No mate. What I meant was that it used to be quite common for aircrew to be in various ground posts - and when the need arose, they could be hoiked out and given some refresher flying before returning to flying duties.
The archetypal 'OC GD at Machrihanish' was always implied as a threatened 'bad boys' posting for aircrew - but I don't think it was ever for real. But sadly there actually were a few 'aircrew' quite happy to receive flying pay who actively sought successive ground tours.
I vaguely recall a 'QFI trawl' in the early 1980s when 2 of our sqn captains were dragged back to the UAS system to free up ex-FJ pilots who could be refreshed and posted elsewhere, allowing others to be sent to join the build up of the Tornado force. Or so the story which filtered down to us went. But the system had enough flex to cope.
Similarly, I was liberated from UAS QFI-ing for about 6 months for GW1, when I returned to operational flying - as also was my FSS Chipmunk QFI co-pilot, F3 simulator navigator and air engineer from Boscombe Down.
The paper to which I referred was an attempt to identify the number of aircrew still in non-flying appointments, the assumption being that there must be quite a few. The truth turned out to be rather different.
As for speed twelve, I have nothing but sympathy. Being stuck in EFTS training for 12 years and with no chance of escaping back to operational flying is something I wouldn't wish on anyone.
Ironically, a few weeks after returning from KKIA I was back at the UAS when some young lady rang up from Binnsworth asking me to sign some 'war appointment' notice for her records - the appointment being to fly the Bulldog around the southern UK as some sort of recce asset or similar. "You really expect me to do that if there's a war, do you?", I asked her. "Well, yes".... I then explained in simple words that there'd just been a war and I'd indeed been sent away from the UAS - but not to fly Bulldogs! But she sounded so nice that I agreed to sign her form anyway.
Regarding the future sustainability of the MFTS system with ex-front line QFIs, I asked that very question at an MFTS brief at people-formerly-known-as-GAPAN. The response was what Blackadder once described as 'Guppy fish at feeding time'....
