Finals21Left
There are some pretty bleak views and I have to say that I agree with them all. Another thing you may or may not know is that just as in civvy street your terms of employment can be changed however, unlike civvy street you have absolutely no representation to help you fight your and your peers corner.
A couple of people have said, “give it a go, and if you don’t like it leave”. Well that could be the worst mistake of your life. Say you don’t like it during training, “Hey no-one enjoys the training, and it’s great when you get on a squadron”. You get to the Sqn and still don’t like it. You’re now 32 years old with very little chance of getting out before 34. This would probably more like 38 as the RAF will try and keep you for six years post operational conversion to amortise training costs.
What if you like it? Well I really don’t think I’ve met any aircrew that haven’t enjoyed their first tour. It’s normally around 1.5 tours that people start to see through the cracks in the system. But hey, the flying's fun, I’ll stick it out until my 22 year point, pull a handy pension and do something else with my life.
This is where you need to think long and hard. Coming in at 30 means you won’t be able to build a pension before you are (waits for flack from over 50’s) able to start afresh at something else. The pensions, I should add, are not what you would wish to live on. If you were an ALM the best you could achieve at the moment would be around 10K. So you kiss of the idea of the pension and just do 12 years. You’re 42 with a very specialised skill set, starting civvy life again from the bottom.
Sorry to be a pessimist but do think on. Anyway, good luck whichever way you go
M134