You are absolutely spot on. It is high time the RAF accepted that pilots, as a speciality, deserve to be suitably remunerated.
On a different thread I was saying how the package is actually pretty good. I stand by this, but not for everyone. I have been very fortunate and my personal package (oo er) has been very good up until now.
I joined in ‘99. I was fortunate enough to make Flt Lt one year after IOT ( the one advantage of a 4 year degree) and got flying pay shortly after that. I was also on AFPS 75 (now 75/15). I am PAS and I have also been lucky enough to enjoy a few other good deals along the way.
I guess I joined back when we valued pilots. Nowadays it feels like the whole ‘Officer first, pilot second’ mantra has been taken to extremes.
A FJ pilot currently spends longer in training than a Doctor (it took me over 5 years from starting IOT to being CR on the Jaguar so things haven’t changed that much). There are very specific skills expected of a pilot and it is a long old road. And a bloody expensive one.
There are those who will think I am just lodged up my own backside and with an overblown sense of my own self importance. It’s probably hard to argue but then consider what happens when all of us prima donnas leave. Who will do the flying then? OC Catering? OC PMS? The Ops O? Because right now they all earn the same as a first tourist Typhoon pilot.
So who should we worry about upsetting the most? The jealous few who think the pilots are all prima donnas or the expensively trained assets who operate our war machines?
Please note I am a FJ guy and will only ever speak for the FJ fraternity. Individuals from other fleets can speak for themselves.
BV