Not really sure what to say. I know that this subject is close to mine and Max's hearts as we both got our Wings and sooooo close to a full career on the wokka (although fair dues Max you got to the Sqn - I didn't
)
Anything I could say about waste of money...not entitled to wings...bad
PR for the RAF...etc would just be jealousy as I wish I was back in the cockpit. (Which is, let us remind ourselves, probably the last place in which you will ever find Wills again in his life as he embarks upon a career of being Heir and ultimately King and all the foreign diplomacy horse$hit and grip n' grin photo ops that he can handle.)
Sure we had jollies, but they were on the back of authorised convex sorties (Nice...Souda Bay anyone?!). This mountain-out-of-a-molehill is exactly what Stopstart says it is in the post above: the crew got training; the sortie would have been flown in one way or another; it could have been to Blackpool but as it happens it was to Bembridge; Wills is an Officer, a Prince, and the future King to boot. (Or are all the critics living in the 1650s?)
Endex - back to my mahogany wokka.