Beagle
I honestly did apply to be a nav! Several reasons:-
1. My mate at school,'Nav to Pilot' on this forum, was doing nav training and it sounded right up my street.
2. I'd just seen Dr Strangelove and thought the nav on the B52 was really cool and obviously in charge of the aeroplane.
3. But the real truth is my underconfidence in anything requiring bodily co-ordination. I couldn't even do a forward roll as a kid!
In 1973 when my second tour on Hercs was finishing and the posters wouldn't give me a shiny fleet posting,I thought about becoming a civilian pilot and went off to Staverton to do a PPL. Everything was OK in naving,planning a trip,R/T etc but I was crap at poling the thing! This was just after the Invicta Vanguard prang in Switzerland, where apparently the captain had taken 8 attempts to pass his IR. I decided even if I did improve that I could not inflict myself on the travelling public.
I became a civilian ATCO (just the sort of thing I had been trying to avoid in the mob) and enjoyed the job eventually with postings at LATCC (ugh!), Stornoway,Boscombe Down and finally LHR.
I did apply to go back in air force in '77, but it was just after the Comet,Brit,Belfast & Andover had been scrubbed and there was no chance of getting back on Hercs. Before I was committed to rejoining I found I was destined for Vs,because of my plotting ability(!!!).Needless to say, having been a Herc nav (incidentally the first postee from Nav School on to the the mighty beast), there was no way I was going to go in an aircraft I considered a death trap for rear crew!
So I stayed in the CAA and lived happily ever after.
Fincastle we are roughly the same age - I was on 88 nav course what was yours?