Airborne_artist
You exactly make my point that without considering all the issues you can't decide if the PFI is good value for money.............. I had omitted the leadership and other training that is part of being an RAF officer, but on the other hand a sick monkey ( your words ) will do the job just fine 99% of the time.
The whole PFI debate will be littered with these questions of value for money and quality of personnel but the latter is very subjective, it is only the hard money issues that can be proved without doubt and it will take 25-30 years to prove this one way or the other.
However I personally have flown with at least three of the civilian guys that AT have recruited and all of them are very good pilots and have demonstrated officer qualities, if these guys are an example of the quality of the recruits then I think the RAF should have no worries over the AT recruitment policy.
My personal opinion is that PFI is a mistake and the military should run the tanker fleet as a totally military operation, I don't think PFI is a good idea largely because very few military officers understand the ways of sharp business practice and weasel word lawyers and can counter such people, this results in the contractor gaining the upper hand and telling the RAF what to do.......... I have seen this in another PFI contract.