Boing_737, yes, G-BNRG was repaired a while ago now and is as good as she ever was despite being almost written off by that cretin in the Il-76 who, having been told to stop by the marshaller due to his dangerously fast taxiing speed, proceeded then to firewall his engines when being parked in a petulant gesture. Barsteward caused over £40k worth of damage and their crooked insurance in Moscow refused to pay! In the end we were about £8k out of pocket...
RAF Flying Clubs may, at the discretion of the Club, accept up to 50% of their members as 'associates' - this includes plain vanilla civvies if there's a free slot. So the answer to your question is yes, you could join if you so chose. Of course there'd be a background security check due to the BZ Club's location on MoD property.
Some people manage to get through the course in about the minimum time - I've recently flown a Skill Test on an excellent pilot who had 45:10 hours by the end of the test! That was in Feb/Mar as well!!