Ranger5, the 1957 Sandys savagery was long before even my time, but the effects of Wislon and Healeys' 'East of Suez' bolleaux were being felt when I was going through training - Mason's 1974 Defence Review accelerated the decline. From then on it was cut after cut after cut, although at one stage we actually had 3 TWUs at Brawdy, Chivenor and Lossiemouth churning out fast jet pilots.
Then we had Nott's nonsense in 1981 and 'Options for change' in 1990 - note that both of these were followed by wholly unexpected conflicts! The lessons weren't learned though, as we then had the complete bolleaux of the 1994 'Front Line First' garbage, furthering the decline. At the same time we had Bliar's underfunded 'I'm having a war, come as you are and please bring a bottle' war-ettes in Bosnia and Kosovo - then SDR in 1998 and the RAF's downward spiral increased yet further, but with a whole bunch of chiselling yes-men doing nothing to stop it. Coupled with ever increasing levels of niff-naff and trivia. My personal Minimum Abandonment Height was reached in 2002 and I pulled the B&Y without a moment's hesitation after 35 years.
Since then the overstretch, underfunding and mismanagement has become even worse. Even at the entry level, UASs have been utterly emasculated, EFT on rented plastic pigs and a few hours on rented King Airs means that TriStar co-pilots don't even have enough PIC time after a whole tour to qualify for a simple civil CPL.
Heaven knows how any recruiting officer can look a bright young hopeful in the face without feeling any guilt - for just what
is there to attract anyone these days?
When I joined, the manned strength of the RAF was 120337, with a further 83555 reservists. Since then, in the UK alone I've seen Abingdon, Acklington, Andover, Aston Down, Ballykelly, Bassingbourn, Bentwaters, Bicester, Biggin Hill, Binbrook, Bovingdon, Brawdy, Chivenor, Church Fenton, Coltishall, Cranwell North, Driffield, Elvington, Finningley, Fulbeck, Gaydon, Gravely, Greenham Common, Hamble, Honington, Hullavington, Kemble, Kinloss, Leconfield, Leuchars, Lindholme, Little Rissington, Lyneham, Machrihanish, Manby, Newton, North Luffenham, North Weald, Oakington, Ouston, Pershore, Scampton, Spitalgate, St Davids, St Mawgan, Stradishall, Strubby, Swinderby, Syerston, Tangmere, Ternhill, Thorney Island, Waterbeach, Wattisham, Watton, West Malling, West Raynham and White Waltham all close to military flying. Recruiting glossies in the late 1960s showed young Fg Offs barely out of their teens flying Lightnings in Tengah and Transport Command spanning the globe with a vast fleet of aircraft.
Watch this movie and you'll get some taste of why I, for one, wanted to join as soon as I was old enough:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=942_1257426117
"Want to fly a Lightning ?" - what would today's version be? "Want to waste the best 10 years of your life, then live in a tatty portakabin flying helicopters in some desert ****hole to fly very brave army guys to be shot at and blown up by medieval peasants?"
Anyway, good luck - you're going to need it!