When I got my wings at Swinderby in August 1957 things started to go very wrong. I was very pleased with my Hunter posting, which meant holding at Valley where Royal Naval Pilots were trained. After a couple of months filling in time with the odd Vampire trip my Hunter course was cancelled due to the Duncan Sandys axe and I was posted to Dishforth as a UT Hastings 2nd pilot. I learned how to raise the flaps and undercarriage and do the odd job, but never learned to fly the aeroplane. Three months later I was posted to 99 Sqn as a second pilot. It was a soul destroying job, with the only sanity being we had to do 100 hours per year 1st pilot to keep our flying pay! For this we had an Anson and two Chipmunks to play with. The second pilots on Comet 2s had a pair of Meteor 7s to do the same thing. I managed to get the job of OIC of our three aircraft, which kept me sane.
When everybody on 99 were posted to Colerne in January 1959 and Britannia pilots were posted in I was posted to the Middle East on Twin Pioneers three months later, thanks I think to the high number of hours accumulated on the Anson.