Sorry Pottermus, I was replying to W123. If its any consolation Potts, so long as you've done more than 12 years, you get the proportion of your pension FROM THE DAY YOU LEAVE. So the key thing is to hang onto year 12, which potentially means a pension from as young as thirty to the day you die. For a NCA Sgt this could mean aprox £5000 a year, ten years earlier than normal. No doubt someone somewhere is going through JPA looking for people to stiff before they can get to their 12 year point.
As for getting onto a new fleet, I think that ship may have sailed. All other fleets have no-where near as many NCA per crew as the Nimrod. Flying post are going to be few and far between for a while.