With such thread drift my tale is another along these lines.
When I was interviewed for the RAF the question was inevitably asked, 'if we give you a pilot selection, what would you want to fly'. When I naturally answered helicopters the panel just about fell off their chairs, no-one in 1967 wanted to be a helicopter driver!
I did explain how much better it was than running up and down runways to get airborne, but they used my eyesight as an excuse to offer me a ground job anyway. Fortunately by an enormous set of coincidences I discovered the RN accepted helicopter pilots with 6/18 eyesight and got into Dartmouth that way. Two weeks after joining I was shown a DCI upping the eyesight standard for rotary wing drivers; they closed the loophole after my medical highlighted it. The Surgeon Commander had never heard of it before and had been rejecting applicants accordingly!