"That makes a total of 20 pilots by July next year to man two squadrons with a nominal total of 9 a/c each. A pathetic state of affairs."
I was always astonished that the JFH migrated to a 50:50 RAF:RN force, when the RAF Harrier force had had three big (12-16 aircraft) squadrons while the RN had consisted of two eight aircraft units. With the number of RAF Harrier pilots also including a fairly significant number of blokes on exchange, or in instructor posts, or with the Reds, and with an apparent retention problem among dark blues required to transfer to Cottesmore (who can blame them?) it always seemed that a combined force would sensibly have been 2/3 (or even 3/4) light blue, and that to try to make it 50:50 would be a mistake, and might require much larger numbers of RN students to be converted to the Harrier.
But all of that is based on impressions, and I'm interested how accurate those impressions were.
When the RN last had two frontline squadrons of SHARS, how many combat ready dark blue pilots did they bring to the table (eg excluding RAF exchange blokes, but including RN instructors on 899 who had previously been combat ready on the SHar)?
And how many pilots did the RAF Harrier force have (including any light blues on exchange with 800/801/899, and including 20R's instructors)?
Since then, how many RN and how many RAF pilots have been outputted from 20 (Reserve)?