Professor Plum
What I was going to ask is does anyone know how to work out how the AFPS contributions made on my behalf compare to my lifetime limit? I just went off on a bit of a tangent....
I think you are asking what pension contributions you would need to make to get a similar work-place pension? If so, the Govt Actuaries Dept (GAD) believe that to be 63.5% of your basic Service pay. If you were asking how much you have notionally paid in for Life Time Allowance (LTA) then Service personnel get an annual statement with that on these days. However, if you have left then you could ask Equinity, who took over from HM Paymaster some years back, and they can tell you what your LTA amount is.
The one flaw I would pick in your calcs for the comparison is that at 63.5% of your basic pay, then the PAS Flt Lt on say £70k per year is actually getting a ‘package’ of ~£114.5k - as 63.5% of basic pay is ~£44.5k which is your notional pension contribution. Most Flt Lts that transfer to PAS at their 20/40 point, with the new RRP(F) in payment, will transfer to PAS Level 22 which is £70.5k. They will then go up each year as Flt Lts until PAS Level 30 which is currently £80k, which with the same pension amounts adds up to £130.8k. Now that isn’t that far off the sorts of numbers you have been talking for airline salaries. Honestly, if people are leaving the Services solely for pay reasons, unless they are able to take home more than £120-£150k a year, then they are really not thinking it through in my humble opinion. We haven’t even got to the other bits of the Armed Forces’ package yet either - cheap SFA, CEA education allowance, Home to Duty, free medical and dental, separation allowance, etc...etc...
Now if you want to sell your soul and live in the Middle East in a compound for a few years to get £200k+ per annum, then that is a totally different ball game. But they pay you that much for a reason!