What CAS really thinks of FJ aircrew
I've always thought our senior leadership thought a little bit more of us.
How about this from a letter by CAS in early 2009 trying to justify why we need fast jet pilots in the RAF: "More than 50% of RAF pilots at SO1 and above are FJ pilots (indeed, exclusively at 3* and above at present). This is not by accident or 'tribal' design - the very intelecual and mental capacity attributes that help distinguish a FJ pilot, coupled with their direct experience of combat operations and the command and control of combat forces, drive these statistics."
Thanks CAS, using a Royal Marine catchphrse "99% of us need not apply" means that we're nothing but non-intellectual fodder then? I guess when all fast jets are gone we'll just have an RAF run by a 2* as we won't have anyone smart enough to make it further.
And as for direct experience of combat? Pathetic. How dare you suggest that tooling around 20,000 feet above the action in your air conditioned office is direct combat.
Have you even done that?
Maybe you should actually get out to where direct combat is taking place and talk with your RAF Regiment gunners who daily take actual fire and risk death or maiming from IEDs as they clear the known perimter for you to get airborne.
Maybe you should speak with your Merlin or Chinook crews who pick up soldiers and marines from the battlefield with various body parts missing.
Speak with the loadies who have to sweep out the blood and body parts from the back of the helicopter after the MERT has launched yet again.
Speak to your medics who see and deal with horrors of actual combat you will never, with your intellectual brain, have to deal with.
Speak with our ATC guys and girls or the MT drivers who waited in Basrah tower for the next volley of rockets to come over the wall.
Direct experience of combat my ar*e. Disgraceful and insulting.
TSRTOO