Rude,
The Ginge at SHY at the moment is one of two who are actually changing to the LM brevet, it isn't the old one off tour deal. The FS in Q is a quality chap and simply decided to have a change, incidently I understand he came top of his LM cse at Cran. We both started this FE lark together in '90 and I'm pretty sure that he always really wanted to be an SH c'man. Unfortunately for him he had an engineering qual before going to OASC.
He will/has changed to the same pay deal as an FS c'man (he will mark time).
The chinny prospect is a proposal from the system, I'm sure it's subject to change. He would simply prefer to not fly on any bird that has an FE, so avoiding any conflict of ideoligy/abilities. As those ac that don't carry FE's have the LM's more involved with engineering type stuff, he is probably better placed there. We understand that the chinny world is also short of FSs so if all goes well, the chinny fits.
The guys who are doin the SAR thang right now are far from being the dross of their own spec, on the contrary, I can think of one guy in particular who was v experienced in spec and then did the SAR thing, he has also excelled there and we don't expect to see him rtn to the fold.
I personally don't subscribe to any of the inter specialisation naff coments, I believe we all play a small but important role in Trust me Tone's silly game. As for the future, we are all destined to be in the same corall, certainly from Apr '05 any new WSOp will eventually able to re-role subject to manning. As for some of the older guard it will be on a merit/manning only basis.
GB
Last edited by Ginger Beer; 18th Apr 2004 at 08:15.