Me? I'm ****e - that's why I'm not flying Harriers!
What, you mean this is a serious discussion thread, and not just a placeholder for Banter??
Oh, well, if you insist.....
Flying Pay is quite badly named, in my opinion. The concept behind it is the same as the concept for all Armed Forces remuneration - in that a representative pay rate for an 'equivalent' civilian job is considered, then the ubiqitous 'X-factor' is added to account for the exigencies of service life.
Except that, with Military aircrew, that formula was found to be lacking, since the 'equivalent' civilian job (which doesn't include using weapons or getting shot at) attracts a substantially higher salary. Coupled with the fact that the skills we are taught are easily transferrable to the civilian market, meant that some sort of recompense was in order if the Forces were not to lose one of their most expensive investments early in their carreers.
Hence Flying Pay is a RETENTION initiative - not a particularly good one, since airline salaries have long since overtaken what the govt can afford to pay. But that is the reasoning behind it, making it irrelevant whether you are on a front-line tour or desk-bound. You still have the skills and the flying hours to take with you, should you choose to do so.
16B