Fair comment FB - "assuming Helicopters in RAF service are not classed as frontline combat aircraft" - but I would suggest that 23 Chinook DFCs in Afghan, a triple DFC holder and the only CGC awarded to aircrew, ever, has started to change the narrative? You correctly suggest it has always seemed to be this way - maybe those attitudes are slowly changing? A friend who was in Recruiting at the time said that would-be pilots were split broadly 50/50 between Typhoon and Chinook over what they wanted to fly. As helicopters were flavour of the month, it was perhaps logical that Pully would take the role - he's also left behind a cohort of highly decorated and able RW players that will challenge for leading roles in the future. Notably, they're all following his lead in avoiding 1* and above positions in JHC…..
SASLess - quite right. There's an insightful book entitled "The Rise of the Fighter Generals" (available
here on PDF) which tells the tale of the rise and fall of the Bomber Mafia. A follow-up should look at the subsequent Tac Air / Fighter domination of the highest positions until the spat between Moseley and the Sec Def (Gates). Although publicly he quit over the Minot Nuke fiasco, it seems that Moseley's continual counter-briefing over F-22 numbers during the prolonged asymmetric campaigns it contributed little to, exasperated the political leadership (who were also eyeing lucrative contracts for the B-21 bomber). Sec Gates was advocating more SOC, more Tac Airlift and more ISR - and felt the fighter mafia were frustrating those efforts. Very pointedly, his successor, Gen Schwartz, was a Spec Ops C-130 / MH-53 pilot….