Message received and understood, Danny. We all now seem to have come to a consensus that the thread should continue gathering testimony from all that have taken the shilling in UK Military Aviation, hopefully in a more or less time sequence (though 'more or less' be the pertinent point as ever).
The one thing that should remain unchanged, I would suggest, should be the thread title. It no longer restricts us to the obtaining of Pilot Brevets, nor of being recruited in the Second World War. It is but a starting point on a journey that hopefully will never end, but "boldly go where no man has gone before"!
So from Star Fleet Academy to the RAF College, and Danny's barb re effortless superiority. No doubt some graduated from there with that quality, but I would suggest that they probably arrived there with it in the first place. As in all the posts that have described joining the RAF and the RN (surely there must be some Army Aviators with a tale to tell?), the Services required Maximum Effort from Day 1. That is the theme that permeates this thread, and always will do. We all found that we were capable of doing what we had not dreamt of prior to joining. The thoroughness with which one had to bull a pair of boots or a barrack hut translated into the care that one took in servicing an engine or of operating it.
Your joke somehow underlines the common experience that unites us all, Danny, no matter when we joined. Maximum effort from the start or we have no use for you. That was the message, and it still is.