Shy torque and Beagle,
Obvously the word "shag" has different meanings to me and you. You seem to see it as some gash, junior bloke. I see shag as being a Flt Lt/FO junior officer who carries the burden of sqn duties. It is the "shag" QWIs who plan and lead the dets., it is the "shag" QFIs who put in all the hard work to get through AFIs and it is the "regular shags" who make the sqn run day to day. Yet somehow these guys aren't capable or fit to fly BBMF despite daily being trusted with millions of pounds of high tech kit. Shame on you for perpetuating elitist nonsense.
You will also notice that I suggested that candidates would need to go through a selection procedure. It should be obvious to all that a set up where it is all decided "in house" at Cgy is always going to be open to criticisms of nepotism. I don't suggest that the team should not have an input (indeed, quite properly the Reds do), but that overall control of selection should be taken out of their hands and entry thrown open to the masses.
I also wondered how long it would take the "oh you could only do it if stationed at Cgy for reasons of continuity etc". This doesn't stop the vast majority of warbird flyers in the uk who fly once or twice a week and have other "day jobs". It also doesn't seem to stop the occasional higher ranking officer from "keeping his hand in" (I seem to remember AVM Allison stuffing a 109-was he at CGY regularly and what was his currency like).
If you try to tell me that a sharp young front line mate, flying regularly could not do the job by say driving from Marham, flying in the PM, nightstopping and flying twice AM before rtb, then I'm sorry but I just couldn't agree.
As for your point Beagle about just strapping on a spit. Please re-read my post and you will see that I never sugested that. I suggested a 3 year appointment (involving a work up), if this is not enough - ok lets make it 5 years. 1 on a chippie, one on a Harvard, 2 on a hurri and finally on a spit.
To be honest I do not have the breakdown of the Spit and Hurri drivers for the last 10 years as spotting aint my thang so to prove that it's not a Cgy flying club could someone post all the names of guys who wern't F3 and Cgy based?
Editted for tooping