For what it's worth, I left last month and am now enjoying my 'retirement'.
Why did I leave?
I'd never fly again after this tour although I said in my resignation letter that if I transferred to the RAF I could take a drop in rank, keep the same (or better pay) and continue to fly; if that option was available to me in the AAC I would probably have stayed. If it came with the FRI that DAAvn, in what can only be described as 'a senior moment', decided that we didn't need then it would have been a no-brainer.
But the fact that I wouldn't fly, wouldn't get the FRI and wouldn't go on to enhanced flying pay until - 18 months I think - much later than previously led to expect, the only option is the one I have taken.
And why didn't I transfer to the RAF? That's a different story that I'm not sure the light blue chaps who read this (if any) would appreciate to be aired and I'm feeling in far too good a mood to sully the thread with another polemic right now.
And as for my resignation letter - my CO didn't even have the courtesy to answer it and nor did Glasgow despite the fact it was absolutely positive about the Corps and what they were achieving in theatre and despite the fact that I was deployed on ops at the time of writing.
But I'll tell you this - the treatment I got from the person who runs retirements (and laughingly also manages LE officers careers - the poor b@stards) in the AAC office in Glasgow shames a once-great corps. After 17 years, no thanks (not that any was really expected) and no favours (despite the fact that I returned from ops only 4 months before my discharge date) and no recognition of a difficult, compressed situation was taken into account. When I remonstrated that the way I was being treated was a tad unfair, the reply, and I quote verbatim, was:
"That's your fault for going on operations!"
I replied "So it's a bad thing to volunteer for ops now, is it?" - for like a keen soldier, that's what I had done;
but answer there came none.
He then wrote me a letter stating that if I did not comply with the points in the letter by 8 weeks prior to the start of terminal leave, I would jeopardise the timely payment of my pension lump sum. No problemo, except the date worked out as....2 weeks before he wrote the letter! Needless to say, my pension is late....
So expect no favours is the moral. And expect not even a reply from some (pointedly, though, not all) your senior officers is the warning. I have to say at this point, that I have been humbled by the consideration shown by some very senior officers whom I respect immensely as a result, once again proving that it is individuals in the wrong place that can make your life difficult indeed.
On balance, I had a great career and will certainly not let the last 4 months of it detract from the preceding 16 and a half years, but a person who could have been retained wasn't and the natural inertia I had built up with regard to leaving was eroded well into reverse by the lack of recognition that not all of us wish to become Generals, and that when in a shortfall of pilots, some of them could be retained by keeping them flying.
But no. A perfect storm of desk job looming, significantly delayed pay, discriminatory FRI between the services and having the scales lifted from my eyes about the resettlement process has resulted in my current situation:
...which is retiring to fly beside one of the best surfing beaches in Europe, earning more money, and walking distance from a very nice pub - all of which will, I hope, allow me to put individuals' poor performance into perspective.