Ah ha MAD boom - fell right into the trap. As you say in your post you wouldn't want to be an officer because they "write to many reports". Yes, an officers career has a broader width of responsibilities than your apparently similar airborne duties and that quite rightly is rewarded. As to the comment that SNCO's run the air force - wrong! Snco's of all trades (and don't get me wrong, many are a fine bunch)carry out the wishes of their officers - yes it wouldn't run without them but the same could be said of any rank. I never thought that I should be payed as much as an officer senior to me even though we were doing essentially the same job - why should I, that's not the way it is in a rank based structure. Unfortunately you all seem to be masters of whingeing on an anonymous forum whereas myself and mates like me did something when we thought conditions were unfair. We used the skills we had and spent a good deal of time and money to make them useable in the outside world, then went and got a job. If you're unhappy why don't you do the same - oh hang on, I forgot. The job you do is done in a modern cockpit by a computer the size of a casio watch and there's not much call in the civvie world for someone who's an absolute wizard with lashing tape. So why don't you all realise that you are very well paid, with an excellent pension and most of you don't have too many transferable skills, so get on with it or leave. I hear Burger King are opening 250 resturants in the next 2 years!