No problem with the pickiness, golfbananajam - I should have known better. Just because something is habitual doesn't make it right; cf the change from "overshoot" to "go around" that so many mil colleagues seemed to struggle with for decades. Shoving an 's' on the end of something to abbreviate a full phrase is just lazy - ask the residents of various island groups around the UK how they like their homes to be referred to as Scillies, Orkneys or Shetlands. I was still reviewing CAP413 up to the end, and was delighted to learn from one of the very competent trainees going through qualification at Bristol that I had been referring to a VRP to the NW by entirely the wrong name; teaching is often a 2-way process.
I count myself as being very lucky to have gone straight onto the JP - if I'd had to cope with tailwheels, tandem seating and 3 different controls just to make the aircraft go forward (throttle, mixture and prop pitch) I doubt I'd have made it past the first hurdle. Rotary was very much a forward move and a natural progression; the low-flying part of the JP course was by far the most enjoyable, and on Wessex, Hueys/AB205s, Chinooks and B212s we worked with the smartest weapons in the inventory. The money may be better in the aluminium-tube world, but I was lucky enough to wake up each work-day morning and actually look forward to my flying (autopilots aren't much use at 30 feet, although auto-trim does ease the workload on the coolie-hat thumb).
My thanks again.