What has happened to the training system? Nine years to Valley, WTFO? I started on my first Jag sqn 30 months after starting IOT...
As for calling the instructors mate - I blame the Brüggen Jag ‘mates’ - some of them couldn’t remember their own names never mind anyone else’s; hence everyone was ‘mate’. Might even have been Andy S who started it all!
The F35 looks quite a good piece of kit but I thought that, as the iPod generation jet, only those under 30 would be able to operate it effectively. Most of the candidates have about a year’s productive service before they will have to move on ��. Hopefully the designers have taken into account Putin’s EMP weapon (I believe I saw the glow over space city in Khazakstan many 100s of miles south of my track one dark night).