Pontious,
You remind me of the staff that British Airways post as keepers of the gates at the airport lounges all itching to get the satisfaction of saying no
In the early eighties I did a TA direct entry officer course which consisted two weeks basic, two weekends a month for six months, a two week battle camp in Otterburn and two weeks at Victory College, Sandhurst (all while doing a normal day job)
A couple of years later, I did IOT 85, started off in the first phase by going out on the lash in Sleaford
almost every night 
I can confirm that even a TA infantry officers basic training is significantly more arduous than dicking around Thetford forest with a couple of anaemic pine poles. On my flight we had a transitioning to RAF Officer from Army WO helo pilot in his late thirties with buckets more hands on leadership skills than most of the Cranwell Flight Commanders. He walked everything half asleep, but was forced to stoically endure R squadron because the staff "didn't like his attitude", or maybe they didn't like the fact that he was entitled to wear RAF wings on his cadet uniform, and in most cases the educators, stackers and techies filling many of the Flight Commander slots, with a lot of experience leading the way to NAAFI tea break didn't have them at all
In any case as our Canadian friend has expressed, you don't get many pine poles in a cockpit.
What if a number of civilian multi engine airline pilots, want to enter as specialist aircrew, to fly C130, Nimrod, Helo etc, leaving the young hot shots to tear around in the high G environment. With minimal transition, focusing on tactical flying skills, shoudn't this be of tremedous help to the RAF and the country, if the rumours of mass departures from the RAF in this forum are to be believed.
There is no doubt in my mind that we may be facing the biggest conflagration since the second world war, and like that one, it is creeping up on us, with the audience screaming "look out behind you !!!!!!"
A bit of lateral thinking about how to keep our armed forces in business in difficult time, might well be a damned good thing.