Having just about managed to struggle through the Gnat course at Valley, I finally arrived at Brawdy on the Hunter course at a time when the RAF had stopped ME training, except for a few refreshers on the Beech Baron - the worthless Jetstreams having been grounded and put into mothballs.
One particularly tough day at Brawdy I'd just landed from a solo GH sortie in the wonderful Welsh weather. As I made a coffee, the Flt Cdr (a really nice chap) chuckled "Bet you found that hard!" as the sortie had included circuits in manual - not much fun when you can barely see through the windscreen in the rain. "Of course if anyone finds it too much for them here, they can always volunteer for helicopters", he continued...
2 of our number took him at his word, only to find that he hadn't actually been serious. But their attitude was deemed suspect and so they were off the station within a few days......
......to start as baby navigators at Finningley
!!
Most of the RAF's frontline FW are at least quite modern nowadays - Typhoon and the prospect of F-35B for FJ mates in particular, plus Atlas, C-17, Voyager, Sentinel for ME pilots. Although there are still the E-3D and RC-135, which aren't exactly youthful....
Should the UK ever need to expand the RAF back to a sensible size though, we'd be well and truly stuffed. Not enough aerodromes, not enough instructors and not enough training aircraft....
The nonsensical farce of MFTS simply couldn't cope.