Pontius N:
I really must take issue. I was a contemporary of BEagle on the same UAS, when a RAFVR Cadet Pilot. (BEagle was an esteemed and well funded Cadetship chap!) Of my RAFVR colleagues around that time, nearly all of us ended up in professional flying, either BA or the RAF, and one became a very well known aviation Barrister. Of the whole intake, the attrition rate through the flying training system was, so far as I remember, quite minimal. Subsequently several of our number went on to be succesful operational pilots, QFIs, QHIS, QWIs etc and 3 of us graduated as tps. There were even a few 'Career Officers' that did rather well. I would not have been recruited to the RAF if it wasn't for UAS (though some might say that would have been a good thing!)
Glorified flying club? Amateurs? No training value? Sorry, not in our day; and having seen the pressures on my son when he was on a UAS more recently, things didn't change.
Incidentally, having been involved in BFTS/AFTS and conversion training now for 25 years inside and outwith the military, I heartily endorse BEagle's views on streaming, or the lack of it, on UAS. I went through UAS and 160 hours of JP flying before I was streamed and the benefit of that experience when hitting the Front Line has to be incalculable, particularly when the further through training the higher the costs.