Ian16th
I was looking at a Piston Provost at RIAT this year and telling my friend it was used for training, when the chap next to me said he'd learnt to fly on them in 1954. He was on 2 years national service and hadn't had to extend. He moved on to the Vampire and when I asked him if he'd done any productive flying he said he hadn't. In his words the scheme was a sprat to catch a mackerel. When I asked how many of his cohort had stayed in after their 2 years he said very few, hence the scheme was stopped soon after. Against that, getting a year out of a radar fitter doesn't seem so bad?