Beagle,
well you've been closer than I, but I expect even Sharkey Ward can spell.
The R.N. is still full of B.S. procedures, and anyone mentioning it seems to get ousted - Sandy Woodward's own book '100 days' hardly shows an aircraft minded person ( I have met him & he seemed a charming chap, but switched off when I mentioned I'd worked with Sea Harriers, that was in about 1995 ).
As for being air-sick as someone mentioned, I'd have thought it common knowledge that tolerance builds up & reduces according to the amount of vigourous flying one does; I got to the stage where I was pretty 'bullet-proof' in a light aircraft, but after a break then being strapped into G-Hawk I was not well at all - didn't actually heave but close to it.
Seems to me from the outside ( just, I was involved in a mild way from UK during the Falklands ) Sharkey was the right man in the right place at the right time - I worked with someone who had been his wingman who seemed to think so.
Not everyone wants to brown-nose their way to ship driving...