I'm not surprised morale is so high if you are looking forward to christmas leave, attended all your fantastic sqn social events, and have all next year planned out, both socially and professionally.
Back in the real world of military aviation, I am awaiting Op Deny Christmas, not sure what I am doing next week, let alone next year.
I wish we could all go to all our sqn socials, but with only 1 in 8 allowed leave (the only way to guarrantee the day off) and so many deployed crews on top of normal tasking, it will never happen.
My fleet has been at Op tempo since Afghanistan started, and no change is on the horizon. Flying in a high threat zone has become the norm, but we get no extra training than before as there is no money/time available. As previously stated, we receive pointless grunt training 'til it pops out of our eyeballs, but nothing of use to us operationally.
FJ and RW sqns depoy en mass, and do a pre deployment work-up. We just keep on sending the same guys again and again. Some ALM's do 6 months of every year in the desert, and as long as their pistol is ?zeroed?, they have been refused any kit by stores, and have spent a day recognising the symptoms of snakebites, they are good to go!
THAT is why exit levels are so high.
I will miss the people I work with, not the people I work for.
P.S. Glad life in the RN flying club is good though!