But those days were when we could afford high quality training. Nowadays, the students coming to the VC10 haven't even flown at BFTS - they've just flown the woefully inadequate 'MELIN' course on light ac and then the Jetstream. Hence the standard of ab-initio entrant has dropped further and further........
The 6 who did the 'experimental' BAeS Seneca course at Prestwick also did a lot of jet simulator training - and they have done very well. But they were a hand-picked group, not just an arbitrary selection, and they were trained by some very experienced ex-RAF pilots.
BAeS at Jerez-de-la-frontera would have very little difficulty in providing our ME OCUs with a far better product than the MELIN-lemons, but what we really need is a proper pre-AFT BFTS course for all RAF trainee pilots, not just those earmarked for the FJ world. Some non-streamed hours at UAS/EFTS followed by a core wings course on the Tucano followed by AFT. Rather like we did back in the 70s???
But of course there'll be the usual whine "We can't afford it.........." from the bean counters.