As with civilian jobs, all ground branches have their pros and cons. If you wish to progress professionally, both in rank and through promotion then their will be certain jobs that you will have to do to build up your professional portfolio. Some of these you will find interesting and rewarding and others less so but just as important to the RAF and your career aspirations.
If I had my time again that I would definitely take a longer look at becoming a Supply Officer. The range of roles is impressively wide, whether in the UK working at an MOB or in a deployable role such as 2 MT Sqn or TSW or UKMAMS. I have seen suppliers on a number of different operations in many of their various guises and fully appreciate the pivotal role they play. Without timely delivery of J4 assets any Op will grind to a halt.
Now, as an Ops O myself allow me to turn to the part of this thread pertaining to my own specialisation; the quality and ability of the Flt Ops Officer. As with any walk of life we are a mix of abilities; some good, some bad and most of us somewhere in the middle. The other point to be made is that the cadre of personnel recruited from other part of the RAF into the specialisation on it’s formation in 1997 has changed and that DEs are increasingly the norm. As a consequence it is incumbent on us all, as we should do with any inexperienced service person, to assist in their personal and professional development rather than simply disparage what may well be their best effort. That’s not to say that you don’t give a telling off if it is deserved but make your judgement in the context of that individual’s training and experience.
Many of the complaints levelled at the quality of personnel within the Flt Ops specialisation have, in the past, been warranted. In the main this was due to the need to remove GD personnel from the Ops Room in order to get them airborne and attempt to redress the manning imbalance. Now that professional Ops Os are gaining experience then I believe that the quality of both the individual and the job that we are doing is improving dramatically. However, we have no reason to be complacent.
My personal axe to grind is the lack of standardisation. Once an Ops O (and other ground branch specialisations) is in productive service then the only comment made on their ability is in their OJAR and that may be more concerned with their performance as OIC Mother and Toddlers club than their in their primary role. We all have job specs, TORs and the competencies for each specialisation are all laid down. Surely it cannot be beyond the wit of man to introduce some form of standards regime. Ops Os in operational posts (such as stn ops or on a sqn) and whose performance directly impacts upon flying operations should be checked out and their competence assessed. I for one would welcome it, a STANEVAL style ground cat of professional knowledge could be a starting point. Thoughts on that anyone?
I do take exception to the “Aircrew in Ops Room = Good, Ops O = Bad” argument. As I have said on this forum before, if we are not doing something right, tell us to our faces and as professionals we will learn and move on.