When I was a young Pilot Officer on my first tour at my first station in 1962 I was buttonholed by an Air Commodore from the Engineering Branch. He was appplauded by his chortling minions as he asked me what it was like to be in a dead end, soon to be be obsolete, job as a pilot.
"Don't you know," he said. grandly, "your'e all going to be replaced by missiles in a few years."
I've heard it all before.