For what it’s worth, perhaps only for interest sake only, a significant number of RAAF leadership past and present have owned and operated their own aircraft. Binskin (previous Chief of Defence Force) and Skidmore (previous Air Commander Australia) own a Birddog and CT-4 respectively. Plenty of GA flying clubs on RAAF bases, with flying lessons, aircraft hire etc, they’re even open to civilian membership. RAAF sponsorship of the cadets, paying for their brand new Diamond DA40’s, and paying for the gas, exposing literally thousands of young kids to flying with FREE trial instructional flights; I can tell you right now the vast majority won’t become RAAF (hopefully some do). There’s even a substantial number of RAAF drivers volunteering their time to fly them (for no pay), spending weekends away from home in a job where I’m already away a lot of the time, going to regional locations to take people flying to give them “the bug.”
All of these things seem to indicate it isn’t that bad Sunfish.