybe others). I remember looking at the course photos on arrival at Valley, and as well as the little chinagraphed axes showing who'd been chopped (familiar fromBFTS), some had little halos over their heads. Then on our first day on the flying Squadron a stude crashed on landing just next to us, and we looked out the window to see the flaming wreckage cartwheeling across the airfield. He ejected, and I think was flying again 3 days later. It didn't do to dwell on statistics.

[Pontius Navigator]

Fox, the logic was the same at NAv School. The first hurdle was on just the 6th trip; that was where learning rate ramped up. The final check ride had a not dissimilar role to killing yourself as you could navigate into cumulo granite.

On pilot recruitment, and indeed almost all aircrew, you were assessed on potential for FJ. If you were suitable only for ME and not FJ then you were not accepted.

[Background Noise]

Out of 8 on my Flying selection Course, 4 ended up as pilots (all FJ as it happens), 3 were streamed Nav (of which 2 were selected for other duties) and one was chopped at BFTS (and left).

[Wander00]

ISTR that my (not very distinguished) Entry at the Towers all graduated in the Branch and specialisation in which they started, except for one guy, who graduated as a secretary and was asked at his commissioning medical why he had not opted for pilot. His reply was that his selection medical had deemed him unfit for pilot. "Don't know why", said the doc. "Nothing wrong with you". He went to GD/P training and became a distinguished rotary pilot - you still out there B...H..?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I recall one Kiwi-born guy who entered our IOT course as Engineer, having been told by the recruiter (I think in New Zealand) that a change of Branch would be easy once he was in. He discovered otherwise. Undeterred, he had a thousand little gold stickers printed with "About my change of Branch, Sir" on them (nothing else). Within a couple of months, these stickers started appearing all over the planet - Hong Kong, Spain, San Diego, etc. He was getting Transport crews and guys on holiday to distribute them. After about 6 months, even 3*s were asking what was going on. He got his change of Branch.

[PARALLEL TRACK]

It is about time we had a bit of thread drift.

NCA Course - AAITC had 15 starters, only 8 made to the main school, of which only 3 strode across the stage to get their brevet whilst still on that course number (2 AEOp, one Flt Eng). No LMs on the course att.

Nav Course - IOT only had 4 starters, only 2 made it to the main school. There upon an uplift of 3 guys from re-course/back-course and a bunch of chopped pilots so started with 15 on Nav Cse. Only 3 made it to FJ initially and 2 to ME but there were quite a few came through on later iterations. The last Victor posting, yes C***y it was you! Interesting time for postings as we only just missed the last FJ streaming to the Shack.

Before anybody asks I made it through first time on both by the skin of my teeth - hurrah!

[Pontius Navigator]

Stan, you could always try an FOI request. In the 80s at least there were training sub-committees that monitored ab initio from IOT through the FTS and then OCU through to Combat Ready. Also, unknown to many, they monitored aircrew 're-roling from one type to another again through refresher, OCU and combat ready or equivalent.

There was one nav posted to Andovers for a sqn conversion. He called them up, told them what time he could start on the Monday and when he had to finish on a Friday. Curiously I don't believe he passed.

[ACW418]

It was not always what you wanted but what the RAF wanted. 18 of us completed our AFTS course in mid 1964 of which 1 got Hunters, 2 got Canberras and the rest got V Force.

Actually I never bothered with ambition - I just wanted to be an RAF pilot and was happy to pass!

ACW

[Peter Carter]

Of the nine of us who started on 11 Cse at Linton in 1970, one went to Ternhill, four to Oakington and four to Valley.

[EightyBob]

While I was going through the mill in 1979 we were visited by some of those nice selectors from Biggin Hill. One of them told me that the stats from the year I first applied (1974) was that for every 8000 who filled in the application form in the glossy magazines only one would make it through to FJ - which I thought sounded pretty harsh. From my own experience, of all the guys I met at Biggin Hill I only recognised one at Henlow and he was chopped. I guess some will have made it through, on the other officer creation scheme - so entry into the sausage machine, from OASC, was pretty hard and (judging by the other posts) numbers were whittled down pretty quickly thereafter. Maybe 1 in 8000 wasn't too far fetched after all.

[Ali Qadoo]

Stan, I think what the replies to this thread show is that although - with access to the data - you could come up with a figure for the 'chop rate' at each stage of training over the years, it would be misleading to do so. Some courses just seemed to sail through whereas others, like the one filmed for the 'Fighter Pilot' documentary in the 1980s, didn't.

To give you an example, there were 6 pilots on my UAS entry. Of those, 2 VW-ed, 1 was chopped (changed to the engineering branch) and 3 of us got through. One of those who got through wasn't quite up to Cranwell entry standard and was put on a long JP course. Sadly, he was killed when he became disorientated in cloud and crashed shortly after take-off from Leuchars. That only 2 out of 6 pilots even made it from a UAS entry to the end of BFT is extremely rare. However, on my BFTS course - all fellow Green-Shielders - everyone got through, most to fast-jets, 2 went rotary and 3 to multis.

Fast forward a bit and after 4 years on the F-4 I ended up instructing at Chivenor (happy days!). The number of studes failing to get a fast-jet posting at the end of the TWU course had always been very low, but then suddenly everything changed. The reasons were never entirely clear, although rumour had it that someone fairly high up the food-chain at Valley had the career light on and was passing on his 'training risks' to the TWUs to massage the stats in his own favour. The result was that we suddenly ended up with some courses losing over half their numbers and in one extreme case, a lad who'd 'passed' the Valley course was so awful, he couldn't get through the first GH trip despite multiple re-rides. So in very short order, Chivenor became a course to be feared and the first thing studes did on arrival was to ask us about the chop rate. However hard we tried to explain that we wanted everyone to pass and there was no such thing as a 'chop rate', the taint of being part of the 'Graduate Exit Scheme' never entirely went away.

As for the 'highest prize', when I went through the system, the Harrier was seen as the most prestigious posting. There were only 3 Harrier sqns and so for many TWU courses, ours among them, there were no Harrier OCU slots available (lots of Jag slots with RAFG and Colt still going). However, as other posters on here have mentioned, being an RAF pilot was great fun whatever you flew. To give you an example, one of my mates from training days lost his FJ medical cat and ended up on the Hercules. I asked him whether he missed flying the Jag (that'll give his name away to the Alberteers on here!) and he said, "Yeah, sometimes, but then I just remember that I'm doing 300kts TAS towards the next party." I think that sums it up rather well.

[Pontius Navigator]

then suddenly everything changed. The reasons were never entirely clear, although rumour had it that someone fairly high up the food-chain at Valley had the career light on and was passing on his 'training risks

Much the same at Nav School with too many reflies so over budget and OCANS asked by TC to explain. His next job was with BAE.

[Onceapilot]

Well, whatever the aims of the training system, there has always been the effect of "supply and demand" on the chop rate.:oh:

OAP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I have no doubt the RAF were desperate for 'bums in seats' for me to get CR. However, as my Squadron Boss said at the arrival interview "I don't care if you are lucky or good, but you must always be one of the two."

-5i1cJIwE7M

[Onceapilot]

F3monkey: Ha! Thought that was going to be the bit where he fell into the spaceship and relived my first solo in the Hawk!:D

OAP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I was looking for that, but couldn't find it quickly - stick it up if you can find it.:ok:

Mate: "So, you made it back?"
Fox3: "I'll take your word for it. I don't think my brain has left the ground yet."

[Stan Woolley]

Thanks Ali

It's not a big deal really, it just got me thinking.

I really believe that a lot of things seem to be predestined.